Anyone using bio-pellets?

[gregr]

Wondering if anyone is using bio-pellets because I started about a month ago and was hoping to hear how they work for other people. So far in my tank the nitrates have gone from fairly low to dead zero and phosphates have not changed (0.11). Hair and bubble algae have started to disappear though there wasn't much hair algae to start with. The diatoms on the glass appear every day whereas before it took a few days for it to show up. The water went from very clear to invisible ;) I'm still running GFO and hope to not have to in the future.
150g tank with Octopus 110 reactor and Vertex media.

[Original Fin]

I haven't run BP, but I have dosed vodka, which does the same thing...just a different source of carbon. I don't run GFO though.

I've had very similar results with the vodka. Nitrates dropped to zero quickly. Phosphates took a lot longer, but by gradually increasing the dosage, eventually I got there. I have the same issue with diatoms when running vodka, but it's only noticeable on the glass, never on the sand bed. The glass has to be cleaned every day.

I stopped dosing a while back, and the diatoms slowed way down, but NA started creeping back, so I've since resumed. Back to cleaning glass every day, but that has it's benefits too...I can tell my corals love it from their FPE when I'm cleaning.

[gregr]

Thanks for the feedback. I tried vodka a few years ago when I had a horrific hair algae battle. I ended up stopping for a few reasons but the biggie was to avoid having to dose every day- I spent a lot of money setting the tank up so the only thing that had to be done manually every day was feed the fish. Daily dosing is not part of the master plan In the end I decided to remove most of my rock and start over. I only wish I'd not wasted almost a year getting to that decision.

[Original Fin]

I'm sure that's why BP's have become so popular.
If my system were automated, I'd switch to BP too. Currently, I'm hand dosing the big three and vodka daily, but the next tank upgrade will incorporated peristaltic dosers for all of that.

FWIW, I think it took me about 10 weeks of gradual dosage increases before everything bottomed out. Now my maintenance dose is 2.25 ml for a somewhat heavily stocked 55.

[gregr]

Update- I've got an extremely happy bunch of corals right now. If things stay as they are now I'll be fragging like crazy in a couple months. Coral color continues to be good and get better. One negatively impacted critter so far- I have three of the mini carpet anenomes and one of the three is really changing. It used to be a nice average green color and over the last few weeks it changed to very bright yellow- screaming bright. Yesterday about an hour before the halides went off it shrunk up for the first time ever as far as I know. After the halides were off for a while it opened back up. All acros and lps show great color, growth and polyp extension.
I've been adding different coral food every other day now. So far the nuisance algae has not changed as far as I can see.

If you decide to go with the stuff I strongly recommend you read as much as you can about it first. Every tank seems to react differently and I think how your tank does and how you need to approach using this stuff depends on the nutrient levels that are present before you start out. I had fairly low levels and started slow so it went from low to really really low-- not a huge difference to the numbers but to the corals a big difference.

[gregr]

Another update: tank continues on current path of great overall health. All corals except mini-carpets are thriving. LPS are just a Cynarina, Caulastrea and various Euphyllias- all happy and growing. Lots of sps all doing great. Got a tort frag that was very faded- almost white and within a few days it was regular tort-purple I got another rescue ora colony that I'm not sure what it is- a little like a tortish, totally white when I got it a week ago. It's verrrry slowly coming back to life. May turn out to be nothing but I'm hoping it'll be another cool tort.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

Fool Gregory. Glad to hear the BP are working out for you. Snap a few shots if you have the time!

[gregr]

lol- that's what I was just doing. This picture doesn't do it justice but this was a total brown-out colony when I got it about three months ago (and half as big as it is now):

Still need to do some full tank shots.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

Very nice!

[Original Fin]

I had issues with my BTA too...don't know if I can blame it on the carbon Dosing or not, but everything else colored up and grew faster, except for the nem. He withered away and died over the course of several months. Previously, it had been super healthy and growing like crazy.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

Fool Gregory. Glad to hear the BP are working out for you. Snap a few shots if you have the time!

Just realized I called you a fool! My mistake but I'm sure you know I meant to type "Cool".

[Chasman]

Gregory

What type of reactor or method are you using for the BP's. Curious if you need to go super high end or a single BRS reactor would do.

Chasman

[gregr]

lol- you guys are killing me. Only my Mom calls me Gregory
When I read "Fool" I was thinking I was just old and didn't get it, like usual. No worries.
Anyhow- Chasman- I got the Reef Octopus 110 and use a Rio Hyperflow 10 on it. Way overkill but I wanted enough flow to keep the pellets moving when I added more. I'd use a smaller pump if I had it to do over again. I have a ball valve to regulate the flow- that's key.
I can't tell you if that BRS reactor is good or not. Their stuff usually is though. With pellets it really helps to have even distribution of flow so all the pellets move just a little. The pellets will clump together at first, even if you soak them overnight as it's recommended. So they clump a bit at first, shake the reactor, blast em with a lot of flow for a sec, shake a little and wait for the pellets to sink back down and un-clump. By the end of the first day everything was working well and now, about two months later, everything is rocking bigtime. Just measured nitrates. Zero. Phosphates per a colorimeter- 0.02
I can't stress enough though how it looks like everyone has a different experience with bio-pellets. I'm seeing huge results but not everybody does right away like I have.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

lol- you guys are killing me. Only my Mom calls me Gregory
When I read "Fool" I was thinking I was just old and didn't get it, like usual. No worries.

I think my auto spell check on the IPad called you Gregory. Technology these days...

[gregr]

Another small update- things continue to be good. I had to move that birdsnest in the picture I posted a few weeks ago because the blue/green acro started touching it and the birdsnest lost that battle. Several other corals are gonna need fragging soon... it is so nice to see success in this hobby, especially after battling hair algae as long as I did.

[gregr]

4 month update- things continue to be good. All I have that's current is a cellphone pic:

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

That's sad.... You take better pics with your cell phone than I can with my DSLR.

Your tank looks awesome Greg! Glad to hear the BP's are working out for you.

[gregr]

lol- not true but thanks.

[Mad Mead]

no I agree FoMoCo Master Tech your camera phone is great. better then my Fujifilm that I doctor up before postin

[gregr]

Short video from a couple days ago:
http://bit.ly/lib9tf

It's on Youtube- I used bitly.com to shorten the url.