biopellet question

[Feltman]

I have been running gfo for about a year now at 20 tbs every 2 weeks in my 90 gallon mixed reef. My nitrates have been slowly rising while phosphate is almost 0. I was thinking of ditching the chateo and gfo and going to biopellets. My question is about how much do u think I'd use and how often do you change it out. Trying to give myself a little idea on the cost xcomparison between gfo and biopellets plus maybe moving from a 15 g water change every 2 weeks to 20 every month with the biopellets

 

[sawdonkey]

Biopellets are not a direct replacement for gfo. They will reduce phosphates, but maybe not enough. They are very effective at reducing nitrates, and sometimes too much so. I run biopellets to deal with nitrates and GFO to deal with phosphates. I've been doing this for over a year. I use brs biopellets and use about 1/3 of the recommended amount. I've heard stories of using too much and crashing a tank. I have about 260 gallons of water and use about 200 ml of pellets. Just by eyeballing it, I'd say it's about two cups. My nitrates are always pegged at zero or one and I sometimes go six weeks between water changes. I like biopellets, but read up and proceed with caution. Also, they take weeks before they actually become effective.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I agree you may still need some GFO, but it is certainly a reasonable thing to try.

Figuring the cost effectiveness, isn't likely to be very accurate without knowing how much GFO you end up needing.

 

[Feltman]

Ment I change the gfo out every 4 weeks not every 2. Thanks for the info maybe I'll just half the gfo and try a small dous of pellets at first but I'm still having trouble on finding a decent estimate on how long the pellets last. Brs lists 2 cups or about 480 mls worth for the size tank I'm running maybe start with 100mls to start with? Or would u go less? It is 90gl with a 30 gl sump

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How high is nitrate now?

 

[Feltman]

It has been around 20 ppm with a red sea pro test kit

 

[ws6kid]

The trick with bio pellets is that they lower both nitrate and phosphate at the same time. When one of the 2 gets to 0, it slows up considerably on removing the other. This is why Zeovit is successful. The bacteria in the zeovit system is fed to keep both nitrates and phosphates consumed. So when the biopellets form the bacteria to consume nitrates and it gets to 0 before the phosphates, you will need to supplement the pellets with a phosphate remover. You can also feed more, creating more nitrates for the biopellets to consume.

Someone correct me if I am wrong

 

[redfishbluefish]

Biopellets do not work like any of the exchange resins/gfo stuff we use. They are, in fact, bacteria food. Accordingly, they get consumed by the bacteria. The bacteria then gets sloughed off the pellets and is "exported" out of your tank by your skimmer. So the ideal setup of a biopellet reactor is having the exit port of the reactor right next to the pickup of your skimmer. Again, you don't change out pellets, you just need to add occasionally to the reactor as they are being consumed.


Biopellets will only continue to function if you have both nitrates and phosphates. If one or the other is missing, the bacteria will not flurish. The ideal proportion is somewhere in the area of the Redfield ratio. So if you have, as example, excess phosphates, you might wish to also run GFO. Again, if you strip too much phosphate, the bacteria will not grow

 

[Feltman]

One last question when looking at biopellet reactors I see 3 different types a biochurn with a mechanical arm a just flow through canister (seems lIke people have problems keeping pellets moving long term) and a recirculation type. What have you found to work best?

 

[UK_Pete]

The other option is liquid feeding whether vodka, vinegar, sugar etc. With a dosing pump you can dial a more exact amount in and increase or decrease depending on your observations. Dosing pump is an expense but so is a pellet reactor, running costs of vinegar is pretty low. No clumping of the pellets too which is a plus, probably less to go wrong (unless you mess up the dosing pump timer!).

 

[eagle]

Recirculation. If not, you don't have as much control on how much water is running through the reactor. I use the reef dynamics reactor.

 

[sawdonkey]

I've just been using a modded cheap Two Little Fishies 150 for a year and a half. It works fine. As for how long the pellets last, I've used about 750 ml over 1.5 years on my 220.

Regardless of what the packaging says, I'd start with about 50-75 ml and go to 100 ml eventually. Let it run like this for about two months and reevaluate. You can always add more, but I think you'll see that this amount is sufficient.

 

[Feltman]

With recirculation style can u control the effect of the biopellets through drip rates like Calc reactors or is it still controllable through the amount of media?

 

[eagle]

With recirculating you can control how fast pellets tumble and the amount of water running through the reactor. You can vary the amount of media as well. I just run the recommended amount for my tank. Started out running 50 gph through the reactor. When nitrates dropped to 0 I slowed the rate down to 30 gph to maintain. I prefer this method.

 

[eagle]

Jeff with reef dynamics has youtube videos showing how the reactor works.

 

[Feltman]

Looking at the prices of recirculation biopellet reactors they are fairly expensive and the second hand market is non existent however there are plenty of Calc reactors on craiglist if u were to cap off the co2 in line and the probe hole what othe real differences are there between a Calc reactor and a recirculation biopellet reactor

 

[Feltman]

When looking at pump sizes for the 2 on comparable size reef octupus models they use a larger pump on there Calc reactors then there biopellets so I feel like tumbling wouldn't be an issue is there some other difference?

 

[Feltman]

Or should I take this question to the diy thread?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Or should I take this question to the diy thread?

The thread is fine here discussing how to run it, amount of pellets, etc., but if you want more input on the making of a device, that's a good place to start a new thread.

IMO, it is hard to know how much material you'll need before you try it and see, but starting at a lower dose and working your way up if needed is better than overdosing it.

Unfortunately, the difficulty in changing dosing with pellets is one reason I prefer soluble organic dosing (vinegar).

 

[Feltman]

Thanks for the information