biopellets- who has had luck with them

[bowkry]

why I ask I started pellets 2 months ago, great right off the begining within 5 days water was so crystal clear corals coral was great except my millis didnt realy like it, no algae at all. Then it all hit just over a week ago first the bryopsis covered all my sand:twised: then algae started on all my rocks water is got a brown color to it my LPS started looseing color:sad:. Now algae is on ever part of my tannk starting to cover corals everywere. I run carbon all the time and my filter floss is clogging in 3-4 hours with crud. My tank is starting to crash. So I took the pellets out of the reactor filled it full of carbon I am doing a 25% water change today and another one in 3 days. It was weird my phos and nit were at undetable last week and this week they are right over the top. I also added a seahare and a urchin to help. I have a very small bioload A small tomini tang, flamehawk, read headed jawfish, and a scooter blennie

[kat]

holy crap...what brand of pellets are you using? I have read that there are some brands far superior to other brands...did you start out with a small amount and gradually increase it?

[frd72]

i am using it too but no such problem like that for almost a year now. are you dosing some additives, i had a huge issue of zeovit overdose because i follow the bottle dosage.. Just my thoughts..:razz:

[bowkry]

I am running vertex or was, I did slowly add them. No I used to run zeo so I know do not go by there labels 1/4 what they say. All I was adding exta, sponge power, and amino acids 2 drops every 3rd day, and I only feed my tank ever second day, use ro water so the only place the algae came from is bad salt or the pellets, and it the same salt I been using, The only thing I have changed I added a few frags and a wave box

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Did a snail die or something else?

[bowkry]

no nothing has died Oh sory I lost a tiny tiny goby I think he got sucked into the wave box but he was under an inch or my flamehawk ate him

[kien]

They seem to be working for me. Ive been using them since January and my nitrates and phosphates are still near zero. I have a huge bio load and feed 2 times a day (flakes and frozen). I do not use any additives other than alk and calc. I run them in a vertex-20 reactor and have a mix of the original bio pellets and vertex pellets.

[whatcaneyedo]

I tried out 100ml of Vertex pellets on my 200gal system for the month of August. I started with undetectable levels of nitrate and phosphate and that did not change. However because I ceased running GFO (normally I run a cup monthly) my macro algae which was in stasis exploded with growth. I had a minor bacterial bloom that lasted about two days. Around the middle of the month most of my soft coral began bleaching and some of my LPS began loosing color. By the end of the month I removed them and went back to GFO because the softies were completely white. The whole time I did notice an increase in skimmer performance and an increase in cyano on my sand. Everything else appeared to stay the same. Its been a month since I've gone back to normal and some of my softies still haven't completely recovered but the LPS are nearly 100% again. Most of the cyano has disappeared.

I also change 1 cup of carbon monthly and did 5-10% weekly water changes. I run a calcium reactor and a kalkwasser reactor but otherwise don't add anything except food to the water. Occasionally I'll add Selcon, Garlic or Vite Chem to the food.

[daniella3d]

biopellets are carbon source for bacteries. I don't beleive that it will produce phosphates or nitrates in your tank, quite the opposite.

I beleive something else is wrong and I don't think it's even related to the pellets.

Maybe your carbon release phosphates, because some carbon do. It is important buy good quality carbon made for marine use.

Your should run some GFO to remove the phosphates instead of carbon. Honestly carbon is not going to do anything for your tank except absorbing chiminal in the water but not the nitrates nor the phosphates.

When using pellets, skimming is very very important. Also it is best to start with a very small amount of biopellets and increase as the system adapt to it.


why I ask I started pellets 2 months ago, great right off the begining within 5 days water was so crystal clear corals coral was great except my millis didnt realy like it, no algae at all. Then it all hit just over a week ago first the bryopsis covered all my sand:twised: then algae started on all my rocks water is got a brown color to it my LPS started looseing color:sad:. Now algae is on ever part of my tannk starting to cover corals everywere. I run carbon all the time and my filter floss is clogging in 3-4 hours with crud. My tank is starting to crash. So I took the pellets out of the reactor filled it full of carbon I am doing a 25% water change today and another one in 3 days. It was weird my phos and nit were at undetable last week and this week they are right over the top. I also added a seahare and a urchin to help. I have a very small bioload A small tomini tang, flamehawk, read headed jawfish, and a scooter blennie

[ottoman]

biopellets are carbon source for bacteries. I don't beleive that it will produce phosphates or nitrates in your tank, quite the opposite.

I beleive something else is wrong and I don't think it's even related to the pellets.

Maybe your carbon release phosphates, because some carbon do. It is important buy good quality carbon made for marine use.

Your should run some GFO to remove the phosphates instead of carbon. Honestly carbon is not going to do anything for your tank except absorbing chiminal in the water but not the nitrates nor the phosphates.

When using pellets, skimming is very very important. Also it is best to start with a very small amount of biopellets and increase as the system adapt to it.

+1...I am running biopellets without any problem...remember that not all corals like extremely low nitrate...SPS may do good while LPS may need go the opposite way because they require more nutrient as well as any filter feeder.

[GMGQ]

Sorry for digging up an old thread, but i'm looking into running biopellets and had a question about this.

It was my understanding that the bacteria from biopellets will get into the water column for filter feeders (like some LPS) to feed on? So shouldnt they benefit in that way?


+1...I am running biopellets without any problem...remember that not all corals like extremely low nitrate...SPS may do good while LPS may need go the opposite way because they require more nutrient as well as any filter feeder.

[daniella3d]

Some will be eated by corals yes, but the real benifit of running biopellets is to skim it out to export the nitrates.

In this thread the original poster saw no detectible nitrates or phosphate one week and the next it was really high. I don't think it was the biopellets that had caused this, especialy after 2 months of running it.



Sorry for digging up an old thread, but i'm looking into running biopellets and had a question about this.

It was my understanding that the bacteria from biopellets will get into the water column for filter feeders (like some LPS) to feed on? So shouldnt they benefit in that way?

[globaldesigns]

holy crap...what brand of pellets are you using? I have read that there are some brands far superior to other brands...did you start out with a small amount and gradually increase it?

From my understanding and research, even though different brands may have different shaped/molded pellets, they are all still coming out of the same manufacturer. And that they are all the same, but some just sell for less than others.

[globaldesigns]

biopellets are carbon source for bacteries. I don't beleive that it will produce phosphates or nitrates in your tank, quite the opposite.

I beleive something else is wrong and I don't think it's even related to the pellets.

Maybe your carbon release phosphates, because some carbon do. It is important buy good quality carbon made for marine use.

Your should run some GFO to remove the phosphates instead of carbon. Honestly carbon is not going to do anything for your tank except absorbing chiminal in the water but not the nitrates nor the phosphates.

When using pellets, skimming is very very important. Also it is best to start with a very small amount of biopellets and increase as the system adapt to it.

+1 on all the above.

[Lampshade]

I've been running them for a while on my new tank, about 4 months. I really like them, I have started to get HA though, which doesn't make sense since nitrate and phosphate are 0 (Better than my eyesight anyways, i need to get a hanna). Corals love it though, I'm not using any other additives and i have amazing growth. My valida's grown 2" in 2 months, and i have a chuck of base that was on a rock from 2 months ago that's grown many 2" arms, still trying to decide what it is, some type of acro though. Color seems to be ok in corals, i think that's more of a lighting issue than anything for me. Polyp extention is great, Day/Night they're always out. My LPS are all loving it, my hammer coral's grown more in the past 4 months that all of last year in my old tank. Zoa's are all showing great color at almost any light level, i have some over halfway up in my tank uner 250W 10K XM's, others hidden in shade.

I don't run carbon at all usually, but i recently threw a sock full in my sump to see if it'd help the HA. I have a mix of LPS/SPS/Softies which should be a bio war zone, but they seem to do well with just the pellets.

[Lance]

I have been running the pellets for about a year now and I swear by them. I have a large bio-load and was having trouble keeping nitrates below 20 (this with a 10% weekly water change). With the pellets, nitrates never go above 10 and I'm down to water changes every 2nd week. As Daniela stated, it is important to have the output from the pellet reactor near the intake to the skimmer.

[chris121277]

I'm just tagging along here :biggrin:

[DiverDude]

Ii started pellets a while ago and my hair algae came back with a vengance. I had other algaes as well. My corals, however, were loving it.

I pulled the pellets about 4 months ago as a desparation move and the HA has stabilized but it's not going away. Corals are alright but not as happy as with the pellets.

Disclaimer: I've been in the hobby just less than a year now so there are most likely other factors related to the results I've seen. I'm starting to plan a new tank and I'm planning on trying pellets again with that.

[dsaundry]

No problem for myself either:biggrin:

[Lampshade]

I should add.. i have the output into my refugium. Technically it should build back the CO2 lost during the night, and add a bit during the day to the DT. PH seems pretty balanced, no issues.

[The Grizz]

No issues here either, nitrates, phosphates have been zero. All my coral seem to be good and no real algae to deal with. I was running NP Pellets in a TLF 150 but recently switched to Vertex pellets in a NextReef MR1.

[randallino]

So far so good. No problems, knock on wood. Started with No3 at 10ppm now undetectable, and Po4 is .03 ppm this is after 11 weeks.

[The Grizz]

Thought I would update this thread with my finding. I added a NeetReef MR1 with 1 kg of the Vertex Bio Pellets about a month ago changing from the NP pellets. In the last few weeks I have really noticed some nice changes, my cup coral now has signs of polyp extension of about 1/2" so far and getting better every week. My zoos, mushroom, candy canes & anthenia are growing like crazy. Truly everything is doing so well as of late and this has been the only change I have mane to my system.