What I take from everything that was said in this thread is that phasing out the pellets while phasing in the reactor would be ideal, while watching your nitrates and phosphates closely. For me, I dont have the space in my sump to do so, so I will be removing the biopellets completely (as I only have half a cup left) and implementing the algae reactor in it's place. I have also been running pellets for over a year now so I'm a little skeptical about this major change. I'm just going to increase the frequency of water changes until I can see my tank starting to stabilize, while testing my nitrates and phosphates more frequently. One thing to watch out for is a rise in alk if you are dosing, that is something I did notice when I tried decommissioning my pellets the first time.
Switching from biopellets to chaeto
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Breakthecycle2
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I am running a calcium reactor.
It may be the same situation for you, I'd watch you alk and cal levels during this process. You may have to slow down your calcium reactor to prevent any swings until your consumption picks back up. This is just something that I've experienced, probably the corals being unhappy from the change and their growth slowing down. Things will pick back up once your system stabilizes.
Breakthecycle2
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Im a little confused. Why could there be ALK swings from taking pellets offline and adding an algae reactor?
So what happened with me the first time I slowed down my biopellets was that my nitrates and phosphates shot up, which I was not testing for until it was too late. I'm thinking that this massive change in my system p***ed off my corals and so they're daily consumption of alk and cal had slowed down. During this time I was still dosing the same amount although they're consumption wasn't demanding as much, therefore the alk and cal builds up over the time span of several days to a week.
For example: Lets say I have a stable alk of 8 dkh and my corals are consuming 0.5 dkh per day. The increase in nutrients slows down they're growth/consumption and drops they're daily consumption down to maybe 0.2 dkh per day. I'm still dosing 0.5 dkh per day, therefore everyday my alk is rising 0.3 dkh everyday. In a matter of a week, my alk is now 2.1 dkh higher than normal at around 10.1. This is just an example of what happened in my system that caused some of my more sensitive acros to bleach out.
Breakthecycle2
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Ahh, I understand now. Thanks for that.
No problem, this is just my experiences and your mileage may vary so the best thing to do is test frequently to understand whats going on in your system. That way you can address any problems before its too late like I did.
I will be making the switch in about a week so I'll try to keep this thread updated with my experiences. Feel free to post yours as well!
Good luck and happy reefing!
Scott.h
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My feelings is that it's going to take a good bit of macro to lower from your natural level of 30 or 40 that your tank would be running if you didn't have the reactor. Personally I'm not a fan of reactors, and all 3 of my systems have fuges - no bio pellets, so I'm quite familiar with their capabilities. I'm just not sure you have the room in a 20 gal sump to lower it to under 5. But then again I don't know the other factors that come into play. (Flow, livestock, feeding habits, and husbandtry.. so I may be wrong) If the fuge/macro was capable it might take a few months to get going strong. But I think you could carbon dose as needed to make the transition just fine. It would just take more effort to keep in touch with the numbers.
mcarroll
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N and P test results go together light fish and chips!
What's your P test like – zero by any chance?Are you using GFO or similar?
Not weird. Trust your corals...verify with test results.
Breakthecycle2
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N and P test results go together light fish and chips!
Are you using GFO or similar?
Not weird. Trust your corals...verify with test results.
No, Po4 is .08. I run ROWA in a reactor.
mcarroll
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With stagnant NO3 and a pellet reactor, I have to ask how confident you are in that PO4 number/what are you using to test?
It's possible your system is iron limited and that's why denitrification seemed to be stalled – the enzyme(s) that make nitrification and denitrification work are apparently dependent on iron – but that shouldn't be too likely if you feed and do water changes.
If your PO4 test kit's error range is big enough to make "0.08 ppm" out to be near-zero, then P-deficiency is where I'd point my finger. "+/- 0.05 ppm" is all it would take in a high-growth tank to make that effectively a zero reading for PO4.
Do you know the error rate, or can you tell us what test you are running for PO4?
Breakthecycle2
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I am using a red sea kit. That actually makes sense. I was having some issues with soft "green corals. The green tends to fade and get dark. I started dosing iron, about 10 mls every few days, but that could also be contributed to my lighting. I am running 3 Radion G3's, but the lighting schedule I was using was way too low. I have since increased it and at least for zoas it seems to be helping.
Breakthecycle2
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Also, I have no algae at all.
mcarroll
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I don't see the error rate published anywhere....they mention in their FAQ that it could be 5% for freshwater tests, but that doens't help us a whole lot.
Based on the no algae thing and stagnant, way-high N thing (in spite of bio-pellets), I'd presume you're too low on P.
Start dosing P up to ≥0.10 ppm, but keep testing NO3 and make sure you don't drive it below 5-10 ppm in the process.....the more P you add, the more active the reactor will become, so watch carefully! I'd still be decommissioning the reactor by removing the pellets little by little while the dosing is going on.
The tank should be fine at these nutrient levels going forward....if you choose to take them lower, do it slowly. Better than going lower is to let algae grow and keep a healthy crew of grazers on top of it......just long enough to grow a bomb crop of corals that will displace it.
A refugium or ATS has certainly proven useful, but I still don't know if I'd say necessary.....but if you wanted more than just alga+grazers, then one of these would be the way I'd go....whatever seems to be the least work for you. (Algae + grazers has to be the absolute least work since you're not involved except at the planning and feeding stages – but use whatever works!)
Based on the no algae thing and stagnant, way-high N thing (in spite of bio-pellets), I'd presume you're too low on P.
Start dosing P up to ≥0.10 ppm, but keep testing NO3 and make sure you don't drive it below 5-10 ppm in the process.....the more P you add, the more active the reactor will become, so watch carefully! I'd still be decommissioning the reactor by removing the pellets little by little while the dosing is going on.
The tank should be fine at these nutrient levels going forward....if you choose to take them lower, do it slowly. Better than going lower is to let algae grow and keep a healthy crew of grazers on top of it......just long enough to grow a bomb crop of corals that will displace it.
A refugium or ATS has certainly proven useful, but I still don't know if I'd say necessary.....but if you wanted more than just alga+grazers, then one of these would be the way I'd go....whatever seems to be the least work for you. (Algae + grazers has to be the absolute least work since you're not involved except at the planning and feeding stages – but use whatever works!)
Breakthecycle2
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I don't see the error rate published anywhere....they mention in their FAQ that it could be 5% for freshwater tests, but that doens't help us a whole lot.
Based on the no algae thing and stagnant, way-high N thing (in spite of bio-pellets), I'd presume you're too low on P.
Start dosing P up to ≥0.10 ppm, but keep testing NO3 and make sure you don't drive it below 5-10 ppm in the process.....the more P you add, the more active the reactor will become, so watch carefully! I'd still be decommissioning the reactor by removing the pellets little by little while the dosing is going on.
The tank should be fine at these nutrient levels going forward....if you choose to take them lower, do it slowly. Better than going lower is to let algae grow and keep a healthy crew of grazers on top of it......just long enough to grow a bomb crop of corals that will displace it.
A refugium or ATS has certainly proven useful, but I still don't know if I'd say necessary.....but if you wanted more than just alga+grazers, then one of these would be the way I'd go....whatever seems to be the least work for you. (Algae + grazers has to be the absolute least work since you're not involved except at the planning and feeding stages – but use whatever works!)
How do you dose phosphates?
mcarroll
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Just by hand in most cases. Use a product for plants like Brightwell NeoPhos or Seachem's Flourish Phosphate. (Or similar....these are pure potassium phosphate products.)
Just wanted to report back that with all of your guys help, I was able to make the transition from biopellets to chaeto pretty much flawless. As you can see in the graph, I began phasing out the biopellets in July. On August 8th I took the biopellets offline completely and put the chaeto reactor online. I increased my water changes from biweekly to weekly in case my nutrients began to build up but looks like the chaeto went right to work and now my nitrates are below 10!
I used the 4 red: 1 blue led strips everyone has been using from Amazon along with a dimmer that I've also found on Amazon. This allowed me to go with a longer led strip and turn the brightness down. This also allowed me to deal with the heat that the leds give off if they're running at 100% but since I'm running mine at about 25%, they seem to give off no heat at all. I think this solves the issue of reactors cracking from the heat leds give off. I also noticed that running the leds at 100% would bleach the chaeto and cause it to become brittle. Since turning the brightness down, it seems to be growing quite fast!
Here are some photos of what my chaeto reactor looks like. I used a bashsea 4-12 reactor for they're high quality products. I used a 2' led strip off Amazon along with a plug in dimmer also found on amazon. I wrapped the reactor in electrical tape and cut out little "viewing holes" to allow me to see how the chaeto is doing and if I need to pull some out.
I'd like to thank everyone who has pitched in their ideas and experiences, I didn't lose any corals and my tank made it through the transition well. Appreciate your guys help!
I used the 4 red: 1 blue led strips everyone has been using from Amazon along with a dimmer that I've also found on Amazon. This allowed me to go with a longer led strip and turn the brightness down. This also allowed me to deal with the heat that the leds give off if they're running at 100% but since I'm running mine at about 25%, they seem to give off no heat at all. I think this solves the issue of reactors cracking from the heat leds give off. I also noticed that running the leds at 100% would bleach the chaeto and cause it to become brittle. Since turning the brightness down, it seems to be growing quite fast!
Here are some photos of what my chaeto reactor looks like. I used a bashsea 4-12 reactor for they're high quality products. I used a 2' led strip off Amazon along with a plug in dimmer also found on amazon. I wrapped the reactor in electrical tape and cut out little "viewing holes" to allow me to see how the chaeto is doing and if I need to pull some out.
I'd like to thank everyone who has pitched in their ideas and experiences, I didn't lose any corals and my tank made it through the transition well. Appreciate your guys help!
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Breakthecycle2
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Im at a loss. Not only doesn't my Cheato grow, but my nitrates are high...with no fish in my tank.
mcarroll
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Regardless of this, I hope the heat issue has been solved. Just a technicality....or curiosity...
The laws of thermodynamics dictate that the heat generated by the light in your reactor corresponds exactly with the amount of power being consumed, not the format of the light or really anything else.
So all else being equal, if there's less heat being generated, there are less watts....less watts means less light.
