My Warner Marine EcoBAK journey.

Tumbling

That was exactly what was happening, I went and got the Disc's and replaced the foam and now it is all moving and no channeling plus i was able to turn the flow down to about 2/3's open. Thanks for the reply and i think i have it right now. So all i do is wait and see what happens, I will not do any other changes until the three week break in period is up and try and see just what changes are taking place.8)
Hope this is the magic bullit that i've been waiting for on PO4 control without dosing every day as i have become the ultimate lazy reefer:
Thanks again
Bill;D

 

IDK. Seems if it is to be fluidized then it needs to keep moving to keep flow through it. A bag of pellets still seems to be a solid carbon source to me. I would suspect it would be fine, but witht he NP pellets they seem to think in is important to skim the effluent.... so I assume the media chamber is on the out put after the skimmer section. Give it a whirl and let us know.

 

Powerman, should i be running the out side of the reactor into my skimmer section? as it is now it goes into my fuge section. Or does it not matter with Eco-bak?
Bill

 

Jon at WM does not feel so. He is a pretty reasonable guy. Seems it is a big deal with other pellets. I do have my effluent going to the skimmer section, but didn't make a big deal out of getting it in the skimmer suction.

But just so you know..... the bacteria consume the carbon and take up NO3 and PO4 as they grow and multiply. If that is all we did....we would not be getting rid of anything. The skimmer is the export of those nutrients by taking them out of the water. So the skimmer is important for export and if you feel it necessary to direct the effluent into the skimmer then so be it. I just figure my skimmer does a good job as it is and I have noticed a bit of change to my skimmate.

 

Well one interesting development...

For a while I had some white type stuff on the glass in my sump... then noticed it in the tank under all the rocks. I asked for an ID but nothing really solid.... some said sponge... I thought it was bacteria..??? Don't really know.



Well all that is gone now. I mean gone. Can't find a thread of it anywhere. Now I don't know what it is, but it has been around for a while, and it's gone now.

Everything else is good now. Same as before. No slime on the pellets. Very gentle tumble. No clumping or channeling.

 

i was reading somewhere that biopelets release a polymer for a little while that can cause cyano growth. any cyano growth?

 

None that I attribute to the pellets.

One of the main points of pellets is that they are inert in salt water, and are only broke down by bacteria. Keeping the carbon in a reactor instead of dosing a whole tank is a huge benefit over liquid carbon.

If pellets do indeed break down in salt water that is a big deal. I do not think these do. I do have some cyano, but I attribute it to other stuff I added to my tank.

Now if polymer breaks off the pellets while bacteria break it down and it makes it to the tank, I don't suppose that is a big deal or anything that can be done about it. Meaning it is probably safe to assume less than 100% of the polymer is consumed 100% on the pellet surface and that zero amout leaves the pellet surface.

 

Thought I would dig this up and see how its been working up to this point since its been a while..when I was going through this again I noticed a pic of the white stuff,it was bacteria.I only know this cause I had the same outbreak caused by a seachem product I was dosing and the seachem help ID it as bacteria..but anywho hows it been working for ya...

 

Bump...

 

I broke my tank down and the pellets went to a local. Unfortunately, I did not have them long term. They ran for about 3 months. My PO4 levels were lower with the pellets than when I ran GFO. Overall I was very happy with what I saw for as long as I ran them. Would have been nice to see them long term.