Carbon Dosing Biopellets observations

[Fishie]

so I had a thread out with my failed attempt to do vodka and vinegar dosing .

 

now I am going to do Carbon Dosing with biopellets.

 

I just got the following

1) hydra aquatics FR-45 reactor

2) Ecobak Plus biopellets

 

I still continue to use prodibio ...don't know if its doing anything good though.

 

will post results and pics of everything as I document it.

[Sharkey18]

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. 

[Fishie]

unboxed , the fr-45 was larger than i thought, well made...plumbed everything in and connected directly to skimmer

 

took roughly 200ml of the biopellets..gonna go slow this time...and soaked in ro water..

 

ill add them in tomorrow...

[javelin911]

Definitely start slow, maybe even slower than you think is wise then slowly up the amount.

I thought I went light the first time I used them but it still caused issued for me.

 

Good luck!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Der ABT]

Don't add them straight away ...run them in a 5g bucket with a heater add some mb7 or bacteria of your choice and let it go until it turns the water milky aka algae bloom. Then throe it in the tank....get them seeded this way

[Fishie]

[Fishie]

Don't add them straight away ...run them in a 5g bucket with a heater add some mb7 or bacteria of your choice and let it go until it turns the water milky aka algae bloom. Then throe it in the tank....get them seeded this way

uhhh wish i read this before i soaked them overnight and threw in...maybe ill do this for few of them when i add next time?

 

i do dose with prodibio...so should i just dump prodibio in the media outlet next time ?

[Fishie]

i took the reactor FR-45 outlet and instead of dropping it over with the fixed PVC they had into the sump...i ran flexible pvc pipe (black) to the skimmer pump ...which you can see in the 2nd pic ..its at the bottom of the sump...black PVC pipe from reactor outlet goes to elbow connected to T -PVC which has the straight end direct to the skimmer pump and one end open for normal sump water to enter

 

my return pump feeds the reactor itself..which is the 2nd pic big blue knob ...i adjusted it so they are all moving and not having mayhem in there

Edited August 5, 2014 by Fishie

[s2nhle]

Thank you for sharing. Any update?

[davelin315]

uhhh wish i read this before i soaked them overnight and threw in...maybe ill do this for few of them when i add next time?

 

i do dose with prodibio...so should i just dump prodibio in the media outlet next time ?

It takes a lot longer to seed them in the tank than in a bucket as you are not concentrating the bacteria in the tank but depending on what flows through to colonize.  When you run it in a bucket the bacteria is very concentrated and will start to colonize the beads quicker and then will start to move off into the water.  It took about 2-3 days in the bucket when I added biopellets for it to turn cloudy but then when I added it onto my system it never got cloudy again.  The biopellets are dissolving, but not very quickly.

[Fishie]

I added couple vials of prodibio directly through the media port , turned off skimmer, uv for a day ...

 

so far they are just churning nothing happing yet...I think it will be 2 weeks or so before anything starts to happen

[Sharkey18]

Best bet is probably to be patient anyhow. 

[zygote2k]

I use BP reactors on 5 different tanks including my own. When initially seeded in the bucket, they work quicker but I'm seeing times of 2-4 months before they start to reduce N03 quickly. I usually put 1/2kg in small reactors and a full kilo in a large one.

[Fishie]

i noticed my flow starting to reduce in the reactor...it was the sponge on the top of it that starts to clog reducing flow...

 

so i am thinking of remove the sponge...and then attaching a filter sock at the end of the pipe leading to the skimmer side..this way i can easily remove anything large that goes through and i don't limit my flow at all...

 

its also easy to clean the pipe/filter sock ...than opening the reactor and cleaning the foam pad

 

 

still nothing happening with the pellets...just being patient with it...don't expect anything until maybe 2 weeks later

[Fishie]

don't see anything happening just yet...so i am adding another 250ml of biopellets...should put me close to 500ml

 

recommendation is 1000ml for 200gal water volume... 

[s2nhle]

Tagging along. Thank you for keeping us update.

[Fishie]

after about 5 months now of running biopellets I am not seeing anything that would indicate it is having a large impact for the good on my system.

 

I did see such results much quicker when I tried vinegar and vodka...so I am now trying a hybrid solution

 

the theory is that with my biopellets established the addition of vodka provides more place for the beneficial bacteria to grow in the reactor ..

 

I have started with just 1ml per day of vodka

 

I am not using any vinegar this time...only vodka

 

as for coral growth everything is growing well...but not all are coloring up well.

 

here is a list for SPS

 

good growth and good color - setosa, rommels watermelon, red planet, ora pearlberry, tyree TDF, JF psunami, Red Dragon, gard bonsai, Oregon Tort, Purple Monster

 

good growth and Poor color - pink lemonade more brownish, Shock Tart should be dark green/purple and red but is all pale green currently , cc needle in a haystack light pinkish atm,

ultimate rainbow light purple/brown

 

i have a strawberry shortcake that at times shows good color /growth then flips to the reverse so haven't locked that down yet.

 

most of all i think they need stability which with all my experimenting im not sure i have provided...although its getting there and i don't expect to be making any more drastic changes.

KH 8.5 ( working on lowering this to around 7)

CA 420

MG 1370

[Sharkey18]

Interesting to see if the addition of vodka helps. Any change in your readings? 

[zygote2k]

all corals will not always be full of color depending on what other corals are present.