N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[tntneon]

that's some awesome tanks ,are those tanks only using the BP's or are they also using zeo products ?
thx for sharing those beautifull pics !
I still have good results with the pellets , but those colors i can't achive (yet ) in my nano .


greetingzz tntneon

[Petar]

Krzysztof my friend, very impressive , keep up a good work.

[lunar]

Thanks for your kind comments.

Unfortunately, most of them don't have their homepages.

For info about Krzysztof's tank (the last photo) go here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...php?t=1883121; you can find the details of Marcin's tank here: http://smithpl.blogspot.com/

Andrzej N. (the second photo) can read posts on RC but he can't write anything although he is registered, he's contacting with RC admin and let's hope he will sort this problem out.
And as for other tanks, I'll try to write everything what I know. None of them uses ozone.
Piotr Z. (the fifth picture) uses Leds and T5, Rafał O. (the eighth pic) HQI + T5, the others only T5.

Krzysztof

[biecacka]

so i have a 220 and am tinkering w the idea of pellets. how much do i need and what size reactor/pump should i look into?
corey

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by biecacka

so i have a 220 and am tinkering w the idea of pellets. how much do i need and what size reactor/pump should i look into?
corey

-For your tank i would recommend to intialy use 500ml (low dose), it is also important to tell us how much No3/po4 your tank measures
High NO3 can trigger algea blooms then it safer to start with less amout of pellets then subcribed

You can always slowy up it if you don't see any results.

IMO the best reactor is an open type one who's fed directly from the overflows of your tank (or partialy if the intire flow is too much).

Try to locate your reactor output as close as possible to your skimmer intake .
Use a good skimmer(this is very important) , and clean cup and neck off skimmer regulary , weekly if possible.
If you can't skim the exesive bacteria off , they will die in the watercolom and no nutrients are exported !!

greetingzz tntneon

[IEreef]

This is exactly the thread i've been looking for! I've been researching biopellets for the past couple weeks and I think this would benefit my system. I have a 75g with a reef octopus 110 and I want to run them in a spare TLF 150 reactor. Npx states 100ml per 25g and I want to start out slow and reduce the chances of a bloom. How many ml should I start out with?

Sent from Tapatalk Pro

[TheFishMan65]

I started with 150 (generic brand) on my 75. And have slowly increased it to 450 with no adverse affects.

[Rhodes19]

Well, I must say this has been and interesting thread. I started off reading it looking for validation that I was going to make a good decision and go with the bio pellets but after reading about so many folks having problems I'm thinking about not getting the pellets. Has any one had an opportunity to talk with the developers or manufacturers about the issues folks are having and what their take is on it? I like the idea but I don't want to loose my corals or increase my nuisance algae.

[biecacka]

i like the idea of feeding the reactor from the drain pipe but not sure if i can do that in my setup. i would likely use a MJ or something right next to the drain output

[gregr]

I started out with 250ml of Vertex pellets in the medium sized Octopus reactor three weeks ago. The're's about 160g total water volume in the system. Acros and lps look great and have excellent polyp extension and seem to be growing well even though the phosphate level was at 0.11 when I tested it last week. Basically what I want out of this stuff is to not have to use GFO anymore. I do not like GFO.
My questions are-- when should I add more pellets, how much more should I add, and should I add some bacteria?
Thanks!

[allsps40]

I have been dosing MB7 and vodka. Thinking about going to pellets and MB7. Thoughts??

[Tony Romano]

Originally Posted by allsps40

I have been dosing MB7 and vodka. Thinking about going to pellets and MB7. Thoughts??

Works great -- less cyno.

Also I just changed my reactor output to go directly to skimmer. It is unreal the gunk I am getting!

[Tony Romano]

Originally Posted by gregr

I started out with 250ml of Vertex pellets in the medium sized Octopus reactor three weeks ago. The're's about 160g total water volume in the system. Acros and lps look great and have excellent polyp extension and seem to be growing well even though the phosphate level was at 0.11 when I tested it last week. Basically what I want out of this stuff is to not have to use GFO anymore. I do not like GFO.
My questions are-- when should I add more pellets, how much more should I add, and should I add some bacteria?
Thanks!

You may have to run some GFO to keep system in balance, my experience is PO4 goes up more than NO3. I also do not like GFO and use a Lanthanum product from pool store, added to returns or skimmer. I am still attempting to get consistant results, hard for me with too many fish, sps and Sun corals!

[NaturalReef]

I added a Bio-pellet reactor with Two little fishie's Npx biopellets and am thrilled so far with the results. I had some nitrates and phosphates that prevented my sps from extending their polyps and coloring up. After adding the reactor with 25% of the biopellets my nitrates and phosphates are undetectable.

Polyp extensions on my corals are the best I have seen and my Sps acro frag is coloring up at a fast rate. I'm also able to feed heavily to keep the corals nourished without any algae build-up. The glass needs to be cleaned maybe once a week instead of every 3 days and it is only a very light dusting. The problems I have read about are people with high nitrates and starting with too many biopellets which causes a rapid deficiency of nutrients and shocks the corals. I have been keeping the water changes and started with 25 percent of the pellets and am shocked at how well these work. just my 2 cents..

[gary faulkner]

Originally Posted by NaturalReef

I added a Bio-pellet reactor with Two little fishie's Npx biopellets and am thrilled so far with the results. I had some nitrates and phosphates that prevented my sps from extending their polyps and coloring up. After adding the reactor with 25% of the biopellets my nitrates and phosphates are undetectable.

Polyp extensions on my corals are the best I have seen and my Sps acro frag is coloring up at a fast rate. I'm also able to feed heavily to keep the corals nourished without any algae build-up. The glass needs to be cleaned maybe once a week instead of every 3 days and it is only a very light dusting. The problems I have read about are people with high nitrates and starting with too many biopellets which causes a rapid deficiency of nutrients and shocks the corals. I have been keeping the water changes and started with 25 percent of the pellets and am shocked at how well these work. just my 2 cents..

Good to hear another success story!

[NaturalReef]

Thanks Gary...Not sure if I can post this link from another site, but if it works here is an acro frag that was always browned out from high nutrients in my tank. The Zooan flourished from the nutrients as you can see from the top half of the coral. The bottom half is coloring up rapidly to a intense blue and the top part near all the tips is already starting to change as well. This is after a month of using the Biopellets. Also the Acro frag never had good polyp extension..now they are all out...

[Rhodes19]

My reactor and pellets just came in and I'll get it set up over the weekend.

[Paradiddle7]

I just started reading this thread, but it's got over 3000 posts!

Is there a sticky or another post that outlines how to get started with pellets, how to avoid issues people have etc...?

[bertoni]

Do we have a volunteer to draft a sticky?

[Scej12]

I can draft a starting point once I get a couple of hours in front of my computer to gather all of the thoughts bouncing around based on my findings... not sure how to turn it into a sticky though so you might have to take the reigns from there.... If interested I can try to have something ready for mid week.

SJ

[Paradiddle7]

That would be so awesome. The moderators will make it a sticky.

I'm guessing that the outline or bullet points should be:

1. Background & Theory (even though it's apparent that nobody is 100% sure, at least we can cover the theories).

2. About the Pellets - What are the theories behind different brands and different shapes.

3. About the reactors - What are the theories and successes or failures of different styles of reactors. Are people retro-fitting reactors or buying 100% purposed pellet reactors. Discussion about clumping and stirring should occur here.

4. How to get started. Theory on how much to use, how to setup the reactor + flow and where to put the effluent etc... How long to let it run without touching it etc...

5. How and when to add more pellets, adjust the reactor and flow, and when and how to measure your nitrates etc...

Did I miss anything?

Originally Posted by Scej12

I can draft a starting point once I get a couple of hours in front of my computer to gather all of the thoughts bouncing around based on my findings... not sure how to turn it into a sticky though so you might have to take the reigns from there.... If interested I can try to have something ready for mid week.

SJ

[gregr]

Thanks Tony- appreciate the feedback. I added another 250ml so there's 500ml and it's been a month since I started it up. Nothing too significant to report- algae isn't doing much though the skimmer output has increased. Still running gfo.

[Scej12]

Background & Theory:

The system of nitrate and phosphate reducing bio pellets represents the latest evolution of carbon dosing and is therefore sometimes referred to as solid-form carbon dosing. Aquariums employing carbon dosing have also been referred to as bacteria-driven systems, in that they rely on bacteria (bacterio-plankton) to reduce the inevitable end products of the nitrogen cycle and other metabolically produced nutrients... nitrates and phosphates!

Carbon dosing is based on the following:
• All living things (perhaps excepting that bacteria recently found growing in arsenic) require four foundational nutrients in order to survive and thrive... to build their DNA structures. These nutrients are Oxygen (O); Phosphorus (P); Nitrogen (N); and Carbon (C);

• These nutrients are utilized in fixed ratios specific to the subject life-form; for example, it has been referenced in this thread (by TMZ; Post No. 3066) that phytoplankton utilizes 106C:16N:1P; Oxygen was not referenced, but I would assume that it is utilized in a greater proportion than Carbon;

• So in effect, what carbon dosing does is supply the C... and as would be expected from any properly functioning biological filtration system, bacteria will develop based on the availability of other required nutrients, namely N, taken from Nitrate (NO3); and P, taken from Phosphate (PO4). These along with Oxygen are available within your water column;

• As bacteria assimilate all of these nutrients required for their growth, from the aquarium; formerly inaccessible nutrients (namely nitrates/phosphates) now become accessible as both skimmers, and activated carbon are very good at pulling organic compounds from the water column;

In the end, the function of a bacterial-driven filtration system can be summarized in this way: The aquarist provides an organic food source (ethanol; vinegar; sugar; and now bio-pellets); bacteria use nitrate; phosphate; and oxygen available in the water column to complete their basic requirements for growth; nitrates and phosphates are suddenly bound into an organic form that protein skimmers (and activated carbon) can grab a hold of; finally the protein skimmer pulls out copious amounts of bacterial mass which has captured N & P, thereby reducing nitrate levels and phosphate levels in the aquarium bulk water. The above is the basic principle for all forms of carbon dosing, not just biopellet filtration systems.

Liquid form carbon dosing involves supplying the carbon food source to the entire water column. As a result, organic carbon is available to the entire system - display tank and filters. The perceived drawback of which is that bacteria and other life forms are encouraged to develop throughout the aquarium system, and many believe liquid form carbon dosing can pose a higher risk of unsightly cyanobacteria, and other such blooms taking hold within their display.

In theory, the introduction of bio pellets (i.e. solid-form carbon dosing) adds increased control to the prior art of liquid/supplement based carbon dosing by confining the Carbon food source to an isolated area of the aquarium system, as opposed to distributing it throughout the entire water column.


Quick Reference:

• Biopellets are actually biodegradable polymers – PLASTICS. The more common types of plastics are PHA – Polyhydroxyalkanoates and PCL – Polycaprolactone, however different manufacturers/suppliers are introducing their own biodegradable plastic formulas;

• Most recent brands of biopellets are comprised of a smaller unit size. This like most other bio-dependent strategies is based on the understanding that the smaller the media in a given space, the larger the surface area available for bacteria;

• Biopellets are best employed in fluidized reactors. Most media reactors can be retrofitted; however the success of the pellet system is reliant on evenly fluidized movement. If there are dead-spots in a reactor, or flow biased areas, the pellets will inevitably clump together in the areas of insufficient flow. Once the pellets begin to clump/stick to each other with bio-film, they will either float on-mass to the top of the reactor (clogging the outlet), or begin to smell unpleasant (anaerobically derived H2S).

• Rather than having to keep an eye out for clumping; and consequently shaking up the media every few days, it is best to find a well fluidizing reactor. To this end, there are a number of new reactor designs reaching the market which employ conical bases; and more importantly, function without the use of sponges, which have been found to trap bacterial mulm rather than allowing it out of the reactor for removal (skimming) from the system water;

• Flow of water through a biopellet reactor is a balance between maximizing media contact time, while eliminating the risk of clumping due to insufficient flow... i.e. if the reactor fluidizes beautifully, you can run just enough system water through to allow the pellets to fluidize evenly and thoroughly; if the reactor flow is uneven, your focus should be to ensure the weakest flow areas don’t clump.

• Most distributors will recommend an ideal volume of pellets per total aquarium volume; however it has been found that one should always start slowly (approx. ½ the recommended volume), especially when introducing the pellet system to an old or established tank. Over the course of a few weeks to a month, the amount of pellets can be gradually increased to the recommended running volume;

• Because the pellets are a food source, and as such, will be consumed over time, one should expect to replace a quantity of digested pellets every few months or so depending on the rate of consumption;

• The effluent from the pellet reactor should be directed as close to the skimmer intake as possible, but is best routed directly into the skimmer intake [100%]. This allows the skimmer first access to pulling out nitrate and phosphate laden bacteria before it gets a chance to circulate throughout the greater aquarium system. Inevitably, some of the bacteria will make it through the skimmer, and in theory, should become a bacterio-plankton food source for corals and other micro-fauna; and

• .... it is normal course for the aquarium to become cloudy with a bacterial bloom upon initialization of the biopellet system. The bloom should run its course within a few days of operation. It has been reported that in those systems which do not employ a skimmer, the blooms will continue to reoccur.


Caveats:

Some cautionary notes are offered, but not limited, to the following:

• Dropping nitrates and phosphates too abruptly will adversely affect corals, hence the strong recommendation to start with ½ the distributor recommended quantity;

• The larger the bacteria population the greater the reductive effect on pH. Should you require a large volume of pellets, you must also have very strong oxygenation strategies in place: i.e. over-sized protein skimmer; rapid water movement; use of ozone in an under-sized skimmer; etc;

• Keeping in mind that the four nutrients most heavily involved in this type of bio-filtration are Carbon; Nitrogen; Phosphorus; and OXYGEN, consideration of the last should be part and parcel of the implementation of this strategy. Otherwise, one will experience difficulty maintaining pH above 7.8 - 7.9 when large quantities of pellets are employed; which will have a detrimental effect on sps and lps corals, as they will have trouble gaining and retaining calcium required for their growth; and

• The function of the entire system is limited by the availability of any of the required nutrients. That is: if there is no P – the reduction of N is stalled; if there is no N – the reduction of P is stalled; and if there is no C the reduction of both N and P will cease. As a result of this knowledge, as well as the normal course of phosphates being continually introduced with feeding and related activities, it is highly recommended that one continue to employ GFO or other phosphate reduction strategies even after nitrates successfully settle at 0ppm.

The above represents a high level summary of some of the thoughts and discussions surrounding the use of this relatively new bio-filtration strategy. The list is by no means complete as hobbyists continue to discover new refinements to the best usage practices advertised and established for the employment of bio-pellets. But if I were to give a short guideline for using this system, here it is:


1. Get a good fluidizing reactor;

2. Start with ½ the volume of pellets and ramp up over the course of the first month;

3. Route the pellet effluent through a good strong skimmer;

4. Super-saturate your system with oxygen in order to avoid the reductive effects of respirating micro-fauna;

5. Monitor the health of your livestock very closely throughout the implementation of any new husbandry practice!!

[TheFishMan65]

Hey great summary, can I add it to my list (see signature) if it does not make it as a sticky. The only catch is that you would need to update the link if you update the summary.

[tmz]

Nice summarySECJ12. Thankyou

A few points:

Bacterio plankton are in the water column. I think surface, ie benthic bacteria play a large role ,certainly with the pellets and ,imo, with other methods as well. Surface area matters.

The bacteria likely consume some N from the nitrate but they also and perhaps more significantly use the oxygen in anaerobic digestion ,leaving N which bonds with N forming N2 nitrogen gas which just bubbles out to the air.

I don't think there is more control with the pellets. Perhaps less le than in direct dosing of ethanol or acetic acid, etc. since you can directly control the amount dosed daily or in smaller increments throughout the day via dosing pump.
You can also choose the carbon source ,where with the pellets you are staring with carbohydrates which involve more steps and bacterial strains in breaking down than say acetic acid where the acetate is useful to corals.

Whether or not polymers, monomers or other breakdown products get to the water column when using the pellets is debateable and the bacterial blooms tend to suggest they do.

I would not characterize bacterial blooms as normal. Slow start up preceded by reducing nitrate to relatively low levels before starting should minimize them.