Taking bio pellets offline

rajkovich207 · Mar 10, 2013

So I've decided that I want to take off my bp reactor and am wondering if I need to slowly take out the pellets like you have to do when adding them, or if I can take them off all at once.

Supurderek · Mar 10, 2013

Slowly.

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mike007 · Mar 10, 2013

I would remove slowly so as to acclimate your tank.

rajkovich207 · Mar 10, 2013

Awesome thanks for the replies!!! And welcome to the family Derek!!!!!!!!!!

.AcroKiller. · Mar 11, 2013

Why you removing them

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rajkovich207 · Mar 11, 2013

Maintenance on the DIY reactor got tiresome trates stil averaged 15ppm and my alk crept up so my corals are suffering. Figured I would take them offline for a while and see what happens and see if my cyano clears up any

Dtech07 · Mar 11, 2013

I read up after a fellow reefer went to a Sulfur DeNitrator after he stopped using a Bio-Pellet reactor. I had a extra Ca Reactor around and set it up as a Sulfur reactor with great success for the past 3 weeks and his has been up for a a month or two. Just another possible too to use so i had to throw it out there. Oh and the Cyno, Hair, bubble outbreaks also the cleaning or the glass greatly reduced compared to Bio-Pellets.

.AcroKiller. · Mar 11, 2013

rajkovich207 said:
Maintenance on the DIY reactor got tiresome trates stil averaged 15ppm and my alk crept up so my corals are suffering. Figured I would take them offline for a while and see what happens and see if my cyano clears up any

What type of pellets are you using.

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rajkovich207 · Mar 11, 2013

It's only 32 gallons with displacement so I figured I would see if the fuge can hold things down, and I'm using the two little fishies npx bio pellets

fragmatic · Mar 11, 2013

I took mine off line too. I also thought they were more PIA than they were worth. Plus, as I went into the heavy feed camp, it wasn't necessary. In the heavy feed discipline you build up bacteria with food volume instead of dosing carbons. Caution.. you can't just start heavy feeding, it too takes a slow incremental increase.

rajkovich207 · Mar 11, 2013

Not to mention there's only 3 fish in there so I can't even feed that heavy lol

rajkovich207 · Mar 11, 2013

Alright another quick question, I have aprox 130 ml bp in the reactor, can I do 1/2 this week and the last half next week, or is that to fast, should I do like 1/4 a week?

larangcon · Mar 11, 2013

Dtech07 said:
I read up after a fellow reefer went to a Sulfur DeNitrator after he stopped using a Bio-Pellet reactor. I had a extra Ca Reactor around and set it up as a Sulfur reactor with great success for the past 3 weeks and his has been up for a a month or two. Just another possible too to use so i had to throw it out there. Oh and the Cyno, Hair, bubble outbreaks also the cleaning or the glass greatly reduced compared to Bio-Pellets.

this is interesting; what is a Sulfur Denitrator, I have a calcium reactor that I am not using also. I might also get rid of my BP reactor.

Chrisz · Mar 12, 2013

I am confused, I thought phosphates and nitrate are what bio pellets where suppose to reduce and isn't that what algae consumes? Thus no phosphate an nitrate= no algae. I hope I did not jump on a gimmick band wagon by starting up a bio pellet reactor.

Did you have the out put of your reactor pointed in to your skimmer?

I would also like to here more about this Sulfur Denitrator.

fragmatic · Mar 12, 2013

rajkovich207 said:
Not to mention there's only 3 fish in there so I can't even feed that heavy lol

I do not "feed my fish". I feed my tank. What is VERY interesting is my algae problem solved when I started feeding in the heavy feed discipline. What happened is my refugium (the one I have under the stand with lots of lights at night) got deep in algae and my display lost the algae problem. So in effect my refugium became an algae scrubber refugium. I'm feeding the algae in my refugium by heavy feeding my display tank. The guys that are heavy into up draft algae scrubbers don't even change water and many do not run a skimmer. I did my last WC on Sunday and it was 6 weeks since I had done one. The unexpected kicker is my tank was not all that happy with the WC. I harvest algae, I dose trace elements, part 1 & 2, Koral Color, and Kent's Iodine solution. It is possible I may stop changing my water, I never expected to say that. I have scheduled a water change in 8 weeks and made a note in my log to make a decision at that point. I fired my bio-pellet reactor, am not running my GFO nor my carbon reactors. I am currently running my skimmer but am thinking about testing to see if my refugium will take over that task as well. My old skimmer would not start if I shut it down. My new one does start every time, so I may do some short testing and increase the off times. .. times change and I'm learning new tricks... I think..