Adding beneficial bacteria with biopellet reactor good or bad?

[Nicole Sarnowski]

Should I be dosing beneficial bacteria to help get my bio reactor going? I have never dosed with any beneficial bacteria since starting my tank about a year ago. So is this something I should have been and should be doing every 15 days?

 

[redfishbluefish]

Feed them and they will come.

Biopellets is a food source for bacteria. No need to "spike" your tank. They will find and populate the biopellets on their own. What's important is to have the exit of the reactor very close to your skimmer intake so that the slough offed bacteria get picked up by your skimmer.

 

[Nicole Sarnowski]

So what you are saying is that I will just have to be patient and wait. My nitrates are really high even though I was doing weekly 20% water changes and then I was dosing my tank with the nitrate reducer you can buy on the market but nothing was bringing my nitrates down. I started reading and learned about the reactors so I bought one from bsr...it’s been running for a week now and I have the outflow next to my skimmers. Oh and another question: can I hook the outflow from my reactor directly into the reef octopus 110 IN skimmer? I get my new skimmer on Tuesday. Thanks for your help in advance

 

[redfishbluefish]

I'm not sure what you mean by "directly.". However, a number of folks use a pvc tee on their skimmer intake where the biopellet reactor is connected to that tee.

 

[Nicole Sarnowski]

I will try that when my new skimmer arrives. Thank you for your help appreciate it