GFO, carbon and pellets, Oh my

[Fishdad1]

After quite a bit of research on running all or combinations of the three I decided to go ahead and run them all. My plan was that if I experienced any ill-affects I would stop running one at a time to pin point the source of whatever was happening. Its been two months now and no obvious detriments. I've yet to experience cyano or hair algae. The only coincidental blooms I noticed are bubble algae which I believe to be unrelated and dinoflagellets. The dinos I am suspicious of, however one of my lfs that had bought coral from has experienced an unsightly dino outbreak as well. My current dino situation is minimal. A stalemate I would call it. They're not getting worse and not going away. I just turkey baste them away once a day.

So back to Carbon, GFO and Pellets... I like running all three. The tank looks clean, clear and free of odors and I rarely have to clean the glass. One concern is having "too clean" water but I'm getting good coral growth.

Anyway I would like to hear what you guys have to say about running all three. Experiences? Good? Bad?

 

[reefle]

This is a good thread. I'm only using carbon, so I would like to see what others say.

also can you specify the significance of biopellets. all I seem to get is that it just breeds nitrate consuming bacteria? Doesn't that naturally occur with live rock and a dsb?

 

[Choff]

I loved running this combo. My tank was very clean, but like you was worried it was to clean. I wasnt even cleaning algae off the front glass. My growth wasnt outstanding either. I ended up stopping because I wanted to switch to chat to because I was having difficulty maintaining low alk which is a must for pellets. I lost a few sticks to RTN.

...stupid auto correct

 

[Fishdad1]

Bio pellets to the best of my knowledge are a form of plasticized carbon. They attract anaerobic, breed it, harbor it, which consumes nitrates at a rapid rate. Then through the tumbling process shed the layers of bacteria just to start the process over again. If you have your tumbler tied directly into a skimmer then the loosened bacteria will be immediately skimmed out.

I'm a fan. I had nitrates of 40ppm. Then I started bio pellets and in a week they went to zero. Haven't seen them since.

Now one thing I have noticed that I forgot to mention in the OP is that since adding carbon to GFO and pellets, My skimmer produces very little skimmate. In fact I now have to run it fairly wet to pull anything from it. That's a bit annoying because then then takes a little extra attention to maintain desired salinity.

 

[Fishdad1]

I didn't know about low alk for pellets. What do you consider low? Mine w/o any effort on my part is a steady 2.5meq, or 7dkh - same as the ocean.

 

[PSU4ME]

I'm a fan. I had nitrates of 40ppm. Then I started bio pellets and in a week they went to zero. Haven't seen them since.

Usually, biopellets take anywhere from 4-6 weeks until they start working as you need to give the bacteria time to colonize. Using this method, you can get great results but you also need to know what you're doing. As Fishdad mentioned, you MUST put the reactor output into the skimmer to pull out the bacteria waste. Another must is a low alk measurement, something in the 8dkh range to avoid the issues Mike mentioned above.

What will biopellets do for you? Well going after phates and trates, they will get them very low. This will give you better water quality and better light penetration. This will also allow you to feed more which can allow you some flexibility in foods and fish and corals......you also need to feed the bacteria so don't forget about them (they need trates and phates to keep going). You can also carry a higher bioload with the use of a bp reactor for the reasons mentioned above.

I think a big key and a reason for some bad experiences is the low alk level. It isn't "easy" to keep low alk levels unless you have quality salt and a good working knowledge of a ca reactor. 8dkh is the target but much lower (below 7) is a danger zone and higher you risk RTN. I use salinity salt which is very consistent in the 8dkh range and I'll use my ca reactor to hold it there between changes. I plan to start this weekend when the order comes in. I purchased ecobak pellets and an ehiem 3000 compact to go with the SRO BP 110 reactor I already had.

It would be great if we all shared our experiences.....maybe after a while we can write a sticky on its purpose, setup and results.

 

[ziggy]

Then I started bio pellets and in a week they went to zero. Haven't seen them since.

.

Curious if you notices any uptick or traces in cyano when your nitrates droped to 0?

 

[Choff]

Now that I am setting up a CA reactor and expect my levels to be more stable I plan on setting my reactor back up.

...stupid auto correct

 

[Fishdad1]

Curious if you notices any uptick or traces in cyano when your nitrates droped to 0?

None. I have yet to experience cyano in this tank.

PSU4ME, like you said, I was told that it would take a few weeks for the bio pellets to take effect. I have no idea why they established themselves in a week, but they did. Unless my nitrates dropped for another reason. I use Red Sea Coral Pro salt and I suppose I owe a steady alk to it. Now what are the negative consequences of low alk with bio pellets?

 

[PSU4ME]

From what I read, the consequence is burnt out tips (not a good place for that to happen) and that is most common in ULNS systems. The thing is, biopellets help you achieve an ULNS so they are "linked" but there isn't a direct correlation between adding bio pellets and burnt out tips.....just something to watch out for. I believe thats why they suggest keeping the alk low as higher alk would encourage it to happen more often.

 

[Fishdad1]

Now what about using all three together... would that essentially achieve an ULNS?

 

[Mischko]

Feeding the bacteria with Nitrate and Phosphate while runing a pellet filter wouldn't be a wise idea. The point of a pellet filter is to provide denitrification bacteria a Carbon source, similiar to Vodka, NoPoX, vinegar and the like. Good bio-pellets are made from high quality carbon polymers as a settlement area. Due to the relatively high amount of pellets in a relatively small volume they are able to provide a very large surface for bacteria to settle on. Similiar to a good structured and poriferous life rock. Now being in a steady flow of tank water along with a huge surface of settling bacteria this system is able to lower Nitrate very well. The point is to get the fixated Nitrate and Phosphate in the bacteria out off your tank. This is achieved by the tumbling of the pellets and by this rubbing off some amounts of the bacteria film from the pellets. As mentioned before, the outlet of the pellet filter has to point out towards the intake of the skimmer in the system.
One note now, a pellet filter sure won't harbour anaerob bacteria for denitrification, unless your tank water is oxygen free ;-)
Usually it will take some weeks until the pellets are settled with the wanted bacteria, so I am abit buzzled with Fishdad1's pellets kicking in like a week later. Don't get me wrong here now, mate, but I highly doubt that now, not the fact your Nitrate dropped so fast though.
You have to be careful using a pellet filter. Most think, cool, a fire and forget system. I will add twice the recommended amount of pellets and I get some nice low nutrition levels in my water after a few weeks. That can terrible backfire on you. Depending on the growth rate and your nutrition levels in your tank the bacteria at one point can grow so fast that they, figuratively, basically over night suck all Nitrate out. This can be a shock for corals being used to higher nitrate levels so far.
The best is to use half the recommended amount of pellets, make sure they have a good movement/tumbling in the reactor, it should be a smooth steady flow, not like in a hurricane ;-) After some weeks, usually 4 -6 weeks, you will notice a slow drop in Nitrate, not so much on Phosphate though. At one point you will have balance with the Nitrate being taken out and being reproduced by your tank. Then it is time to decide if you need/want to go lower by adding more pellets to your reactor or not. But always keep an eye on your Phosphate level, too. It has to match your Nitrate level.
Depending on what corals you keep in your tank, the rubbed-off bacteria film can also be a good source of coral food. Some use a valve to redirect the pellet filter outlet from the skimmer to the return pump directly for some time. This can be quite handy for corals like Gorgonians filtering very small sized plankton, even for Acans. With a good skimmer the rest of the bacteria will get skimmed out quite fast, too.

 

[PSU4ME]

All great points above. Contrary to what I said, the pellets do feed the bacteria but I was thinking about the balance between Nitrate and Phosphate removal. SteveD13 from RS had an issue with this in his biopellet adventure and it wasn't until he dosed his tank with "flourish" (cringe) that the reduction starting taking place.

Always starting out with half the recommend dose is great advice so that you can control the reduction. While we all hate trates and phates, it is the coral's environment and while they can inhibit some things, the corals rely on the stability of that environment so disrupting that in a quick manner is something we should avoid.

 

[Fishdad1]

Feeding the bacteria with Nitrate and Phosphate while runing a pellet filter wouldn't be a wise idea.

I'm a little confused by what you mean here. Do you mean adding sources for nitrate and phos to ensure you don't create a nutrient free environment? I agree if that's what you mean. It defeats the purpose of running in in the first place.

You mentioned to make sure that phos and nitrate match. That would lead me to believe that bio pellets should be run in conjunction with GFO, since pellets consume nitrate faster than phos.

So if GFO and pellets can be used synergistically, does that leave any room for carbon to bring us any logical benefit?

 

[whippetguy]

I use biopellet reactors in both my tanks along with Chemipure Elite. It seems to be working well for me. I think the feeding of my pellets is me feeding the tank generously on occasion. Neither of my tanks are sps dominant, so I can't address the RTN or burnt tip issue with any expertise.

 

[Mischko]

LOL there might be a missunderstanding here now. I was referring to PSU4ME:

... you also need to feed the bacteria so don't forget about them (they need trates and phates to keep going).

I was taking this as like, when you use a pellet filter you need to ADD Nitrate and Phosphate to your tank, where he obviously meant, you need to HAVE Nitrate and Phosphate in your water for the bacteria to grow on the pellets.

I don't know if you read my posts already about the Cyano problem here. There I was trying to, hopefully understandable, explain abit about the ratio of Nitrate and Phosphate. And how that imbalance of the two values can cause Cyanos.

You always have to keep in mind how things are related to eachother. Nitrate in our hobby is basically used as a source for growth/mass/volume, Phosphate basically is used to reproduce the DNS in a cell. So you see, that the amount of Phosphate being used compared to Nitrate will always be on a much lower level.

Now let's assume you have a Nitrate level of e. g. 10 mg/l and let's assume further, you have really a zero level of Phosphate. And I mean chemicalwise, none, nada. Now how could cell reproduction take place? It wouldn't though all other elements are present.

Now, you already have a very low Phosphate level and you add a pellet filter to your system. Phosphate is already low for the bacteria to properly reproduce to get the Nitrate level down and now you add a GFO to your system reducing the Phosphate even more. Get the idea?

For this you have to be careful how you reduce Phosphate with GFO in a system, be it with or without a pellet filter, or any filter. If you use so much GFO in a system that it is reducing the amount of Phosphate to really almost to complete zero, you will have a problem as with a Phosphate level way too high.

You take a water sample from any ocean, any place, the ratio of Carbon, Ntirogen and Phosphate in phytoplankton will always be 106:16:1. Now look at the natural nutrients level in oceans. They do vary from 0,01 - 0,5 mg/L for Nitrate and 0,001 und 0,1 mg/L for Phosphate depending on location. Take the average lowest Phosphate level of 0,001 and multiply with 16 and you get about 0,016 Nitrate. As you can see, you have to keep a certain ratio/balance between the N and P. Using GFO then depends on the starting level of P to lower it to a level it matches the N. Now then it shouldn't matter if both levels are high as long as they match the ratio. When you now add a pellet filter, then the filter should be able to reduce N and P in the same ratio over time.

For using carbon along with GFO and a pellet filter? There are so many views and opinions on using carbon and its effects that I honestly don't have a real opinion on it. It sure does reduce the amount of ammino acids and vitamines in water due to be chemicaly high reactive. Using constantly ozon with your skimmer it helps reducing the reaction with ozon and Iodine in water which is carcinogen.

Hope my babbling here made somehow sense now ;-)

 

[Fishdad1]

Real good info. So you are ok with gfo and pellets, so long as you can maintain that 16:1 ratio? That makes sense.

My guess would be that if you till have to scrape the glass every so often you have at least a minimal amount of phosphate that would be enough for cell reproduction.