Bio-pellets I quit you!

[ALang]

Could you maybe show us exactly what you have done??
Really would like to know.
Lenny.

[Lampshade]

The KEY to all pellets is having substantial surface area for them and not going crazy on the tumbling. I myself now run about 5L of pellets in my DIY.

I'll agree with this, i had my pellets hooked up to a maxi 1200, and recently changed them over to a Tee off the main pump. I have less flow through there now, enough to keep them tumbling, but not flying around like the MJ was. This seems to work better, i also changed the outlet from my skimmer intake to my refugium at the same time, that may be the reason also, but my HA outbreak's stopped and is slowly getting under control now.

[Matman]

Maybe the biopellets consume too much potassium like in a zeo system. What salt are you using? Potassium level seems to vary a lot from one brand to the other. It might be one of the reason why some people experience degradation after a while.

I use the royal nature salt which have a 400 ppm potassium concentration which is a bit higher than NSW. Some brand have concentrations closer to 200! Other brands that have high potassium cocentration are aquavitro, brightwell and KV reef best I think.

I recentrly started to put SPS in my LPS dominated nano tank. I was planning to start the biopellets while keeping the heavy feeding of the tank in hope of keeping nice colors and growth. My nitrates are now at about 10 and phosphates at 0.15 with the use of a small refugium and GFO.

I was also thinking about trying mb7 and biofuel as an alternative. Is it really important to dose everyday for those? I'm not always at home!

[whatcaneyedo]

Same here. I keep quite a diversity of coral in a heavily fed, aggressively skimmed system. I was just hoping that I could use them instead of GFO to keep the phosphate in my system undetectable. So I tried the minimum recommended amount and then even less a second time and each time many of my soft coral began to bleach within a few weeks and my sandbed started to get covered with cyano. I can think of two things that I may have done wrong that might at least in part explain why they didn't work for me. The first was that the reactor output probably wasn't aimed well enough towards my skimmer's intake. The second was that I have not had detectable nitrate in several years. From what I've read they consume 4:1 nitrate to phosphate. But to me this still doesn't explain why 100ml of Vertex pellets would begin to kill off some of the coral in my +200gal system.

[Matman]

In fact they consume 16:1 nitrates to phosphates I think. I guess you got very limited on nitrates. In my case I would hit 0 on phosphates before. Maybe I shouldn't clean the frozen mysis shrimp before dropping them to keep some phosphates.

[Aquaria]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

Same here. I keep quite a diversity of coral in a heavily fed, aggressively skimmed system. I was just hoping that I could use them instead of GFO to keep the phosphate in my system undetectable. So I tried the minimum recommended amount and then even less a second time and each time many of my soft coral began to bleach within a few weeks and my sandbed started to get covered with cyano. I can think of two things that I may have done wrong that might at least in part explain why they didn't work for me. The first was that the reactor output probably wasn't aimed well enough towards my skimmer's intake. The second was that I have not had detectable nitrate in several years. From what I've read they consume 4:1 nitrate to phosphate. But to me this still doesn't explain why 100ml of Vertex pellets would begin to kill off some of the coral in my +200gal system.

I'm pretty sure the vertex pellets say that happens because of a lack of something in the tank and it should stabilize out once it's been running for a while the instructions claim that it's old established tanks that it happens with

[Dyspnea]

I took my reactors off online last night and cleaned my sump. Today I'll be adding chateo and trying out a couple mangroves. And maybe later I'll run some GFO after my tank settles a bit. hopefully thing will turn around

The output of my bio pellet reactor was aimed towards my skimmer. I have a dark brown skimmate which needs to be empty and cleaned at least every three days.

I've alway used instant ocean, cause I can always find it. Potassium depletion may have been an issue, but I considered the possibly a supplement of some nature was lacking, and that's why I changed to 40% water changes monthly with no effect.

And I don't think tumbling was ever an issue. The first few days I ran the reactor faster than I should have, so the clumping would resolve. When clumping wasn't an issue, I decreased the flow and the pellets would rise and fall gently.

[asylumdown]

I started using biopellets after 1.5 years of running my tank and within a month my sand, rocks and glass were covered in cyano. Output was aimed directly at the skimmer, but maybe I had them tumbling too fast in the reactor. It's kind of hard to tell what 'too fast' is without physically watching the reactor of someone who is using them successfully.

I probably would have stuck it out and tried tweaking things if I hadn't needed to break down my tank, but it's food for thought for the next build.

[acropora1981]

Originally Posted by Dyspnea

After 6 months of running bio pellets I will stop using them, I probably would have had better luck using marbles in my reactor. Over the last six months my tank has slowly deteriorated, algea out breaks are the man concern, but also the stunned/lack of coral growth. some frags appear very healthy, but on the flip side healthy frags die for no apparent reason, even after coming from FTOTM.

I suspected the bio-pellets were not working rather early, I've tried everything I can think of too turn things around.*

-30% water changes per month
-I've dosed zeobak, in the event I had "monoculture"
-I started only with 250mls of pellets, two weeks later I had a total of 500mls, now at the six month point I have 1 litre, but it makes little sense to buy more to replace them, for something that doesn't work.
-I've had the slowest tumble possible before my reactor will clump.
-More feedings and decreased feedings

I fell I'm at the point I may need to tear down the tank and rebuild. Hopefully not I plan to bring my refuge back online (I've alway had good results with a fuge) and possibly run GFO.

I bought into the bio pellet concept, and thought it would be better then Zeovit, based on my life style (no daily dosing,shaking). Also what sold me was the positive result the majority of user were reporting. *And when I started I was excited and positive about what was too come.

But I'm frustrated and tired and will go back to what I know.

Sorry for the long post but I needed to rant/vent

I had the exact same issues, and discontinued usage about 3 months ago. Tank is still recovering. I found at least the partial cause; biopellets were contributing to extremely low pH of 7.5-7.6 at night.

I've gone back to basically just skimmer/frequent floss changes/25% water change ever other week, and corals are much happier. Also the MOUTAIN of cotton candy algae that had developed dissapeared. Too bad the feather caulerpa is now firmly anchored to my live rock.... it too is weakening though

[bryceschutte]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I started using biopellets after 1.5 years of running my tank and within a month my sand, rocks and glass were covered in cyano. Output was aimed directly at the skimmer, but maybe I had them tumbling too fast in the reactor. It's kind of hard to tell what 'too fast' is without physically watching the reactor of someone who is using them successfully.

I probably would have stuck it out and tried tweaking things if I hadn't needed to break down my tank, but it's food for thought for the next build.

I have had a large cyano outbreak also. GOOD BYE bio pellets!