Taking biopellet reactor offline

[ctsps]

Hi,i have been fighting the idea of taking my reactor off my tank.I have been dosing both phos and nitrate to keep.02 phos and .02 nitrate while feeding heavy twice a day,i only have 400ml of pellets for 270 gals of water with about 12 fish. Pretty sure my tank will handle bioload but would like a backup plan,can i leave reactor running in a bucket of tank water and dose to keep pellets active,thx

 

[CodyRVA]

Why don't you just slowly remove the volume of pellets you have now, monitor your PO4 and NO3 and dose accordingly. If you get down to barely any pellets in your reactor, then just take it offline and a slow gradual change over time is always better than an abrupt one. Also, save you from worrying about keeping the pellets running offline.

 

[ctsps]

I barely have any pellets in it now,main concern would be nitrate going up with no way to readuce it.lots of sps colonies that i dont want to lose,thx for your imput appreciate it

 

[CodyRVA]

I barely have any pellets in it now,main concern would be nitrate going up with no way to readuce it.lots of sps colonies that i dont want to lose,thx for your imput appreciate it

Do you know exactly how much? If you barely have any running then i doubt it's making that much of an impact. Maybe cut your NO3, PO4 dosing back a bit if you do, monitor them daily and adjust accordingly.

 

[ctsps]

I have been testing daily and have levels locked in,i guess its just the fear of taking them offline,realistically im dosing to fill the needs of the reactor

 

[CodyRVA]

I have been testing daily and have levels locked in,i guess its just the fear of taking them offline,realistically im dosing to fill the needs of the reactor

Gotcha, yea I would cut your dosing back in relation to how many pellets you actually have running and take the reactor offline. You could let it sit in a bucket of saltwater for a bit and dose there to keep them active while you monitor the changes on the tank.

 

[recess62]

Gotcha, yea I would cut your dosing back in relation to how many pellets you actually have running and take the reactor offline. You could let it sit in a bucket of saltwater for a bit and dose there to keep them active while you monitor the changes on the tank.[/QUOTE

If you keep the biopellets in a bucket won't they exhaust the nutrients and die? Would he need to add N/P to the bucket to keep the critters happy?

 

[recess62]

If you keep the biopellets in a bucket won't they die? Would he need to supplement with N/P to keep the critters happy?

 

[CodyRVA]

If you keep the biopellets in a bucket won't they die? Would he need to supplement with N/P to keep the critters happy?

Yep, that's what i meant by dose, sorry for not clarifying.

Cut back on dosing NO3, PO4 in the display to accommodate for removing the carbon source, but introduce dosing to wherever you're holding the reactor while you monitor the change to the display tank.

 

[recess62]

That makes sense. Just trying to learn

 

[ctsps]

This is everything i was going to do,just wanted a second opinion if it made sense,keeping biopellet reactor in a bucket while dosing to keep it active is my safety net

 

[LostInTheDark]

I removed mine after running it for a couple of years. It was too efficient. I slowly removed pellets over a long period and the tank still maintains o nitrates and .04 phos.