The Bio Pellet Plunge

[Giancarlo]

So after reading the thread "Vodka VS BioPellet Reactor", i have become very interested in setting up bio pellets for my system. My tank itself is not fully stocked, though it is primarily sps, along with a few zoa colonies and a couple lps and clams. The growth seems fairly steady once the corals are established in the system. But the colours seem to lose most of their "pop" so to speak. I mean they don't brown out, but not nearly as vibrate as when I first get them. So my main goal is to achieve the colours that I see in some of these beautiful tanks here on R2R.
A Little about my current display:
About 11 months old, all live rock and coral was transferred from my previous tank. It is a 90 gallon display, fairly shallow tank, (14 inches in height), running a 250 M/H along with some LED. Filtration consists of a Bubble King 180 protein skimmer, along with a phosban reactor, cheato and a remote deep sandbed about 7 – 8 inches deep.
I think in my case the Deep Sand Bed has become more of a problem than anything else. If implementing the bio pellets, do people still run their phosban reactors and cheato? I am also considering taking out the Deep Sand Bed. If I do take out the phosban reactor can I use that same reactor for the biopellets? It’s one of those 2 little fishies reactors.

 

[scooterc268]

I glanced through the thread. Yes, a TFL reactor works great for biopellets.

2nd I had cheato and another macro and it died after running pellets for a while.

I've seen on Mr. Saltwater TV where he ran pellets and GFO. I don't run GFO but I run ROX 0.8.

As far as a DSB goes, I did away with it to and just have a 2"-3"sand bed

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using Tapatalk 2

 

[M&M]

I run biopellets on my tank for about two years now.The TLF reactor is not really meant for biopellets ,since it design does not produce enough flow for pellets to tumble.I used to run mine in TLF 550 with MJ 1200,but with time my pellets stop tumbling completely. You don't want this to happen ,since it might create anaerobic zone producing sulfur that is poison for your tank. I use octopus biopellet reactor and I am very happy with it.I still run small amount of GFO and carbon,since in my case biopellets take care more of nitrates than phosphates.I don't use any sand in my tank or remote sandbed at all. Make sure you set your output from biopellet reactor just in front of your skimmer input.It will pull a lot of dislodged bacteria from pellets and export them out of your system.Good skimming is a must with any carbon dosing.Start with less than recommended dose and slowly increase the amount of pellets,always monitoring your nutrients with good tests.A lot of times people start with full dose and water get stripped of nutrients so fast it causes coral bleaching and tank crash.Than they say biopellets don't work or are dangerous to use. Keep your water parameters close to natural salt water,especially ALK. If its too high it may cause tip burns in your SPS corals.I keep mine around 7 dKH. Good luck.

 

[Jon Warner]

So after reading the thread "Vodka VS BioPellet Reactor", i have become very interested in setting up bio pellets for my system. My tank itself is not fully stocked, though it is primarily sps, along with a few zoa colonies and a couple lps and clams. The growth seems fairly steady once the corals are established in the system. But the colours seem to lose most of their "pop" so to speak. I mean they don't brown out, but not nearly as vibrate as when I first get them. So my main goal is to achieve the colours that I see in some of these beautiful tanks here on R2R.
A Little about my current display:
About 11 months old, all live rock and coral was transferred from my previous tank. It is a 90 gallon display, fairly shallow tank, (14 inches in height), running a 250 M/H along with some LED. Filtration consists of a Bubble King 180 protein skimmer, along with a phosban reactor, cheato and a remote deep sandbed about 7 – 8 inches deep.
I think in my case the Deep Sand Bed has become more of a problem than anything else. If implementing the bio pellets, do people still run their phosban reactors and cheato? I am also considering taking out the Deep Sand Bed. If I do take out the phosban reactor can I use that same reactor for the biopellets? It’s one of those 2 little fishies reactors.

(Disclaimer: JW is the owner of Warner Marine, manufacturer and author of patent application for ecoBAK.)

There's no longer a debate... solid bio-polymer pellets are the way to go. Referring to ecoBAK specifically, ecoBAK effectively lowers Nitrate and Phosphate to nearly undetectable levels. Your SPS colors will come back and you can start feeding normally again. Keep the TLF reactor for GAC or GFO usage and go with a dedicated Pellet reactor for the ecoBAK. The SRO reactor is popular and the maxi-jet 900-1200 or the smaller Sicce 0.5 and 1.0 match perfectly.

M&M hit the start-up tips in his post. Take it slow and don't run excessive flow or excessive tumble. That's about it...

 

[Giancarlo]

Thanks guys! Any suggestions as to how I should remove the deep sand bed? I am assuming as everything do it slowly, but I can't really see how I could do that?

 

[M&M]

Thanks guys! Any suggestions as to how I should remove the deep sand bed? I am assuming as everything do it slowly, but I can't really see how I could do that?

I would remove quarter of sand every week slowly until its all gone. Don't take out all at once.

 

[cryptics]

I have a related question. If I mainly keep z&p's and chalices with a clam, are bio pellets going to make my water too clean? Does anyone run this on a non-sps tank

 

[Jon Warner]

I have a related question. If I mainly keep z&p's and chalices with a clam, are bio pellets going to make my water too clean? Does anyone run this on a non-sps tank

This goes back to the whole "feed the tank" thing. If you starve a really clean system, no coral will be happy. So FEED your tank! Your corals AND fish will be happy.

 

[cryptics]

This goes back to the whole "feed the tank" thing. If you starve a really clean system, no coral will be happy. So FEED your tank! Your corals AND fish will be happy.

I feed the corals 2-3 times a week with a mixture of fauna Marin zoo and reef roids. I add fauna Marin small pellets for the scolly's and dendros

 

[Jon Warner]

I feed the corals 2-3 times a week with a mixture of fauna Marin zoo and reef roids. I add fauna Marin small pellets for the scolly's and dendros

excellent...

 

[Giancarlo]

I would remove quarter of sand every week slowly until its all gone. Don't take out all at once.

If i were to do that, wouldn't it release everything that it has been absorbing throughout the year? the lower layers of the sand are literally black...