My Warner Marine EcoBAK journey.

This is one of the reasons I do not like DSBs for Nitrate reduction. If you lose power, those bacteria don't stop respiration. The DO drops very quickly unless you have battery powered air pumps.

I'm not sure this is a problem with these pellets. If power goes off, close the ball valve on the reactor to effectively remove the bacteria from your system. If using it in a bag, just remove the bag. One can't simply remove a sandbed if the power goes out.

 

My PO4 is at .008 right now... when my GFO is out it is .015.

My NO3 is consistently < .5

I have never had a problem with NO3 and do not expect that to really drop. I do expect less film algae on the glass and maybe my cheato might start dying off.

Once it settles in a couple of weeks and I can see some sort of positive result I will start feeding more.

I was dosing snow. Aminos and Rotti/oyster feast and broke out with cyano. True success for me wil lbe feeding more and no problems.

 

There is a least some history on those and good results. I was going to try them till this came around.

There was a bad batch that hit the Asia market, but I'm pretty sure that has all been resolved.

 

wouldn't that not be a problem if it was a remote DSB? or if the reactor was in your sump :-/ anyways just curious

 

That's a big advantage of remote DSB's or one of Anthony Calfo's DSB in a bucket. If power goes out water stops running through the area where all the bacteria are.

 

Notice any changes yet?

 

So far... not much. My cyano is back, don't really know if it is related. Cyano is associated with sugar dosing, but not so much with pellets.

The pellets semms to be sticking together more. Clumping up. Easy enough to break them up in my BRS reactor. Just turn flow off and on. Can't really say that is good or bad. Seems an unknown if these are supposed to be tumbbled. WM says not really. So we will keep going. WM says 3-4 weeks before things take effect.

 

Cool. I picked up a Phosban 550 reactor to run mine in, will leave space on top and bottom for them to tumble a bit. Will probably use a MaxiJet 1200 for pump. I thought these pellets were not supposed to cause cyano at all, so it's probably not related.

 

The thinking goes the pellets do not breakdown, and the carbon is released by the bacteria eating them. However, I can imagine some carbon being released to the water by the bacterisa breaking them down. In other pellets it is inconclusive what is causing the few cyano problems. A single problem, a combination, or something unrelated.

I got impatient and wanted to feed a bit extra. I have dosed snow a couple of times, and used more cyclopeze lately. So I decided no more extras until 3-4 weeks and then see what extra food does. Obviously if the cyano persists with no extra food....

The cyano is really bugging me because I never had it till recently and it is irritating as heck. But my bloom started before I started running the pellets, so inconclusive at this point.

 

Ditto with a reactor feeding into a sump. If the power goes out the fish won;t be effected by the reactor