Bio-pellets I quit you!

[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

[Milad]

I've been running biopellets for about 6 months now. filled a vertex reactor with I believe 500mL

I dose zeobak, spongepower and CV weekly. I use to have cayno and its all gone, I have no other algae except the film stuff on the glass which is mainly because my lights are 2 years old and Im just about to upgrade them to LEDs.

I have had two very large corals die on me, one day they are great, next day, boom white. Not sure how that happened. The weird part is that their frags that are near by the mother colony survived fine. All the other corals seem to be growing very well.

[GMGQ]

I started biopellets in January 2011, when I had lots of hair algae issues. I originally had 250mL in a TLF150 reactor, now I have 2 reactors and just over 500mL of biopellets. Back then my Nitrates were around 25ppm.

I now have just a little bit of hair algae (probably from overfeeding, as I've added a few fish). I tested my Nitrates and Phosphates a few weeks ago, and both are at 0.

Since January, I was just 'restarting' my reef tank, so conditions were not optimal. Now just past the 4 month stage, things are slowly getting back on the right track. I know I have to change all my bulbs (but I'm saving that money to do a big DIY LED build). So I can't claim that everything started to colour up right away.

Having said that, there could have been other factors with your system, besides the biopellets. Did you test your Nitrates and Phosphates before and after the biopellets?

Regarding the tumbling, you need to have good tumbling for the whole stack. Mine clumped too, but after a week or two, the clumps finally broke down. The main thing about biopellets is patience to let them work, without changing a whole lot.

[Dyspnea]

Tumbling of my pellet has never being a issue, is has alway been gentle,in fact I haven't adjusted my reactor flow in never 3 months since I last added pellets.

As for nitrate/phos testing my test kits show 0ppm for both, but I'm highly suspicious as byopsis is coming back, hair algea, cyano and calerpa have reared the heads, prior to bio pellets all of them were absent and never a problem.

My lighting is strong and the bulbs are only 5 months old.
Skimming is strong and I empty/clean the collection cup every 2-3 days.

[christyf5]

I had problems as well. Everything turned around as soon as I took the reactor offline. They just weren't the be-all-end-all for me

[Milad]

so interesting, some people have problems with them, some don't. Maybe its a brand issue? which brand did you guys purchase?

[GMGQ]

I'm using Two Little Fishes NPX Biopelllets.

[therealshark]

i had the same problems, algae and die off of corals. i had far better results with vodka dosing. i have since taken the pellets off line and things are turning around and colors are coming back.
i did some reading on reefcentral and found that alk plays a factor when using pellets. most are saying to keep your alk on the low side (around 7.0 to 7.5). to me its not worth the risk to try them again.
the same was said on RC, worked great for some people and poorly for others.

[ScubaSteve]

I am not a fan of biopellets. In principle they should work fantastic. Practice is a different story. Knowing the compounds used in the biopellets I am not surprised that people have issues with them, plus it is possible you create monocultures, and, ultimately, the effect you are trying to achieve with biopellets isn't good for your corals. What you are creating is a nutrient starved system with limited bacterial biodiversity and foreign chemicals... not exactly the most stable environment.

Normally I can explain this much better but it's the end of the day and I'm fried. In short, biopellets will never touch my tank. Try VSV+MB7 dosing. Works like a charm.

[therealshark]

What is the VSV?