Maybe Everyone Doesn't Need Biopellets

[ataller]

I have been reefing for a while now, and ever since the beginning controlling nutrients has been the driving factor behind many decisions I have made for my reefs. Some might say I have been obsessed.

When I think back to the tanks I have had in the past decade, some of the best coloration I had was in my first 20 gallon long, with no sump and a small HOB skimmer and refuge. It was packed to the brim with LR, with no room for great flow, or easy maintenance. There must have been lots of available nutrients, I don't know, I didn't test for nitrate and phosphate back then, and if I did, I wouldn't remember.

The last two tanks I have had, have struggled to get that deep rich healthy SPS colour. My water parameters are perfect. pH, salinity, Ca, Alk, Mag, PO4, and nitrate, all ideal. I have noticed that the ORP probe on my apex has always read low, in the mid 250s, which can be normal, but is far from the ideal 350-400, I just chalked it up to a weird normal.

I only have the low range hanna phosphate, not the ultra low range, and I have ever only measured 0.00 with it. So phosphate has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I know I do not have a lot, but I don't have a way to monitor subtle changes, I have plans to invest in an Ultra-LowRange when I can. I have never been able to grow macros though, so there can't be much in there.

I used to use GFO, because everyone else does. I have a decent skimmer, and a basement sump setup. I also run bio-pellets, on one of my past tanks I dosed vodka which worked well, but the bio-pellets are so much easier to run, which is why I made the switch.


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Back to the original reef I had; I started to think that my drab SPS colours might be because I am starving them. I have started to feed my fish more food, via a timed fish feeder, so the nutrients going into my system is consistent. I figured if the nutrient out is always the same, I should try and regulate the nutrient in for stability and consistency.

I have also been slowly removing "anti-nutrient" components from my system. I stopped running GFO and only run carbon. I saw no difference, no increase in nuisance algae, no detectable phosphates. I then set my skimmer to start to skim really dry, I figured if I have low nutrients maybe that will help. What I noticed when I set the skimmer to skim very dry, my ORP started to creep up. I also noticed no increase in phosphates on my Hanna, still 0.00. So last night I took out half of the bio-pellets in my reactor and I will run that for a while and observe what happens.

Already over night my ORP is up another 15 points, I am at 318 as I type this. This is the highest ORP I have had since setting the tank up a couple years ago, a significant increase from 230-250. I ran bio-pellets from the beginning, maybe that was a mistake.

I do not know if it is a good or a bad thing that the ORP is getting higher. It is too soon to see if I will get richer colours on my SPS, I think if that is going to happen it will take time.

I am going to continue to monitor my phosphates, as long as they remain 0.00 on the Hanna, I will continue to not run GFO, and take more and more bio-pellets out of the reactor until I am just using my skimmer and water changes for nutrient control.

I think that bio-pellets are great to fix a problem (high nutrients), but one should be cautious to use them if one does not need them.


Does anyone else have any experience with this? Any idea why the biopellets / skimmer have been keeping my ORP so low? Is this a bad thing?

I will watch my tank and update this thread if I observe any changes.

Thank you,

Adam

Here is a screenshot of my ORP over the last week.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3686/10154320143_9c7dc6277b_c.jpg

[gbru316]

I've been struggling to control nutrients for the past year, but I think I'm finally getting to the "if it ain't broke..." mentality.

Coloration is good, growth is good, I'm happy with the look of the tank, even though NO3 is 20-25+ ppm.

[FlyPenFly]

I think Nitrates 25 and under are no big deal. Po4 though is supposed be the killer that inhibits growth.

However, there is an example of an absolutely thriving SPS tank that has out of control Po4 (tests verified by lab) but has extremely good growth and colors in a multitude of SPS.

I think every tank is different in bacteria ratios and several other make up factors, it's hard to say and your best indicator of health is really just growth rates and coloration.

[tmz]

I think nitrates at 25ppm are a problem for some corals seriatorpora for example.

There are many systems that run very well without any organic carbon dosing, pellets or otherwise.

It is my experience that corals like some nitrogen and PO4 in the water I've dosed vodka and vinegar for over 5 yearas in moderate amounts an have kept NO3 around 0.2ppm and PO4 in th 0.2 to 0.5ppm range. Growth and color for sps ,lps and others are good. This system has a lot fish and is fed heavily.

ORP is complicated. The extra organics from the pellets and bacterial activity could reduce it. Higher nitrate will increase it. It's not necessarily a good thing or bad thing within certain ranges.

This article has much more on ORP:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-12/rhf/feature/index.htm

[ataller]

Right, that is what I am thinking, they need some nitrate and po4, and I have none.

[FlyPenFly]

Wow po4 .2 to .5 seems pretty high. I thought "best accepted" practice was for SPS tanks, you want that between .03 and .1.

[jda]

In the early days of vodka/vinegar/sugar dosing, nearly everybody said NOT to do this unless you were just trying to solve a quick problem. Then, it became so easy and so commercial that people started to use them a few months into a tank instead of waiting for the sandbed/rock bacteria to establish to handle the nitrates and phosphates naturally. The use basically kept the back end of the Nitrogen cycle from completing. I personally don't think that there is any need to use BPs or any carbon source in most suitably stocked reef tanks... unless you are just looking to solve a VERY specific problem and you REALLY know what you are doing.

I have never run a carbon source on my SPS tanks and I have never had a N or P issue and the colors and growth are as good as I have seen anywhere. I did dose sugar in the olden days on my FO with good success to keep the N and P low enough that coralline would grow and make the take look nice.

[ataller]

That is likely the root of my story....

I had a tank that needed some sort of carbon dosing (vodka). It worked. I was impressed, and then just continued the practice blindly on my future tanks even though my planning/execution/equipment had improved so that I did not need to.

[bertoni]

I suspect that the bio-pellets reduce ORP by converting mineralized nutrients into skimmable organic byproducts. That's how they're supposed to work, and I think that it's reasonable to expect that skimmers are going to lag a bit in terms of removal of those byproducts. So I'm not surprised that the ORP went up. I think that the ORP level probably doesn't matter to the animals, in this case.

The Hanna ULR checker is only a bit more precise than the Phosphate Checker, so I wouldn't buy both. Unfortunately, we don't have practical ways to measure the lower levels of nutrients our tanks can reach.

I think Tom meant 0.02 to 0.05 ppm, unless he's changed his approach.

[jda]

OP - I might suggest that you take this approach: Chemistry-wise, there are no new problems in 2013 that were not present in 2000. Take a look at how people solved this problem 10+ years ago, understand the root of the solution and then figure out of the newer solution is better/worse/different than the older one. Most of the time, the older solutions are just fine and sometimes the new ones are just easier to commercialize.

[tmz]

Oops; I did mean .02ppm to.05ppm; not .2 to .5. Thanks Jonathan.

It was .03ppm this morning, .04ppm yesterday morning and .02ppm two days ago. All subject to the limits of a colorimeter in terms of accuracy.

[tmz]

In the early days of vodka/vinegar/sugar dosing, nearly everybody said NOT to do this unless you were just trying to solve a quick problem. Then, it became so easy and so commercial that people started to use them a few months into a tank instead of waiting for the sandbed/rock bacteria to establish to handle the nitrates and phosphates naturally. The use basically kept the back end of the Nitrogen cycle from completing. I personally don't think that there is any need to use BPs or any carbon source in most suitably stocked reef tanks... unless you are just looking to solve a VERY specific problem and you REALLY know what you are doing.

I have never run a carbon source on my SPS tanks and I have never had a N or P issue and the colors and growth are as good as I have seen anywhere. I did dose sugar in the olden days on my FO with good success to keep the N and P low enough that coralline would grow and make the take look nice.


First of all I agree organic carbon dosing is not a must for a successful tank; it may not even be desirable for some. It has also become somewhat trendy which is a concern. It can do harm if not well managed.
I don't see how it would suppress anaerobic dentirification as those bacteria need organic carbon. It will change the biology of the tank and the extra carbon does add more energy from the carbon bonds in organic materials.Personally. I haven't and wouldn't use it on a new tank(say less than a year old) but that's just me; otehr's do.

I don't think , however , that it should only be used when solving a particular problem such as high nitrates.That may be a very bad time to start without reducing the nitrates first. Many experienced difficulty in dropping nitrates for months and months when it first gained in popularity. Many in those situations experienced oxygen depleting bacterial blooms and/or snotty bacterial mass in their tanks.

I ran a reef system without out it for years. First tried some vinegar about 9 years ago to see what it would do after reading about it in The Reef Aqaurium Vol 3,Sprung and Delbeek.
I dosed some vinegar for about 3 months and stopped for about 2 years, since I thought I didn't really know enough about it and didn't observe much change with the small amounts I was dosing. I studied up before going back to it for the last 5 years .
As the tank and sand bed aged( 7year old dsb) nitrates and phosphate became a problem; after trying a large chaeto refugium, remote dsb ,gfo and a few other things , I ultimately went with a diy sulfur denitrator to knock down the nitrates It took them from a 50ppm to 80ppm range to near zero within a few weeks but began producing hydrogen sulfide when NO3 was low even though I upped the flow and reduced the amount of sulfur .

Choices for me at this point were , reduce feeding and livestock; didn't want to; run a larger chaeto operation; too much light and space or try something else for nitrate control.

Then I started vodka dosing and several months later a mix of vodka and vinegar . Sugar when I used it caused problems for several corals even in very small amounts.
This dosing at moderate levels of vodka an vinegar with good skimming has had nice benefits. it keeps nitrates and PO4 low despite heavy feeding. Nuisance algae is almost non exitant,and cyano is rarely seen even in small patches . It provides bacteria in the water column which feeds the food web and many organisms seem to enjoy it that way particulary zonathids, cerianthus, sponges an a few non photosynthetics as well as sps. corals.it's been good to my aquariums for over 5 years.

Folks considering it may find this thread of interest when choosing whether or not to use it and what method suits a personal preference:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2134105&highlight=organic+carbon+dosing