Understanding biopellets

[Volpone]

That why i wanna use it , cause i read one comment and u said u r using it ,
Greeting from dubai Randy , also u r famous here with my reefer friend

 

[redfishbluefish]

My guess is that your phosphate level in the tank is too low. Running pellets and cheato (or other algae) competes for the available nitrates and phosphates. I think the algae is beating the pellets (actually the bacteria) to the phosphates, so the pellets are losing out.


Here's a full explanation of biopellets...or for that fact, any of the other carbon sources (vodka, vinegar, sugar, etc) that some are using. Think of biopellets simply as bacteria food (again, just like vodka, vinegar, etc.) The bacteria begin to consume this food and then grow and divide. In the process they need nitrates and phosphates to build their new prodogy...to build new cell sturcture....things like DNA, amino acids, proteins, etc. They utilize these nitrates and phosphate at a particular ratio, (somewhere in the area of what is termed the Redfield ratio.....about 16 parts N to one part P), (And yes, I know this ratio can be debated, but it is in the ballpark.) Now here's the problem. If one of the "building blocks" is absent, the bacteria can't continue to grow and divide, so they stop or slow down their cell division. Therefore, assuming you have limited phosphate and loads of nitrate, the biopellets would not work because the bacteria don't have want they need to grow and divide. Changing to vinegar or vodka or some other "food" will not change anything if the problem is too low phosphate.


Now with biopellets, assuming your baceria is having a party and growing and dividing like crazy, the turbulance in the reactor knocks them off the pellets and they get washed out of the reactor and into your skimmer, and are now exported from your tank (along with those nasty nitrates and phosphates that they utilized while they grew and divided.)


Hope this helps.

 

[Volpone]

Thx red fish , but i add the cheato recently before 10 days ago , i had biopellets running before when i try ecobak plus for 4 months with no sufficient effect , it was biopellets reacot2 only with nothing else ,and i dose flourish phosphorus from seachem to raise up my po4 .

 

[Volpone]

I have zero phosphate all the time , so if we said that i have over feeding or detritus at least my phosphate will jump out also .
Really its so bothering that i cant figure out what cause nitrate ,
I have ajoke with my friend the only thing i didnt change till now is the glass and it leaching nitrate
Every time they ask me if my rock is alive ??? I think they should have life after 1 year running , so also im thing to seed my old rock with new live rock to get more chances for new bacteria and beneficial thing .

 

[redfishbluefish]

Two thoughts......your rock could be leaching nitrates or your water source contains excess nitrates.

 

[Volpone]

I replace all the rock before year ago , it was running in sps dominated tank and was doing well in that tank , i do test for my fresh salt mix and it has zero nitrate im using ro /di
And what i know that rock doesnt leach nitrate only phosphate

 

[galaxia]

Hi personally I wouldn't use bio filters as the process of changing ammonia to nitrates is only aerobic causing the final piece of the nitrogen cycle not to be carried out if it was live rock there would be aerobic and anaerobic bacteria present causing the nitrites to turn to nitrogen and leave through the water surface

 

[Volpone]

Hi personally I wouldn't use bio filters as the process of changing ammonia to nitrates is only aerobic causing the final piece of the nitrogen cycle not to be carried out if it was live rock there would be aerobic and anaerobic bacteria present causing the nitrites to turn to nitrogen and leave through the water surface

I dont get ur point , can u explain more ??

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

That why i wanna use it , cause i read one comment and u said u r using it ,
Greeting from dubai Randy , also u r famous here with my reefer friend

Thanks!

Vinegar is a fine way to go, but biopellets usually also work. My only use with them, aside from needing a reactor, is that it can be harder to control the effect because adding or removing pellets is not always simple or quick to take effect.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Keeping up the dosing of phosphate may be an appropriate way to speed the process if phosphate is really low.

How much do you add?

 

[Volpone]

Im adding 10 ml of flourish phosphorus every week .

 

[MBG75]

What are you testing phosphate with?

Also in the last video, it appears your tumble is ok. But looks like the water level in the pellet reactor is the same as the sump?

 

[galaxia]

I replace all the rock before year ago , it was running in sps dominated tank and was doing well in that tank , i do test for my fresh salt mix and it has zero nitrate im using ro /di
And what i know that rock doesnt leach nitrate only phosphate

I was saying I don't have a filter as such a sump and a turbo floater skimmer packed with live rock and a air diffuser to bubble water for oxygen saturation if you use bio balls os a filter material dirt can trap in porous surfaces causing nitrate spikes as the pellets are so small they are only aerobic and only turn ammonia to nitrates and if dirty they produce nitrates for causes in nitrate spikes im no scientist so maybe I don't know it all lol

 

[LostInTheDark]

I use the Ecobak Plus pellets and they take awhile to get going. I would say it was about 6 months before they really started working. I have mine on a very low tumble. Probably half the tumble of your last video. I do have a very heavily stocked 250g mixed reef that my wife loves to feed so adding phosphates is not an issue. Even with the pellets I still toss a soccer ball size of cheato from the fuge every other week or so. I stopped using GFO and my phosphates and nitrates don't register on the RedSea test kits.

 

[Volpone]

What are you testing phosphate with?

Also in the last video, it appears your tumble is ok. But looks like the water level in the pellet reactor is the same as the sump?

Sure not , its not at this level .

 

[Volpone]

What are you testing phosphate with?


I do test with both hanna and salifert bth zero

 

[Volpone]

I was saying I don't have a filter as such a sump and a turbo floater skimmer packed with live rock and a air diffuser to bubble water for oxygen saturation if you use bio balls os a filter material dirt can trap in porous surfaces causing nitrate spikes as the pellets are so small they are only aerobic and only turn ammonia to nitrates and if dirty they produce nitrates for causes in nitrate spikes im no scientist so maybe I don't know it all lol

Ah ok i dont use any of those bio ball or ever filter pads

 

[sioloy]

Here's my one liner response: "use sulfur instead of bio pellets"

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Here's my one liner response: "use sulfur instead of bio pellets"

You prefer sulfur denitrators? Why?

 

[sioloy]

First, it's cheaper than Bio Pellets, last 3 times longer and it works. My requirements is to bring my Nitrates down and for the past 4 years it's been hovering in 0.75 ppm to 1.0 ppm Red Sea Pro. I also bring a sample water to my LFS for testing and the result is about the same. Near zero ppm.
I know where the source of my is coming from "DSB" so I have specific requirements to use sulfur for this,. The only caveat to using sulfur is the maturing process which takes about 1 to 2 weeks., THE EFFLUENT SHOULD PASS A CARBON MEDIA and I emphasized that in caps
that is to deodorized that rotten egg smell, there's a key procedure to this and I can walk you thru that process. Bio pellets is great but for my specific needs I find using sulfur is cheap, easy, media last longer and no dedicated pump is required! i splice into an existing source. and done. Less clutter in my sump.