bio pellets and carbon dosing

[MWoodhill]

biopellets and carbon dosing
I have been reading so much on this forum about bio pellets but now that I have implemented it I have some questions...

first my current situation and params:
after 3 weeks with bio pellets...
Cal = 470
Kh = 10.5
Mg = 1350
Po4 = .07
No3 = 20ppt
PH = 8.35
Temp = 80
salinity = 1.025

My pO4 has gone from over .4 on hanna checker to the above No3 from 120 ppt to 20ppt. I have cut back on food fish and increased water changes so unsure how much my pellets have actually done. purchased sps frags which have turned brown as I did not realize my No3 was so high. siphoned the sand which seemed to make the biggest dent.

questions:

I'm having difficulty seeing N03 reduced beyond 20 which is still high. since po4 is .07 ids this the reason no3 is not reducing. I read that you need to have po4 present to reduce no3 is this correct? if not why am I unable to reduce No3? is there anything else I can try to reduce No3?

#2 will my browned out sps color back up? once levels ha ve stabilized? all sps polyps are retracted. is there anything else that I can do in the mean time during the pellet waiting period?

#3 I read that pellets can strip your water of nutrients so feeding should be kept up but also read that you should cut back of feeding. which is true?

hopefully others can chime in and learn alongside. any advice would be appreciated. thanks

balance is key dude. bp=carbon dosin. too much means horrible cyano outbreak

 

[coralcruze]

balance is key dude. bp=carbon dosin. too much means horrible cyano outbreak

Please dont take it the wrong way but for me to value a comment I would need to see some data or real info. to say that "balance is key dude" is a known fact. I've been in the hobby 15 years and still willing to learn, hoping you could teach me something. thanks

SO, the question is what is the formula to balance out my system? if Po4 and no3 work inversly proportional to one another than how much to I allow one to rise to see a drop in the other? a game plan would be cool too.

 

[strgazr27]

Pellets like an Alk level of around 6 to function well. At your current test levels, unless my math is wrong, your Alk is about 3.5-3.7. When they do start to work you will find you need to start dosing nitrate to kick start the phosphate reduction side of pellets. The outflow from your reactor should also feed directly to your skimmer.

 

[MWoodhill]

Please dont take it the wrong way but for me to value a comment I would need to see some data or real info. to say that "balance is key dude" is a known fact. I've been in the hobby 15 years and still willing to learn, hoping you could teach me something. thanks

SO, the question is what is the formula to balance out my system? if Po4 and no3 work inversly proportional to one another than how much to I allow one to rise to see a drop in the other? a game plan would be cool too.

well, dude, for my best knowledge carbon dosing populates bacteria, bacteria absorbs nutrients and a skimmer exports bacteria. this is how the mechanism works


I've never run bp alone but replaced zeostart(the zeo produced carbon) with bp. It worked but z3 has an instructed dosage while bp doesn't. I overdosed, which caused some of sps to bleach and cyano's to break out. That's why I said balance is key. There's no clear instruction of dosage so how much flow and dosage must be on your gut feelings.


I can share my experiences though and hopefully they help:


1, I combined bp=carbon dosing with zeobak--cultured bacteria, as zeovit system suggests, not all the bacteria absorbs nitrate and phosphate. routinely adding of their cultured bacteria guarantees the dominance of those that proceed nitrate and phosphate.


2, try little at beginning and add more week by week, monitoring your parameters closely.


3, I guess it's, too, very important--a very experienced bp user told me--put the bp reactor outlet as near as possible to the inlet of a skimmer--actually I modified the skimmer and let the outflow of the reactor directly into the skimmer.


best wishes

 

[reefoman]

Pellets like an Alk level of around 6 to function well. At your current test levels, unless my math is wrong, your Alk is about 3.5-3.7. When they do start to work you will find you need to start dosing nitrate to kick start the phosphate reduction side of pellets. The outflow from your reactor should also feed directly to your skimmer.

Interesting...
My question is why outflow from reactor should feed directly to the skimmer?
I've heard about this and even did it in my setup some time ago... My skimmer start going crazy, stink from cabinet was all over my apartment, my wife was keep asking me wth is going on... She thought that some fish is dead behind the cabinet
Don't get me wrong but in my opinion it make no sense, bio pellets are carbon source = food for bacteria like vinegar, vodka, sugar etc. so why we not dosing anything directly to the skimmer but to the tank?
Bio pellet reactor will only work properly if amount of bio pellets in the reactor gonna be adequate to tank bio load. No matter what manufacturers recommend you need to start from small amount and slowly raise it checking what's going on.
For example one friend of mine in 700 liters (almost 200 gal) tank started from 100ml and he added 100ml every week till he hit 2 liters !
For quicker result we need to add bacterias and feed them.
I started my experiment 2 days ago here's pic of my no3 from today morning:

Let see how it gonna look in few next days.

 

[coralcruze]

well, dude, for my best knowledge carbon dosing populates bacteria, bacteria absorbs nutrients and a skimmer exports bacteria. this is how the mechanism works


I've never run bp alone but replaced zeostart(the zeo produced carbon) with bp. It worked but z3 has an instructed dosage while bp doesn't. I overdosed, which caused some of sps to bleach and cyano's to break out. That's why I said balance is key. There's no clear instruction of dosage so how much flow and dosage must be on your gut feelings.


I can share my experiences though and hopefully they help:


1, I combined bp=carbon dosing with zeobak--cultured bacteria, as zeovit system suggests, not all the bacteria absorbs nitrate and phosphate. routinely adding of their cultured bacteria guarantees the dominance of those that proceed nitrate and phosphate.


2, try little at beginning and add more week by week, monitoring your parameters closely.


3, I guess it's, too, very important--a very experienced bp user told me--put the bp reactor outlet as near as possible to the inlet of a skimmer--actually I modified the skimmer and let the outflow of the reactor directly into the skimmer.


best wishes

Thanks thats info I can actually think about...

my outflow of my reactor is right at the inlet of my skimmer. I built a device that must be doing a good job of that cause I didn't get cyano outbreak. at least not yet. its only been 4 months.

however, I must repeat... I started with 500 ml bio pellets on a 105 gal tank and then added 200 ml more in the third month (month ago) and still see no drop in nitrates. tests still reads 20... as for flow I'm full throttle so I dont think its a balance issue in the reactor itself but rather what NYreefNoob mentioned about po4 and no3 in that they "play a role in each others reduction"... so its THAT balance I was looking for your help with. po4 is currently .14 and no3 is at 20

anyone, can chime in on this as well... thanks in advance.

 

[coralcruze]

just read some stuff on the "redfield ratio" that sais that carbon:nitrogen: phosphorus or 106:16:1 is found to be similar in the worlds oceans living and dead animals.

so If we are trying to cultivate bacteria that need the above in this specific ratio to thrive than no3: po4 must be present in 16:1 ratio and hopefully the bio pellets are providing the 106 parts of carbon needed. Since my nitrate is at 20, phosphate must be present at a level of 1.25 (if my math is correct) in order for there not to be a limiting condition of Po4 in the system for nitrifying bacteria to uptake both no3 and po4. In essence, if I'm understanding correctly, I am essentially starving the very bacteria of po4 that im trying to cultivate. Stopping the use of GFO would increase the po4 in the tank and hopefully allow for balances reduction of nitrate and phosphate... am I making any sense?

The compound we are not (unable) to test for is carbon which according to redfield must be 106 in the ration of 106:16:1. does anyone know if there is an easy way of testing carbon in saltwater? does such a test kit exist?

what do you guys think about this?

if interested:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redfield_ratio

 

[Mattl22]

Coral I've heard of this and there r many threads on other sites where reefers r purposely adding nitrate to help reduce po4 not sure the whole thought behind it but its usually after nitrates have dropped to undetectable levels that they need to add it from my understanding?
Please let us know what u find!

Any thought on stopping the liquid food for now?

 

[coralcruze]

Coral I've heard of this and there r many threads on other sites where reefers r purposely adding nitrate to help reduce po4 not sure the whole thought behind it but its usually after nitrates have dropped to undetectable levels that they need to add it from my understanding?
Please let us know what u find!

Any thought on stopping the liquid food for now?

hey matt,

Yeah they add sodium nitrate (tech grade) to add nitrate... they do so when nitrate is not detectable as again the ratio should not go below .2 for no3.

Personally I think a better route is to slow the flow through the reactor which feeds the bacteria less in turn more nutients. But it seems that the sweet spot may be a ratio of 16N:1P for this you need a recirculating upflow bio pellet reactor so you can control the sweet spot. you need to keep the tumble but be able to lower the flow.

as for lowering food... I am still thinking about that one. I guess if things get out of hand and po4 and no3 skyrockets than I will have no choice or start GFO. The issue is that the 8 ml of food for my fully stocked tank seems to be the bare min. for the corals. actually I also spot feed shrimp chunks and some gonipowder once a week or so. I am guessing that the corals could use even more food (also more variety) but the animals shut down when the bio load gets high in the water column that it drives No3 and Po4 and shuts down metabolic function. If we can control no3 and po4 at NSL thats the key to feeding more and healthier corals.

I'll keep posting my thoughts but would love (and need) to hear other peoples ideas also.

 

[mbg75]

yeah I've been at it now for 4 months and do not see a reduction below 20... I guess I'll try reducing my feeding in half for a while but it doesnt seem right with all of the corals I have in the tank. It is fully stocked with sps and lps predomenantly. so seems like they need that minimal food. 4 ml of reef nutrition liquidand 4 ml of fish food does not seem like alot to me but I could be wrong. do you think I need another reactor to double the that surface area (pellets)? yes I have heard that Po4 and NO3 reduce together but have been afraid to allo Po4 to raise when I take out my GFO. I do see it rise when I do that. what do you suggest I do? I'm all ears and really want this to work. I do a 35% water change every month religiously. and I also siphon my sand bed every so often. so what should I do?

Are you saying your still running gfo with the pellets?
If so, the gfo can be starving the pellets of po4 which is needed to reduce the nitrates.

The 16:1 ratio is what most people use for running pellets.

Cyano is usually an indicator of too much flow through the pellets.

Yes. The pellet output should feed into the skimmer. This is to remove excess bacteria so it doesn't end up on the tank.

 

[coralcruze]

Are you saying your still running gfo with the pellets?
If so, the gfo can be starving the pellets of po4 which is needed to reduce the nitrates.

The 16:1 ratio is what most people use for running pellets.

Cyano is usually an indicator of too much flow through the pellets.

Yes. The pellet output should feed into the skimmer. This is to remove excess bacteria so it doesn't end up on the tank.

great info...! yeah I was running GFO. took it out of system and will be monitoring Po4 more frequently as not to allow it to rise above 1.25 which is high but I want to get to the ratio of 16:1 so I can reduce my high nitrates. I will continue with my regiment of consistant 35% water changes and monitoring. I have seen cyano recently. But was such a small spot that I'm not too concerned. This is after 4 months of running the pellet reactor full throttle. If I see it taking off I'll throttle back a bit on the flow. But befor I do I hope to see some nitrate reduction first.

 

[Mattl22]

I'm running Gfo with pellets and am happy with the results I feed a ton Havnt been feeding liquid food because tank just settled in after battling algae for first yr