Bio Pellet reactor

[Origami]

Thank the Lord it was only your glasses and not your mind (or sense of humor, for that matter), Paul.

[paul b]

Humor has no place in this serious hobby:

I have the thing hooked up to freshwater now with the pellets in it and I have to say, it runs better than my wildest dreams. Well maybe not my wildest dreams, my wildest dreams include Supermodels and Jello, but some of my less weird dreams.
The pellets swarm around nicely, no leaks and I am very happy.
Not as happy as when I am dreaming, but you know what I mean. In a few days I hope to install the thing on my tank. Then I need some way to test the water to see if it actually does anything (I doubt it) But it definitely looks very cool, and lets face it, that is the most important thing.

[Origami]

My biopellet reactor is not doing much these days. The pellets are clean and they just lightly tumble. It's probably because it's competing with bacteria in my sandbed and my rock which are well established. I'm thinking about taking it off line, adding some bacteria in a bottle and aerating it for a few days to see if the bacteria take off. If they do, I'll bring it back online and see if the bacteria remain. If not... well, I'll have an empty reactor that I can use for something. The good thing about the lack of bacteria on the pellets is that they certainly last longer!

[paul b]

Tom, as I said, it is mostly the coolness thing that matters and not if the thing actually does anything as I think it is a silly invention.  I doubt the bacteria care or even know about it or what they are supposed to do.  They probably look at those pellets all spinning around and get dizzy.  I bet some of them even puke and we don't want bacteria puke in our reefs as it causes cyanobacteria, diatoms or even black ich.  I may even install blue LEDs in mine to increase the coolness factor by at least a factor of five. 

My tank runs fine with the nitrates at 40, if I lowered them much it would probably crash.  As I am sure you know, I don't buy into the high nitrates/phosphates, global warming, 30 oz. soda's, or hamburger helper affects our reefs negatively as many nice looking tanks have high levels of "most" of those things.  I would like my nitrates to run about 20 but I am still experimenting with these higher levels.  So far I see no problems.  Besides the coolness factor, I built this thing just for fun and to see if it really does anything or is just, as I presume, a silly, but really cool looking, high priced, hunk of acrylic.

In my case I feel my undergravel filter is the secret as it has functioned for so long and I never needed these funky devices.

But if I don't have one,I can't get into these complicated, and heated discussions of the pro's and con's of it.

If I could afford it I would put a manta ray in my tank (a small one) to see if they are reef safe and more important to see if it's tail would scratch my ceiling.

[paul b]

What do you know, the thing works.  Here it is with just a few pellets in it as it is just a test.

an experiment and I am not sure if I will leave the thing in there or for how long.  One pump feeds the reactor then the skimmer, then the algae trough
Here is a video.

[AlanM]

I have a bio-pellet reactor hooked up to my shiny new reef tank with no pellets in it.  Just running empty now so I can get the tubing and wiring sorted out.  I've got the pellets that i may put in there at some point to see how they move around.

 

But I have heard all about vodka dosing as being used for the same thing as bio pellets and thought it was interesting that putting booze into the tank can make the bacteria grow and make it all cloudy when I'd always thought alcohol kills bugs.

 

So since I don't have life in the tank except for bacteria anyway, I figured what the heck and tossed in a capful of Everclear to see what would happen.  We don't mess around with vodka in our house.  You're paying extra for the water that's used to cut what started out as Everclear!  It was fun to see over the next 24 hours it got cloudy as heck, then got all clear now.  I don't know if it did anything good except for leaving slime all over, but it was fun to watch.

[paul b]

With no life in your tank, not much of anything is going to happen, good or bad.

I built this thing for fun and I don't dose Vodka.  I may remove this in a few months (or tomorrow) and convert it into something else.  I have not figured that out yet but it is a hobby and I like building stuff as it is only a few bucks to build one of these things.  Under $20.00

[Integral9]

It will be interesting to see if the algae survives.  I think the biopellets will consume all the nutrients and then get whisked away in the skimmer.  From what I've read about them, that seems to be the idea behind the BP reactor and why it's good to hook them up to your skimmer's intake. 

 

edit: 

I think you might want to crank up the flow on the reactor too.  You also might want to put a screen on the output.  I've had a few pellets jump out and they end up stuck in my skimmer's needle wheel. 

 

see this for an example of what is recommended.  He goes into adjusting his reactor, but what's important to see here is the rate of flow and movement of the pellets.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Integral9

[paul b]

I know what you mean by some pellets jumping out.  The venturi in my skimmer is also home made and I think the hole in it is larger than the pellets, But I am sure I will find out.  The movement will be better as there are marbles in it to weight down a screen and I had the thing on it's side so the marbles moved.  I need to empty it out and re position the marbles, then it works better.  This is only to see if it works, and leaks

[paul b]

The stupid thing is still running and it has become a brittle star farm.  There must be 30 brittle stars in there.  I don't know if they like the turbulence, the smell of the pellets, the excitement of being able to look out the thing while they are tumbling around or more likely, the dumb animals got caught in the intake of the thing.

I can't comment on if it is doing anything as I don't have any test kits, but I find myself watching the action in there almost as much as I watch the fish.

Today I added more pellets but I must have screwed up something in the pump as now it is not pumping enough to fill the skimmer to the correct level.  I don't have time to take it apart today but soon I hope to get the time.  Maybe I will even remove al the brittle stars and throw them back in the tank where they belong. 

[Integral9]

That's wierd....    hmm...  free biopellets maybe?

 

I've got a bunch of those tiny crustacean things growing in my reactor now.

Edited September 6, 2013 by Integral9

[paul b]

My reactor sprang a little leak and half my LEDs went out.  I don't have time to fix it now, but tomorrow I need to take the LEDs apart to see what the problem is.  It is probably salt creep shorting them out as that has happened before.  The reactor is leaking into the tank so it is fine for now.

[paul b]

I fixed the LEDs,  one LED is bad so I just jumped it out.  I don't have any more spares so when I get time I will order a few as I have had to change 3 or 4 already.

Now I will repair the leak in the bio pellet thing.  Now I notice there are not enough bubbles in my skimmer.  I don't yet know why.  It is very rare that so many things would break in one day.

The skimmer worked for many years with no problems.  There is either a leak in an airline, a blockage in one of the two pumps, a clog in the DIY venturi valve or all of the above.

I can't play with it today.

[paul b]

_{I fixed the leak in the reactor and re built the venture so now all is well}

 

 

Edited September 7, 2013 by paul b

[lnevo]

Its always nice to find the extra time and especially get things knocked off the todo list.