Bio pellet journal

[Haulin Oates]

Starting this thread to journal my trials with bio pellets. I started the reactor today with Brightwell Aquatics Katalyst bio pellets. As well as their Microbacter7 I started with 200 grams of pellets tumbling nicely in a BRS reactor, as well as dosing 10ml of micro per day. Turning skimmers off from 11 am until 230 pm. Still running carbon and GFO fir another week or so... Today's tests:
Nitrate: 4.75ppm
Phosphates: .5ppm
pH: 8.0
Calcium: 440
Alk: 9.2 dKH
Magnesium: 1600ppm
Notes: day 1. Slight algae film on glass, cleaned off (not unusual). No visible change or unusual actions by any tank mates. No changes made to lighting or flow

If any of you want to follow along or add any comments about your bio pellet experience id love to hear from you!!

 

[Haulin Oates]

Day 1 pictures:

Yucky sand bed.

Plating green Monti.

Unhappy acro frag

 

[Cherub]

following

 

[Cake_Boss]

What made you choose the Brightwell brand? What reactor is that? what are planning on keeping up your alk?

 

[Haulin Oates]

Brightwell because that's what Elite had in stock when the Koran went back, got it for trade. Otherwise I probably would have gone with BRS.
The reactor is a BRS carbon reactor modified by myself. I'll continue dosing 100ml of baked baking soda per top off (every other day) until I feel the #s warrant a change.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Day 2: No tests run today
Notes: turned off skimmers @11am and dosed 10ml micro. Fed tank flake and pellet and 1 packet of krill "slurry."
Visual inspection: picked up corals that got knocked over overnight (stupid bulldozer snails!) noticed blasto opening up a bit more (could be due to recent placement lower in tank) and millipora starting to show its greenish color again.

 

[KhensuRa]

Tagging along.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Day 3: no tests run today
Notes: skimmers off at 11 10ml micro dosed. Noticed carbon/GFO reactor leaking. Unplugged pump and pulled out reactor + plumbing. Found cucumber in the overflow area. Removed durso tube and fished him back into DT. Cleaned overflow area. Prepped frozen food, and notice puddle on floor next to tank and around sump. Found bulkhead leaking. Repaired and tightened, but had to take return pump offline to repair. Had noticed water was slightly "murky" in morning, but with sump offline water cleared up, suggesting that population of beneficial bacteria may be ramping up! Did not restart carbon at this time, thinking I may leave off for a week. No changes to lighting, only temporary changes to DT flow.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Day 4: intended to run tests today, but got busy... Need to test tomorrow!
Notes: skimmers off at noon, dosed 10 ml micro, and fed tank. Slight film on glass again. Noticed a previously unhappy acan very happy and open today!!

 

[Haulin Oates]

Day 5: on call and running around all day... Skimmers off at 9 pm and dosed 10 ml micro. Ran a few tests.
Nitrate: 4.75 ppm
Phosphate: .5 ppm
Alk: 9.5dKH
So no changes yet...
Notes: no significant changes made.

 

[Dbarnes]

Mine took six weeks before I saw a clear and distinct change. This is an average period of time according to most Bio pellet manufacturers.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk

 

[Haulin Oates]

Day 6: standard affair.
Notes: holy skimmate batman!!! Something is def. going on in there!!!

 

[Haulin Oates]

 

[Haulin Oates]

6 weeks!?!? Patience.....

 

[djkms]

My skimmate turned dark after a week. My NO3 and PO4 didn't start going down until 8 weeks, then it took another 4 weeks to go down to the levels I wanted
NO3 30ppm > 1ppm
PO4 .08 > .02

 

[Dbarnes]

yea my Skimmate saw some increase but nothing that blew me away, at the six week mark i noticed the change fairly rapidly however my numbers were not bad from the get go so it took no time to reach zeros. i have sense been pleased with my paramiters however i cant say it makes a huge change as i set it up when the tank was only 2months old... tough to see change when there is nothing to compare it too.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Well if my tank starts to look half as good as yours, I'll be a happy camper!!

 

[Cyber-Burn]

So far how do you like the BRS reactor for the bio pellets? I have one in the garage for the new tank, but haven't seen one in use yet.

 

[Haulin Oates]

I had to modify mine to work with the pellets, but mine was originally a carbon or GFO reactor that I got for coral trade. It seems to be doing ok.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Day 6 and 7: nothing new to report.