Np Bio Pellets

[DarrenUnwin]

I started using Bio pellets a few months ago when I was having trouble keeping my nitrates low although my corals didn't seem to suffer too much at the time - mainly softies, kenyan tree, cabbage, sun plus a torch and hammer coral.

The pellets have worked well and my nitrates have come down to near zero and my zoos and rics are looking superb but the hammer and torch have closed up for weeks now and I'm getting concerned and confused.

Can anyone shed any light as to why this might be happening, I don't want to loose the corals but cant understand why they aren't thriving in water which is much better than before.

Has anyone experienced this with the pellets.

Many thanks

 

[seffieuk]

There are only a couple of people on here currently using them, one of them is Morri, PM him as he isn't on here as often as I would like

However, can you tell us all your stats please, including phosphate, where the corals are placed in relation to powerheads and if anything has died recently in your tank?

Seffie x

 

[DarrenUnwin]

There are only a couple of people on here currently using them, one of them is Morri, PM him as he isn't on here as often as I would like

However, can you tell us all your stats please, including phosphate, where the corals are placed in relation to powerheads and if anything has died recently in your tank?

Seffie x

Hi Seffie,

Just at work at the moment

, I will re test tonight and post results and will also try and post a picture of the coral (if I can remember how to use photbucket).

Darren

 

[DarrenUnwin]

Hi

Parameters as follows,

Nitrite 0
Nitrate < 5
Phosphate < 0.25
Alk approx 150 mg/L

Hopefully this picture will show the coral

 

[john.o]

alk= 150.0 x 0.056 = 8.4 dkH

ummm what test kit do you use, {my API was 9dkh and my salifert 6.4 dkh {do you buffer}
I must admit I was expecting this to be low as the bacteria on the pellets consume it really fast and with the extra bacteria your skimmer should be going nuts pulling out tones of crud and again in tern also pulling down your KH

I have been running these for some time now with some success.
I found that at the begging they would not kick in and do any think for me so after a lot of research and experimenting, I found that with the boost of bacteria growing on the pellets my KH was dropping faster than what my regular water changes could keep up with . And as a result when the KH dropped my skimmer would almost completely stop pulling out any crud . Then as a result of this my No3 and Po4 would start to creep up again . Once the KH had been buffer the skimmer would kick back in and the pellets would then go through that cloudy tank thing again and then the parameters would drop,

So in conclusion when using pellets I would strongly recommend keeping a close eye on KH cal and mag...
Hope this is of some help john,o


http/www.tanktests.co.uk/index.php?target=products&product_id=15

 

[DarrenUnwin]

Hi John,

Thanks for the note, I have noticed the cloudy effect when I first started the pellets and more recently the NO3 has crept back up a bit from zero. The test kit i'm using is a Nutrafin so I'm not too sure is is highly accurate for the KH reading

I add a KH buffer every couple of day so may try to dose a little more often and see how that goes. The pellets certainly work, form the sound of it you have to balance them a bit and I will invest in a Salifert test kit.

Many tanks

Darren

 

[john.o]

Yep like I say I truly believe the secret to getting these to work is having a well balanced tank…

TLF reactor and 350ml NP bio pellets

And strong over skimming... BM150 pro

As for test kits I always use salifert for their reliability {elso are also very good but ££ }

 

[seffieuk]

Really interesting read John - I wonder if you could copy and paste the info into the Hardware of the month thread for Reactors?

Seffie x

 

[ben1987]

could be down to shock aswel if water params have changed quickly since you started using them

 

[DarrenUnwin]

Hi All,

I have just purchased a Slifert test kit for KH and nitrates and will do a check when I get in tonight.

I now have the pellets setup in the same manner as Johns pictures, unfortunately I dont have room for a sump, so on the advice of the shop where I bought the pellets I put them in my canister filter - bad mistake as it filled the cannister with horrible slime, so I bought a little fishes 150 reactor and run it in the same way as you have, obviously there wasnt enough movement in the pellets. So anyone else please only use in a reactor as the slime is pretty awful

I'm just wondering if too much bateria entered the system as ben says, when I moved to the the reactor method although I did wash the pellets thoroughly to get the slime off them. This was about 3 weeks ago and they seem to be tumbling aorund the reactor fine now.

Either way I'll take the tests tonight and post the results. All this to one side, I do have to say they seem to work fine in the nitrate reducing bit though - unless that test kit is wrong as well.

Thanks all,

 

[john.o]

The slime/snot is all part of the process m8t

It’s basically the bacteria clinging to the DOC and as it leaves the reactor you want the out let tube as near to the skimmer volute as possible so that it can skimmed off the DOC

 

[DarrenUnwin]

Hi all,

Tested this morning and Nitrates were between 2ppm and 5 ppm and interestingly the KH was 10.9 dkh. According to the instruction sheet natural sea water being 7-8 dkh it looks as if I might have been burning the corals.

I tested with my old one and it said it was with the ok range, so it looks as if I have been maintaining a too high KH value. I will get a water change done as soon as possible.

Also I'm going to invest in replacing my other tests with Salifert.

Many thanks

 

[-Nemo-]

A dKH of 10.9 is not very high... I have seen recommendations of maintaining it between 8-12 and infact mine has been consistently at 12 for weeks now. I don't think that's a problem for your corals.

Regardless, are your corals looking any better?

 

[DarrenUnwin]

Hi nemo

The corals does look better, still bloated but the individual hammers seem to be more visible. My Duncan and Ric are also more extended. I'm also doing the water change today but I'm in too minds as to whether to reduce the amount of pellets at the same time.

I started to use the pellets as I think I was suffering from old tank syndrome especially as I've had the tank setup for nearly 5 years now and was struggling with keeping my nitrates down. The pellets have certainly helped here so as per Johno's earlier post I may try to balance the tank params versus the pellets. Also In Johno's picture (whilst we using the same reactor) he seems to be using less pellets than me.

Perhaps the ideal position is not to have zero nitrate but to keep a balance of say 5ppm?

Thanks for all the posts.

PS Great news to see the breeding is back on track, we've missed reading about mr and mrs nemo egg laying antics for a while - ever though of becoming a consult to TMC