Bio pellets

[chaoticreefer]

I never heard of adding nitrates to the tank. My nitrates are undetectable and at this this point surprisingly are at .06 without any phosphate removing media.

Old school this would be considered as a sin, in which is where I am from, I started the hobby in 1999 (took a 2007-2013 break). But...these days some people are open to having a nitrate level of 5ppm and some people's systems requires them dosing nitrates to keep it up. It took me a lot of soul searching for me to get over what I was taught basically all of my reefkeeping life and start dosing nitrates to play with the phosphates level though BioPellets. I have learned if one of the two is high it is because the other is low. If both are high that just means you are overstock and/or feeding too much and your export system can't keep up.

As for 3 days lights out, that's just putting a band-aid over skin cut when the same deep cut is causing internal bleeding. Cyano will be right back at it when lights are back on. You need to find the source and fix it or have a better export system in place.

 

[bif24701]

What about a three daylights out, anyone have any success with that? I'm not planning to do any dosing at this time

That could help to leverage the good bacteria, but It could come back. You will have to black it out completely. Wrap the tank up so that no light whatsoever gets in

 

[20 gallon nano]

Old school this would be considered as a sin, in which is where I am from, I started the hobby in 1999 (took a 2007-2013 break). But...these days some people are open to having a nitrate level of 5ppm and some people's systems requires them dosing nitrates to keep it up. It took me a lot of soul searching for me to get over what I was taught basically all of my reefkeeping life and start dosing nitrates to play with the phosphates level though BioPellets. I have learned if one of the two is high it is because the other is low. If both are high that just means you are overstock and/or feeding too much and your export system can't keep up.

As for 3 days lights out, that's just putting a band-aid over skin cut when the same deep cut is causing internal bleeding. Cyano will be right back at it when lights are back on. You need to find the source and fix it or have a better export system in place.

I've seen many great successful tank where there water quality parameters are all at zero.i even asked my lfs what he keeps his display tank at, he has a very nice sps tank, his nitrates and phosphates are always undetectable. I've tried the 3 days lights out and like it was mentioned, it was only a band aid, everything just came right back.

 

[20 gallon nano]

That was on a previous tank though.

 

[20 gallon nano]

That could help to leverage the good bacteria, but It could come back. You will have to black it out completely. Wrap the tank up so that no light whatsoever gets in

After the bio pellets start kicking in, wouldn't that mean the good bacteria is going to start colonizing throughout the tank and start eliminating the cyano, I would think waiting it out would be the best solution since there would be no negative effect unless it start covering my corals.

 

[bif24701]

After the bio pellets start kicking in, wouldn't that mean the good bacteria is going to start colonizing throughout the tank and start eliminating the cyano, I would think waiting it out would be the best solution since there would be no negative effect unless it start covering my corals.

Cyano is toxic so there could certainly be risk but probably equally as risky as other solutions.

 

[20 gallon nano]

Anyone have this safe issue I'm having once they started using bio pellets?

 

[bif24701]

Did the cyano get worse today?

 

[20 gallon nano]

Did the cyano get worse today?

It looks the same so far. Added 25% more bio pellets. I'm still waiting for the bio pellets to kick in. And still waiting it out with the cyano to go away.

 

[Batteredsav]

bio pellets do drop phosphates.
use only half the recommended dose and run alkalinity around 2.5 and calcium around 400 do not increase to full this will strip to much nutrients from your water column and create too much mulm blocking pipes and pump8.

 

[20 gallon nano]

bio pellets do drop phosphates.
use only half the recommended dose and run alkalinity around 2.5 and calcium around 400 do not increase to full this will strip to much nutrients from your water column and create too much mulm blocking pipes and pump8.

Yea I heard that from many people that it will strip nutriants,but also it provides good bacteria that the corals consume. I will stay with the amount I have so far and test for phosphates and nitrates in a month to see if it brought my phosphates lower, it's at .06 right now. Im running my calcium at 470, that's what my salt mix brings it up to.

 

[Schwaggs]

When I rebooted my system earlier this year I started it with bio pellets in the system. It has kept my phosphates and nitrates pinned at 0 despite generous feeding of fish. I'm to the point where the color of new corals added fades shortly after addition. Almost all my SPS frags have pale or no color. Some LPS seem to love zero nitrates and phosphates.

Should I scrap the pellets and go to vodka or remove some pellets?

 

[20 gallon nano]

When I rebooted my system earlier this year I started it with bio pellets in the system. It has kept my phosphates and nitrates pinned at 0 despite generous feeding of fish. I'm to the point where the color of new corals added fades shortly after addition. Almost all my SPS frags have pale or no color. Some LPS seem to love zero nitrates and phosphates.

Should I scrap the pellets and go to vodka or remove some pellets?

I'm wondering if adding beneficial trace elements like red seas color additive or other products would help keep corals thriving.