Life Biofil

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KJoFan

KJoFan

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A few questions about Biofil:

How much would be recommended for a 180g total water volume system along with 3L of Siporax?

Is it pointless to employ it passively, should I only consider using it in a reactor?

How long does it take to take effect if used passively?
 
As per recommendation its 1000 ml for 100G approx. But as you have the siporax I will suggest adding 5oo ml to start with in your system.
You can use it passively in a high flow area of your sump. I use it in that way in my sump return chamber. It will start working immediately as it is already seeded with bacteria.
 
The more the better... but you can use as recommended
The bacteria are already settle in the media so its work immediately.
It's good to place lifebiofil in the high flow.AF 150 Media reactor is ideal like in video
 
Ok, I was aware of the recommendation, just wasn't sure if I should still follow that given the siporax or not. The siporax is new so not seeded or useful in the least as yet. :)

I know I've also read you really can't have too much, so I was just kind of looking for a starting point and can add/adjust from there.

I added a bit to my frag tank 25g, in the media rack but as yet have noticed no change at least that my test kit can detect as far as nitrate reduction.

As for the AF reactors, any recommendation on pumps to use with each size? They don't come with a pump as far as I can tell?
 
KJoFan said:
Ok, I was aware of the recommendation, just wasn't sure if I should still follow that given the siporax or not. The siporax is new so not seeded or useful in the least as yet. :)

I know I've also read you really can't have too much, so I was just kind of looking for a starting point and can add/adjust from there.

I added a bit to my frag tank 25g, in the media rack but as yet have noticed no change at least that my test kit can detect as far as nitrate reduction.

As for the AF reactors, any recommendation on pumps to use with each size? They don't come with a pump as far as I can tell?
Click to expand...
500 (AF 90) -1000 (AF110-150) l/h pump will be ok.
 
Ok, so a month later, after adding basically the entire 5000l of Life Biofil to my 150 (180ish total) gallon system along with the 3L of Siporax, my nitrates have come down from 25 to 10 or less. I haven't tested PO4 but I suspect it's low as my sps are pale/paling and I'm seeing a few spots of some light cyano. So I think I'm driving nutrients a tad too low possibly.

My goal is actually to transition either completely away from bacterial nutrient control to a refugium. Right now I have a basket of the Biofil and a basket of the Siporax in the sump and have gone mostly from daily dosing of 6 drops NP Pro and 6 drops Pro BioS to every other day dosing of those amounts.

I installed my fuge light last night and have a ton of chaeto in the sump now. But...I'm a little scared of the transition. Do I pull both medias and turn on the fuge light or how do I go about this successfully?
 
KJoFan said:
Ok, so a month later, after adding basically the entire 5000l of Life Biofil to my 150 (180ish total) gallon system along with the 3L of Siporax, my nitrates have come down from 25 to 10 or less. I haven't tested PO4 but I suspect it's low as my sps are pale/paling and I'm seeing a few spots of some light cyano. So I think I'm driving nutrients a tad too low possibly.

My goal is actually to transition either completely away from bacterial nutrient control to a refugium. Right now I have a basket of the Biofil and a basket of the Siporax in the sump and have gone mostly from daily dosing of 6 drops NP Pro and 6 drops Pro BioS to every other day dosing of those amounts.

I installed my fuge light last night and have a ton of chaeto in the sump now. But...I'm a little scared of the transition. Do I pull both medias and turn on the fuge light or how do I go about this successfully?
Click to expand...
Lol....you are driving too fast. Slow down...I mean slow down a lot.
Now my experience says when you put chaeto and let it compete with probiotics the bacteria always comes out as a winner. Bacteria can survive under low nutrien but your chaeto will slowly die off. So, if you put refugium then you have to slowly withdraw the probiotics from your system. But that has to be really slow like in 2-3 months and with very strict check on the nutrient levels.
 
Anirban said:
Lol....you are driving too fast. Slow down...I mean slow down a lot.
Now my experience says when you put chaeto and let it compete with probiotics the bacteria always comes out as a winner. Bacteria can survive under low nutrien but your chaeto will slowly die off. So, if you put refugium then you have to slowly withdraw the probiotics from your system. But that has to be really slow like in 2-3 months and with very strict check on the nutrient levels.
Click to expand...
Ok, well, first the fuge is non functioning at this point. The light is hung but that's about it. The chaeto is there, but unlit, only because a fellow reefer gave me some. I don't count it as having any appreciable impact at this point.
But, regardless, what you said is exactly what I'm getting at. I don't want to implement a fuge AND probiotics for nutrient control. I want to ween off the probiotics and transition to the chaeto fuge. So, to go about that do I just start by reducing the drops of NP Pro and Pro BioS but leaving the media in place? And, I need to light the chaeto at least a little bit so it doesn't all die, but how long should I run the fuge light each night?

In an ideal world I could just switch off one method and switch on the other and not skip a beat. Oh, if only it were so easy! :)
 
KJoFan said:
Ok, well, first the fuge is non functioning at this point. The light is hung but that's about it. The chaeto is there, but unlit, only because a fellow reefer gave me some. I don't count it as having any appreciable impact at this point.
But, regardless, what you said is exactly what I'm getting at. I don't want to implement a fuge AND probiotics for nutrient control. I want to ween off the probiotics and transition to the chaeto fuge. So, to go about that do I just start by reducing the drops of NP Pro and Pro BioS but leaving the media in place? And, I need to light the chaeto at least a little bit so it doesn't all die, but how long should I run the fuge light each night?

In an ideal world I could just switch off one method and switch on the other and not skip a beat. Oh, if only it were so easy! :)
Click to expand...
You can light the chaeto for 1-2 hrs a day for starting and stop dosing the probiotics. Also you can increase the feeding. Once your chaeto start growing you can slowly get rid of the media.
 
Anirban said:
You can light the chaeto for 1-2 hrs a day for starting and stop dosing the probiotics. Also you can increase the feeding. Once your chaeto start growing you can slowly get rid of the media.
Click to expand...
Ok, I will do that. I wasn't sure if the probiotics should just stop all together or stop first, or media pulled or which order to try to go in. I hope this doesn't turn into a disaster. :confused:
 
KJoFan said:
Ok, I will do that. I wasn't sure if the probiotics should just stop all together or stop first, or media pulled or which order to try to go in. I hope this doesn't turn into a disaster. :confused:
Click to expand...
Do it super slow...your tank is already low in nutrient so need to up the nutrient and make a balance with chaeto nutrient consumption.
 
I need a higher bioload overall, I think might help. I've only got two clownfish in a 150g so far, that get fed only a few times per week.
 
Tested PO4 tonight, it's essentially 0. Test resulted in 1 ppb. Is there any AF product to assist with bringing that up or do I need to look into something else, like Neophos?
 
KJoFan said:
Tested PO4 tonight, it's essentially 0. Test resulted in 1 ppb. Is there any AF product to assist with bringing that up or do I need to look into something else, like Neophos?
Click to expand...
Feed more...
 
Yes, I am setting up my autofeeder to feed pellets 2x per day vs the few times per week fish get fed currently. I'll also try to do a frozen feeding a few times per week. But, two fish can only be fed so much. :)
 
So far, I have ceased NP-Pro and Pro BioS as of Friday. Sometimes I was only dosing it every other day anyway. And have the fuge light on for 3 hours per night. Though, I'm not sure it's actually lighting, so I've moved up the on time so I can check it's actually coming on before I go to bed.

I am not pulling any media yet, and am feeding heavier. I haven't done any testing yet, as changes have only just happened. But, red and green cyano are continuing to appear on the sand, so I assume we're still in an ULNS unbalanced situation.
 
A week on with no dosing of NP-Pro or Pro BioS. Still maintaining the 5000mL of Life Biofil and 3L of Siporax both passively employed. Autofeeder feeding pellets 3x per day and feeding frozen a couple times/week. Fuge light is on 3 hrs per night.

Tested nutrients yesterday:
NO3 - 2.5 (down from 10 at last test 10 days ago) - Salifert
PO4 - .006 (staying at 0 to barely detectable) - Hanna ULR

SPS appear to be starving and I'm not sure what to do to help that. Also increasing cyano on the sandbed. LPS and zoas seem fine. I suspect cyano to be caused by the low nutrient condition but can't be 100% sure.

Where do I go from here?
 
Are you dosing any aminos? Do you have a good clean up crew in the aquarium? Nutrient levels seem good, I would maybe feed frozen more often, LRS, or Rods Reef good choices. Not a fan of pellets myself, they tend to sink, and if gone uneaten, can cause problems. How is your skimmer performing, do you have it set to dry skim? Finally, I would remove fuge, not needed in this type setup, as your biological media and bacteria are means of transport via skimming. Cheers :)
 
Perry said:
Are you dosing any aminos? Do you have a good clean up crew in the aquarium? Nutrient levels seem good, I would maybe feed frozen more often, LRS, or Rods Reef good choices. Not a fan of pellets myself, they tend to sink, and if gone uneaten, can cause problems. How is your skimmer performing, do you have it set to dry skim? Finally, I would remove fuge, not needed in this type setup, as your biological media and bacteria are means of transport via skimming. Cheers :)
Click to expand...
I have some AF Vitality that I've been trying to dose every other day. I'm planning to go ABEV but several of those are out of stock currently, so all I've got is Vitality. I might have some other amino supps around I can try out.

I went with pellets because when you're away from your tank most of the day...how else to provide regular feedings? But, I try to do some frozen in the evening when I can.

Skimmer is doing well, it's set dry. I haven't emptied the cup in a couple weeks, but will probably need to soon. It's very dark stinky skimmate. Skimmer is Lifereef 24" on a 150g.

My plan is to remove biological filtration to a large degree and transition to the fuge. But, I don't want to just yank all biological filtration, so I'm trying for a slow transition. I realize full AF is driven by the biological filtration but I want the benefit of the micro/macro fauna a fuge can support better, ie. pod population.
 
KJoFan said:
I have some AF Vitality that I've been trying to dose every other day. I'm planning to go ABEV but several of those are out of stock currently, so all I've got is Vitality. I might have some other amino supps around I can try out.

I went with pellets because when you're away from your tank most of the day...how else to provide regular feedings? But, I try to do some frozen in the evening when I can.

Skimmer is doing well, it's set dry. I haven't emptied the cup in a couple weeks, but will probably need to soon. It's very dark stinky skimmate. Skimmer is Lifereef 24" on a 150g.

My plan is to remove biological filtration to a large degree and transition to the fuge. But, I don't want to just yank all biological filtration, so I'm trying for a slow transition. I realize full AF is driven by the biological filtration but I want the benefit of the micro/macro fauna a fuge can support better, ie. pod population.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, I see no harm in this gradual transition. So I would go ahead and stay the course and discontinue use of Probiotics, then use skimmer and algae to control nutrients. You could still dose ABEV. You may also want to dose iron to help nudge the growth of chaeto. Cheers
 

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