asylumdown
01-28-2014, 06:41 AM
Not in the mechanical sense, the biological sense.
I've got a recirculating biopellet reactor from Reef Dyanmics. I've always been a little annoyed at some of what I would call its design 'flaws', but I've always been able to manage them. Specifically, because it's recirculating, there's two grilled intakes inside the body of the reactor, one is the intake for the recirculating closed loop, and the other is the intake for the outlet to the reactor. There's one pump, so you control how much water gets recirculated, and how much water leaves the reactor via a series of valves.
The problem I had from day one was that the intake for the recriculating closed loop, which is lower in the reactor body, was constantly getting clogged up with biopellets, shutting down the tumble. I'd have to shut it down, open it up and clean the grill off with a toothbrush at least once a week. No tumbling's not so bad, as all that happens is the pellets form clump, but it's annoying.
Now, since I treated for cyano a while back, I started dosing MB7. I'm not sure if my BP reactor simply wasn't working for years before, or if my tank had more nutrients than I thought, but that kicked bacterial production in the reactor in to serious over drive. So much so that I barely dose MB7 anymore because it's such a PITA to deal with. The outlet for this particular reactor right is at the top, with a john guest fitting that connects a long hose (only slightly larger diameter than RO tubing) so that you can direct the outlet to the protein skimmer.
Problem #1 - that stupid outlet hose isn't nearly wide enough to deal with copious production of bacterial mulm. Even with the valve open full bore, water doesn't travel down that tube at a high enough velocity to prevent serious biofilms from forming inside it. In the first 2 weeks of dosing MB7 at the concentrated 'start up' dose, the outlet tube clogged completely with what looked like congealed white snot. It's too narrow and long to get a pipe cleaner down it, so I had to fill it up with bleach and let it soak to clean it out properly. I've been having to disconnect the hose and blow hard on it every few days since to keep water moving through it efficiently.
Problem #2 - that stupid grill! Again the grill on the outlet line has slats so narrow, that any piece of mulm thicker than a couple mm gets stuck on it. I've been insanely busy the past 5 days, so I wasn't checking the hose every day like I usually do, but tonight I pulled the outlet hose out of the water and not a single drop was coming out. Since it's recirculating, the pellets inside were still tumbling away, but no water was actually entering or exiting the reactor.
Anyway, this clog obviously happened a few days ago, because when I opened the reactor, my entire house -upstairs and down - very rapidly filled up with the most noxious, gag inducing smell I've ever experienced. Imagine 2 dozen rotten eggs, that had been sitting in the sun for weeks, suddenly being smashed on your floor all at once. My roommate came downstairs in a panic because she thought there was a gas leak.
Cue two hours of emptying and scrubbing out the entire thing when I had wanted to be in bed. I probably removed a pound of rotting bacterial mulm and biofilm from inside the reactor.
All I have to say is thank goodness rotting things smell so badly, or that it didn't unclog itself before I took a look at it. I have one of the biggest versions of this reactor that they make, so I think it holds around 2 gallons of water. I can't imagine what would have happened if that much putrified water and rotting organic matter had made it back in to my system all at once. Not sure if the pellets are worth saving or not, but I gave them all a thorough rinse anyway as unwashed I couldn't even put them in the garbage they stank so badly.
Moral of the story: I love the idea of a recirculating BP reactor, since it lets you set the tumble rate independent of the flow through rate, but I'm seriously hoping there's been some design enhancements to them over the last two years. That shouldn't have been possible.
I've got a recirculating biopellet reactor from Reef Dyanmics. I've always been a little annoyed at some of what I would call its design 'flaws', but I've always been able to manage them. Specifically, because it's recirculating, there's two grilled intakes inside the body of the reactor, one is the intake for the recirculating closed loop, and the other is the intake for the outlet to the reactor. There's one pump, so you control how much water gets recirculated, and how much water leaves the reactor via a series of valves.
The problem I had from day one was that the intake for the recriculating closed loop, which is lower in the reactor body, was constantly getting clogged up with biopellets, shutting down the tumble. I'd have to shut it down, open it up and clean the grill off with a toothbrush at least once a week. No tumbling's not so bad, as all that happens is the pellets form clump, but it's annoying.
Now, since I treated for cyano a while back, I started dosing MB7. I'm not sure if my BP reactor simply wasn't working for years before, or if my tank had more nutrients than I thought, but that kicked bacterial production in the reactor in to serious over drive. So much so that I barely dose MB7 anymore because it's such a PITA to deal with. The outlet for this particular reactor right is at the top, with a john guest fitting that connects a long hose (only slightly larger diameter than RO tubing) so that you can direct the outlet to the protein skimmer.
Problem #1 - that stupid outlet hose isn't nearly wide enough to deal with copious production of bacterial mulm. Even with the valve open full bore, water doesn't travel down that tube at a high enough velocity to prevent serious biofilms from forming inside it. In the first 2 weeks of dosing MB7 at the concentrated 'start up' dose, the outlet tube clogged completely with what looked like congealed white snot. It's too narrow and long to get a pipe cleaner down it, so I had to fill it up with bleach and let it soak to clean it out properly. I've been having to disconnect the hose and blow hard on it every few days since to keep water moving through it efficiently.
Problem #2 - that stupid grill! Again the grill on the outlet line has slats so narrow, that any piece of mulm thicker than a couple mm gets stuck on it. I've been insanely busy the past 5 days, so I wasn't checking the hose every day like I usually do, but tonight I pulled the outlet hose out of the water and not a single drop was coming out. Since it's recirculating, the pellets inside were still tumbling away, but no water was actually entering or exiting the reactor.
Anyway, this clog obviously happened a few days ago, because when I opened the reactor, my entire house -upstairs and down - very rapidly filled up with the most noxious, gag inducing smell I've ever experienced. Imagine 2 dozen rotten eggs, that had been sitting in the sun for weeks, suddenly being smashed on your floor all at once. My roommate came downstairs in a panic because she thought there was a gas leak.
Cue two hours of emptying and scrubbing out the entire thing when I had wanted to be in bed. I probably removed a pound of rotting bacterial mulm and biofilm from inside the reactor.
All I have to say is thank goodness rotting things smell so badly, or that it didn't unclog itself before I took a look at it. I have one of the biggest versions of this reactor that they make, so I think it holds around 2 gallons of water. I can't imagine what would have happened if that much putrified water and rotting organic matter had made it back in to my system all at once. Not sure if the pellets are worth saving or not, but I gave them all a thorough rinse anyway as unwashed I couldn't even put them in the garbage they stank so badly.
Moral of the story: I love the idea of a recirculating BP reactor, since it lets you set the tumble rate independent of the flow through rate, but I'm seriously hoping there's been some design enhancements to them over the last two years. That shouldn't have been possible.