NP pellets and bleaching events

[Delphinus]

Ugh .. this has not been my couple of weeks lately.

I added biopellets to my tank a couple weeks ago. Today I notice my mini-maxi carpet is bleaching. When I tried pellets (in fact, it may be the same batch of pellets now that I think of it) on my carpet tank a while back (summer 2010) I noticed my carpets bleached then too. They eventually recovered, although it was months later.

That's far too coincidental. I think that I was using "NPX extreme" or something - not the typical pellets which had worked well for me prior, but some kind of smaller-but-more-surface-area variety.

Obviously the stuff is going to go into the trash can.

I seem to recall that others had reported inexplicable bleaching in LPS with pellets. Does anyone else have any stories to relate? Personally I am suspecting the smaller pellets but thinking that the regular pellets, given their widespread adoption out there (I think?? anyhow? Seems to me people are using them with success) that this is not a typical problem with the regular pellets.

Interestingly I would suggest it doesn't seem to be that it has reduced nutrients too aggressively. I'm not sure what's all going on lately but one problem I'm tracking is that nitrates are suddenly climbing aggressively (one of the reasons I added the pellets .. I thought maybe I was overfeeding a bit but there seems to be a bit of a disconnect there). But.. I guess that's getting off topic. I'm more curious about who's noticed bleaching in anemones and/or LPS with pellets and if they remember specifically what brand or type of pellet they were using at the time..

[Wayne]

My kenya tree bleached when I started NP pellets and now that you mention it my maxi mini might be bleached from NP pellets... I am now trying Prodibio (started today)

[Parker]

I did notice some bleaching in my tank awhile ago while using NP Biopellets, but I believe that was due to my feeding levels. BP can and will strip your tank pretty clean. I now feed heavier, I don't rinse my food and I dose a few zeo products (some AA,s) and things are starting looking good again.

It also might be worth mentioning I transitioned from NP Pellets to the Vertex pellets.

[Delphinus]

I thought at first it was about stripping the tank too clean too, but basically it just hasn't had a chance to happen yet. Nitrates are >25ppm. Tank is a mess of hair algae, I put the pellets on in an effort TO help reduce nitrates.

I ran biopellets on my old 110g cube and never had a problem, but I used the regular pellets there.

[Casey8]

I was using Vertex bio pellets for about 6 months. I lost more than 2/3 of my sps corals, thay were bleaching so fast that I couldn't save any frag from all my colonies. I didn't have any clue why my corals got bleached untill I decided to shut down those pellets, whatever sps corals I have left, they had turned back to their true color in just a couple weeks. Big lesson, I won't use them anymore in the future to control nitrate. I'd rather do water change more often.

[Wayne]

Hum maybe these pellets are better suited to FOWLR tanks :lol:

[Parker]

If I remember correctly, the instructions say to us 1000 ml per 200 gallons and I'm using 1000ml for 350 gallons split between two reactors. One tumbling fast and one slow.

[The Grizz]

I have never had any thing bleach in my tank & I am using 1000 ml for appox. 225 gal total volume, one reactor feed by a 2500 gph pump.

Also on the package it states not recommended to use in conjunction with Phosphate removers, ozone injection or UV.

[Rogue951]

I'm using about a cup in my 60 gallon (by volume, 40 display) and the only coral that I've had bleach, though not confirmed from pellets, is my duncan colony. turned white then a while later back to it's peachy skin and green mouths.

Also have noticed while Algae isn't dying, it is not spreading on my rocks, just where it's already growing.

[Delphinus]

That is interesting .. Now that you mention it, I seem to recall that in 2010 when my carpets bleached, so too did my Duncan and a bunch of my Acans. The bubble coral and a plate coral however were fine the whole time.

What brand pellets are you using?

This time my acans (the same ones) and the Duncans (also the same colony) did not bleach .. at least not yet. Nor the two gigantea carpets for that matter. Just the one mini-maxi carpet. It's hard to speculate what would happen if I left the pellets on, I've decided not to chance it. I'll deal with the NO3 by some other means.

[kien]

sorry to hear about your nem Tony :(

I'm still running pellets (ever since we started in '09 was it?). When I ran out of the original pellets I started using Vertex pellets mid 2010 and have been on the Vertex pellets ever since. They're the only pellets I ever seen in stores. Everything seems to have done well on those pellets.

[RSM]

I started with 1/3 vertex bp in my 210gal, the slowly added another 1/3 after 2weeks and so on. Everything looked ok except my leathers. My toad stool started getting lighter( whiter and yellow) so did my devils hand. Lost the toadstool but the devils hand is coming back to life. Sps, zoos and even my 16 head frogspawn seem to like bp.

[Myka]

Tony, have you considered a sulfur denitrator? Not a cheap fix by any means, but they work really well. Need an ORP monitor/controller too. If you buy them used they hold that value pretty well, don't buy new - too pricey. Cheap to run though. I've never use one on a reef (never had nitrate issues on a reef), but have used them on FOWLRs with great success. I'm thinking you need some big guns to keep up to those poop monsters.

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I played around with sulfur denitrators in the past. You nailed it in that you really need an ORP monitor for that. I didn't have one and I found it a challenge to dial in a flowrate that would remain steady state and still allow it to go anaerobic. I like the idea of those for something like a large FOWLR or predator tank.

The pellets are a set and forget thing, I like them that way they are super easy - but I just find it odd that there seems to be the occasional claim of bleaching. Very much in the minority but yet still often enough to dismiss it as a coincidence.

[whatcaneyedo]

I had the same issue while using the vertex pellets. I tried them twice and the same thing happened each time. The first time I used the recommended minimum amount and nearly all of my soft coral plus a few of my LPS began to bleach within a month. The second time I used much less and the same thing happened. I don't know if it was related or not but my montipora also bleached and receded a bit a few months after trying the pellets. While it seems unlikely that they would cause that months after their use I can't come up with a better explanation. My oldest montipora I got back in 2005 and the only time I've ever had any problems with them was when I tried pellets.

[kien]

Ya it still boggles my mind that results with bioPellets are quite varied especially when you consider that they are supposed to be set and forget. I have been using well over the recommended amount without any issues while some people nearly crash their tanks with just a few pellets. Very strange.. :noidea:

[The Grizz]

It boggles my mind as well, so I have been thinking of things that could contribute to this but it's only speculation.

I know that Kien runs pellets in conjunction with Carbon & GFO but not sure what he has for a skimmer or what its rated for. Also how much flow he has running threw the pellets and threw his sump and has no issues.

I am running pellets with double the req. flow with an Aqua Medic 2500 pump, Carbon & GFO. My skimmer is rated for 400gph, feed by another AM 2500 & recirculating with the same. For flow I have a 3600 GPH closed loop and a 6500 GPH return pump.

So I am wondering if there is some connection with the way people's tanks are run because no tank is the same. For those having issues let get some info together on each others system to compare and see if we can find a connection.

Just a thought.

[pscott99]

Hmmm. My carpet is bleached you can see it in the video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOKSYsKalgE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

[chris121277]

Interesting topic...just tagging along...as I'm considering starting the use of bio pellets

[Delphinus]

Well just as an update I just drained the reactor of water, then moved the whole kit and kaboodle over to my FOWLR tank. The water is clearer, the nitrates dropped off in a week, I now have zero phosphate levels on there, the cyano is retreating and, although it might just be wishful thinking at this point, I think my valonia (bubble algae) looks like it's retreating as well.

Ha! Too bad I can't keep corals in that that tank (butterflies - corals nummy nummy!).

So the pellets can definitely do a nice job of things.

As to the bleached mini-maxi carpet however ... it's weird. It could be coincidental timing but it just seems like a bit of an odd coincidence. It did continue to bleach for at least a week following the reactor/tank switcharoo. Seems to be holding steady now, and it eats fine so I assume it will be OK..

[lastlight]

Tony do bio-pellets work I just heard about these? :biggrin:

Even though I've sorta sworn them off I did plumb one extra outlet on my manifold just in case. You just had to mention the valonia DIDN'T YOU ? :twised:

[Bblinks]

Close to 14 months ago I started using np pellets which is the original people who came out with biopellets, for the first few month I slowly amped up the dosage to the recommended level without any ill effects. 6months goes by everything is looking fantastic, all the parameters are looking good with the exception of phosphate still hanging around 0.02ppm as per hanna checker, so i descided to run inconjunction with rowaphos which did bring my phosphate down to undetectable by the meter. At this time my parameters were 8DKH 440CAL 1300MAG 0NO3 0PHOS. few months later I switched from npx to vertex pellets and within a few weeks of switch several LPS(brian, blasto, acan...) SPS(acros, millis) started to bleach. a week goes by and 2 sps colonies rtn'd and the rest are still looking pretty bad. I tested my parameter and to be my suprise alk has jumped from 8 to 10.5 for some reason(might just be a stronger mix when I was doing the new batch but I really don't think so.) After talking to a few people on rc and albert from vertex they told me to lower my alk to around 7 and hope for the best. So now 4 months later the 2 rtn sps are dead but all the rest are on the rebound. Also if I might add I also noticed the k level was around 200 ppm which I aided with zeovit k balance which also made a huge difference.
Now with alk rock solid at 7 and k just around 400 mark I have no issue with add any amount of pellets. I like to dose a bit of zeobak to ensure that I don't end up with a mono strain of bacteria, but IMHO pellets work but you need to keep you alk in check and because it stripes out a lot of other vital elements like potassium you should test what you can and dose accordingly.
just my 2 pennies.