A Pellet Survey

[Europhyllia]

Chris I am sure one could ease up on feeding. But I don't want to. lol
In fact I think we barely mimic what's available in the ocean and I'd love to be able to add some Swiftia gorgonians and keep my filter feeders alive and even growing. I might even add an automatic refrigerated food line to my set up.
Part of my reasoning was that the bacteria might feed the gorgonians, etc. but I did see no evidence of that. In fact the bacteria might have eaten more of my expensive FM food than the gorgos! lol
They all seem to do much better now without the bacteria bloom.
And I just started investigating other options for reducing N&P and am finding that there are very good alternatives for that available.
So why limit myself in what I can do and what kind of critters I can keep in my tank just to stick with the pellets, kwim?
I always like to continue to learn and try different things and optimize my tanks for the benefits of the specific critters I keep.

[Big_Pun]

coreydude is going a diff route to remove n&p. maybe he will chime in, I can't remember the method

[Europhyllia]

Hiatt? I am not moving to another bacterial method. I think I would prefer pellets over Hiatt (which is why I chose pellets over Hiatt. lol)

I am pretty encouraged with what I see with my N&P results in my other thread. I think I will pursue that route for now.

[Big_Pun]

no don't think it was hiatt something to do with sulfur i believe

[Europhyllia]

A sulfur denitrator? That's been around for a long time. See there are so many options for reducing N&P. Lots of different approaches may yield the results we are looking for.
After going through over 200 dollars worth of pellets I also like the idea of using a regeneratable media like the one I described in my other thread. Not spending so much money will be nice! And dropping 35 ppm in N in 48 hours - I think that's pretty good

[Europhyllia]

and I am not dissing the pellets. Like I said: lots of ways to reduce N&P and depending on your system, your expectations, your budget, etc. one may be better for you than for somebody else. It's all good.

[txg8gxp]

My review

With so many on board now in regards to pellets (aka solid vodka dosing) I thought it would be interesting to do a survey (for pellet users only)

1. What result do you hope the pellets will help you achieve? Low Nutrient System
2. What results have the pellets achieved so far? Has worked great for Low Nutrients, water is always crystal clear and SPS is loving it
3. How long have you been running pellets? 6 months or so
4. Have you noticed any other positive side effects? ULNS, Great sps color and PE
5. Have you noticed any other negative side effects? Not that I can tell
6. Did you anticipate everything that happened presumably due to the solid vodka dosing method? Yes, This is my only filtration method and it's working great for me
7. Will you continue to use this method in its original form? Yes
8. Will you continue to use this method in a modified form? No mods
9. What brand(s) have you been or are you using? NP biopellets
10. Any thoughts/comments you'd like to add I will stick with it, this system may take some work if you system does need some nitrates/etc. but for any sps system I think it's the most simple way to maintain a ULNS.

Thanks!