3reef Community Bio Pellet Review

I'm hoping someone else has the answer, at this time I'm not sure whats happening to them.

 

Everything I've every heard is they like higher nutrient water-don't hold me to it.It would kinda make sense if your nitrates are dropping.

 

I have read multiple threads where people start running pellets and once they start to kick in, some corals seem to suffer. It doesn't seem to be any particular kind. Its anything from softies to sps. I think it may just have to do with your parameters changing as a whole. The whole system changes, and even when its for the better, that doesn't mean that all corals will acclimate to the change so well. Anything from the water becoming cleaner and clearer that the lights start to bleach corals, to softies not adjusting the lack of nutrients. I really think that the pellets out compete for the nutrients initially, and then things seem to settle down and the corals adjust.

sent from chris using my unsmart phone

 

that makes sense dowtish

 

Tank size 46gal

Filtration skimmer, canister filter with filter pads and light carbon, about 50lbs of live rock and 40lbs of live sand, and a TLF phosban reactor modded to use biopellets.

Lighting 2x39w T5s

Water peramiters
Sg 1.025
pH 8.1
Nitrate/nitrite 0
Dkh 10? (don't remember from the last test)
Cal was near 440
Temp 78 - 80 house gets warm

Livestock
1 false perc clown
3 firefish
1 merry Christmas wrasse
2 dalmation mollys
Handful of dwarf blue leg hermits
Handful of nassarius snails
Handful of cerith snails
Block party of feather dusters

Corals
Frogspawn
Unknown mushroom
Jasmin polyps
Giant palmtree coral

Feeding
Flakes mostly, on Mondays frozen brineshrimp, the ocasional gel packet of omnivore or cyclopeese from instant ocean.

Addatives freshwater

Brand of BPs being used
TLF NPX bioplastics

How much BP being used
Currently 100ml

Reactor brand
Modified TLF phosban reactor

How long reactor in use
1.5 months? I forget when I put it in

Reason for use?
Has super bad case of cyano bacteria and couldn't stop it

Spin an epic yarn of you BP adventures
My tank was going good untill I had a cyano outbreak at first it wasn't bad but then it covered the whole substrate of the tank I couldn't take this so I attempted several chwmical free approaches from just siphoning it out to several water changes. After some time my fiancé asked what would fix it and I said a reactor or an Algae turff scrubber well she pointed out we didn't have room for an ats so I got the reactor after about 4 weeks I noticed the cyano was becomning thinner no longer a thick mat of red gunk on my sand and as of a few days ago all my cyano is gone. I'm planning on upping my pellets to 200ml of pellets to keep it all away as I do have a slight GHA growth somehow? But after a quick dusting of the rocks with a tooth brush the gha is mostly gone. I have to say that reading from several tests on this site on how others get rid of unsightly algae drew me to bio plastics like a moth to the flame. Coraline is growing all over the back of my tank as I don't let it grow on the front or sides.

 

Goniopora almost always starve to death. People used to think they were an easy coral to keep, but latter, when they actually figured out how to keep corals alive, realized that the gonioporas aren't easy, instead, they just die really slow. Then the hobby went through a phase when pretty much no one believed goniopora could be kept long term.

Now, they have come back some, with the ora goniopora amd the realization that certain specimens are more adaptable to aquarium life. Generally though, they still are quite difficult. Need a lot of food and they are another coral typically not associated with super low nutrient, sterile systems. So, the decline could be coincidental, or could be related to reduced nutrients.

Feature Article: The Successful Aquarium Culture of Goniopora Species — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

The Care and Propagation of Goniopora by Justin Credabel - Reefkeeping.com

 

three of the goniopora's are propagated. my gonioporas where doing well before this , they where swelled and happy. i still over feed my tank, they should be getting food threw that. I'm hoping they will perk back up. i moved them out from under the light where they were and some color has come back, but still don't look as they did. if other corals start to stress I'm going to cut the bio pellets out

 

After running the reef octo for a few days I am very pleased with it. It takes very litle flow to keep the pellets moving properly. On my old modified MR1 reactor, I had to have the valve going to the reactor open and the valve going to my tank partially closed. I now have the valve going to the tank all the way open and the valve going to the Reef Octo reactor barely open. I would recommend this reactor to others over the modified media reactors. It also seems to have a check valve on the output to prevent back siphoning due to placement and, for people like me who hooked the pump up incorrectly by accident, pumping pellets back in to the tank.

 

I've noticed that some people say that pellets will cause corals to have issues, and that it's due to them out competing for the nutrients which would make the tank nutrient deficient, but the effluent that comes out of the reactor is a source of food as well yes you need to export a portion of this with a skimmer but it's still a type of nutrient. In my case I dont run my skimmer 100% because i have this fear it's going to just up and overflow (which it had and luckily I was there to catch it The strangest thing it was going good then suddenly just started belching water in to the collection cup, something in the water viscosity must have changed. Either way If the goniopora need more nutrients why not kill the skimmer for several hours every other day or so?

 

Yesteday I noticed my pellets were not tumbling very much. I took my reactor apart and noticed that the screens were clogged up. Have since added a prefilter to my MJ1200. So far I love this BRS reactor. Its very easy to work with and the heavy duty materials its made from seem to be bullet proof.
Do the bacteria die if they are removed from the water?