This is one of the newest methods of carbon dosing a marine aquarium. I've only been testing them for about 6 weeks, and have learned quite a bit about them. I've been using the VERTEX Pro-Bio Pellets, which are made of 100% PHA polymer. They are essentially the same as any other biopellet, having an extruded shape of a small cylinder, typical for extrusion plastics designed for the industry.
When first using pellets, it is suggested to soak them for a day or two in osmose water. I can confirm that this is the best start. I tried using them direct, to see what would happen and they tend to float to the surface of the fluidising reactor. Typically, they give of, quite slowly, air bubbles, which make them bouyant until saturated with water. In retrospect, it may be a good idea to soak them in the reactor with tank water, letting them stand for 24-48 hours before turning the reactor pump on.
Water flow is critical to their proper function. They need to be kept in constant, gentle motion in the reactor body. I have found that, in a 2 litre capacity reactor, a maximum of 1.5 litres pellets should be used, with a flow of 1000-1500 litres per hour flow. This will keep the pellets in constant motion, which assures that they will harbour only aerobic bacteria. Should part of the pellets just sit at the top of the column, they will tend to become anaerobic or, perhaps better said, minimally aerobic, even though there must be a minimum of water flowing through them, it is the agitation that promotes the aerobic condition.
My tank is a long established 900 litre system previously run with ZeoStart3, glacial acetic acid and/or VSV as carbon source. In order to better facilitate the changeover to pellets, I decided to continue to half dose my previous carbon sources until I was assured that the pellets were functioning. As everything was not to go as planned, I'll explain what happened.
For the first few days, I was using a 1.5l reactor from Deltec with a 1000l Eheim compact pump. The pellets did tend to clump a bit at the top and I never really got the kind of aggitation I wanted. As I had no other pump at the time, I let things just run for 2 weeks to see what would happen. In short, the pellets didn't seem to really kick in. Those in good motion slowly paled, while the clumped ones becam a darker beige. Not truly dark, mind you, but enough of a colour difference to clearly see. The aquarium water did not get cloudy, as expected from a bacterial bloom. Although I was dosing carbon from previous sources, the PO4 level was slowly rising and stabilized at about 0.06 to 0.09, which is doable, but far from optimum.
I decide that the reactor was too small and that the pump was probably too weak. I got a Vertex-20 fluidized reactor (universal filter) and a new 1000l Eheim pump. In the new reactor I placed a total of 2 litres pellets. I ran the reactor for 48 hours, but the entire amount of pellets couldn't be kept in motion. Interesting to not, the new Eheim was much stronger than the older, identical model, and this was not because the older was dirty (yes, I cleaned it!). Either they loose strength over the years, or are simply not all equal.
This wasn't really working, so I took out about 0.5l of the pellets to see and, voila, the pellets moved in a wonderful cascade of pearly white. Looked like I had solved the technical side. The pellets were in constant, gently mostion, moving the entireway up the chamber and cascading down again. By the way, pellets will tend to rise on one side and fall on the other of the reactor. This is fine, as long as all pellets are in motion.
I checked the PO4 as I made this change and it had reached a scary level of 0.15ppm. Well, let's see what happens. I stopped dosing other carbon source in anticipation of a full funtioning reactor.
48 hours later, I woke up to a tank with slightly milky water and a skimmer chruning up white foam. Bacterial bloom! None of the tank inhabitants were stressed, so no great worries about oxygen depletion. I checked the PO4 and it had dropped to 0.01! Success. The bacteria had kicked in and done their job.
This is certainly the best method of carbon dosing I have found. You can't really OD on the stuff, as it doesn't dissolve, rather it is eaten by the bacteria in situ on the pellet surface. I have discontinued any other form of carbon dosing, but, with the nutrients so low, I am dosing daily Amino Acids and Coral Vitalizer (Korallen-Zucht) at normal dosages for the products (8-9 drops daily).
I am making fotos of the various corals, as best as I can, to document changes in the zooxanthellae and colour. I'll post fotos in the near future.
When first using pellets, it is suggested to soak them for a day or two in osmose water. I can confirm that this is the best start. I tried using them direct, to see what would happen and they tend to float to the surface of the fluidising reactor. Typically, they give of, quite slowly, air bubbles, which make them bouyant until saturated with water. In retrospect, it may be a good idea to soak them in the reactor with tank water, letting them stand for 24-48 hours before turning the reactor pump on.
Water flow is critical to their proper function. They need to be kept in constant, gentle motion in the reactor body. I have found that, in a 2 litre capacity reactor, a maximum of 1.5 litres pellets should be used, with a flow of 1000-1500 litres per hour flow. This will keep the pellets in constant motion, which assures that they will harbour only aerobic bacteria. Should part of the pellets just sit at the top of the column, they will tend to become anaerobic or, perhaps better said, minimally aerobic, even though there must be a minimum of water flowing through them, it is the agitation that promotes the aerobic condition.
My tank is a long established 900 litre system previously run with ZeoStart3, glacial acetic acid and/or VSV as carbon source. In order to better facilitate the changeover to pellets, I decided to continue to half dose my previous carbon sources until I was assured that the pellets were functioning. As everything was not to go as planned, I'll explain what happened.
For the first few days, I was using a 1.5l reactor from Deltec with a 1000l Eheim compact pump. The pellets did tend to clump a bit at the top and I never really got the kind of aggitation I wanted. As I had no other pump at the time, I let things just run for 2 weeks to see what would happen. In short, the pellets didn't seem to really kick in. Those in good motion slowly paled, while the clumped ones becam a darker beige. Not truly dark, mind you, but enough of a colour difference to clearly see. The aquarium water did not get cloudy, as expected from a bacterial bloom. Although I was dosing carbon from previous sources, the PO4 level was slowly rising and stabilized at about 0.06 to 0.09, which is doable, but far from optimum.
I decide that the reactor was too small and that the pump was probably too weak. I got a Vertex-20 fluidized reactor (universal filter) and a new 1000l Eheim pump. In the new reactor I placed a total of 2 litres pellets. I ran the reactor for 48 hours, but the entire amount of pellets couldn't be kept in motion. Interesting to not, the new Eheim was much stronger than the older, identical model, and this was not because the older was dirty (yes, I cleaned it!). Either they loose strength over the years, or are simply not all equal.
This wasn't really working, so I took out about 0.5l of the pellets to see and, voila, the pellets moved in a wonderful cascade of pearly white. Looked like I had solved the technical side. The pellets were in constant, gently mostion, moving the entireway up the chamber and cascading down again. By the way, pellets will tend to rise on one side and fall on the other of the reactor. This is fine, as long as all pellets are in motion.
I checked the PO4 as I made this change and it had reached a scary level of 0.15ppm. Well, let's see what happens. I stopped dosing other carbon source in anticipation of a full funtioning reactor.
48 hours later, I woke up to a tank with slightly milky water and a skimmer chruning up white foam. Bacterial bloom! None of the tank inhabitants were stressed, so no great worries about oxygen depletion. I checked the PO4 and it had dropped to 0.01! Success. The bacteria had kicked in and done their job.
This is certainly the best method of carbon dosing I have found. You can't really OD on the stuff, as it doesn't dissolve, rather it is eaten by the bacteria in situ on the pellet surface. I have discontinued any other form of carbon dosing, but, with the nutrients so low, I am dosing daily Amino Acids and Coral Vitalizer (Korallen-Zucht) at normal dosages for the products (8-9 drops daily).
I am making fotos of the various corals, as best as I can, to document changes in the zooxanthellae and colour. I'll post fotos in the near future.
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