Biopellets vs. GFO

[HowieB]

Hi all, I've had my 120 gal setup now for almost 2 years. I have 2 MR1 reactors. One running GFO and a shorty running carbon. I've read a few posts and it seems alot of people are running Biopellets instead of GFO. Is there an advantage to Biopellets over GFO. Do they do the same thing or are they used for different purposes? Thanks for your help.

[Ostara]

I think a lot of people (myself included) run biopellets and GFO. Biopellets are great for eliminating nitrates and supporting heavy fish stocking and feeding levels, but don't remove much phosphate. That is the job of GFO. So if you run both, you're greatly reducing both NO3 and PO4.

[jaguarmonk]

I run both on my 75.

The purpose of the bio-pellets is to feed a bacteria colony that will out compete algae in your system. Both algae and bacteria compete for similar elements in the water. They consume Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Carbon (via CO2).


Bacteria reproduces much more quickly than algae can grow, so if you can provide a constant food source (Carbon via bio-pellets) you can quickly grow a large bacteria colony and out compete the algae population. But in order to ensure that the bacteria will always out compete the algae you need to take away the other food sources for the algae (Phosphate via GFO). The bacteria colony is already using the carbon source and the nitrogen (and some of the phosphate), but by taking away the phosphate (one of the main sources for the algae) you can keep it from growing.

Running bio-pellets by themselves might be enough, but its not going to lower you phosphate levels significantly since the bacteria has a constant source of carbon to provide nutrients and doesn't really need to the phosphate to survive.

Running both will ensure that you are getting rid of all of the nutrients that will feed algae. If you are only going to run only one I'd say go with GFO, but it's definitely worth the $40 (@BRS) for another reactor to run bio-pellets.

[Dr Colliebreath]

I am running both. I bot the Spectrapure Mr Dual reactor so I had the option to do both.