Are Bio Pellets Reactors Becoming Abandoned?

[allan]

no reason to give negative feedback on something you have never used.

But if you have already tried it...

Actually, Rick assures me that the poor state of my LPS is a passing thing as the Bio Pellets take on the responsibility of filtering the water column.

I am, however, chewing my nails and watching anxiously.

[Regric25]

I have had a nextreef pellet reactor for about 4 months now and I love it! My nitrates were between 40 and 80 ppm becasue I feed alot and have alot of fish. I could not keep SPS in my tank because they would just die. I didnt want to give up my fish either and this was my answer to "having my cake and eating it too". Now with a 100g system I am successfully growing beautiful SPS and I have all my fish and I feed every day. NO3 is 0 and PO4 is 0! My softies and my LPS shriveled up for a couple of weeks after running it a month because the water quality changed for the better but they ALL bounced back and are growing faster than ever.

The only down side to having a bio pellet reactor is, I got a case of cyano. It was not bad and it would start to grow and then die so it could not get a foot hold on my tank. It didnt make sense to me because NO3 and PO4 is 0. I learned that the pellets provide a carbon source for the cyano to feed on. That is why its important for the outlet of the reactor to be near the skimmer and its also important to not have the flow to the reactor too high. I recently buy a ball valve on the pump line to the reactor and problem solved. Personally I recommend having bio pellets if you want lots of fish and SPS without having to do mass water changes every week. I havent done a water change in about 2 months on my tank because it does not need it. I dose fuel and feed coral frenzy everyother day and everything is happy.

[tebstan]

I also recommend a good reactor made for pellets not just a gfo reactor, nextreef,vertex, octopus make good reactors

Did anyone here try the Bulk Reef Supply reactor? It's just a GFO reactor with a special cartridge inside. It gets mixed reviews. Hard to get the pellets moving without high flow through it, but that's not supposed to be good for the pellets either.

another thing is people use them and think they can use only a small amount as just a supplement, but I believe you need to go by directions and use the amount needed for you total system volume

Why is that? (And how much is that? .5 to 1 liter is quite a range)

[SoLiD]

keep it simple..ignore the hype remember many sps dominated reef tanks with great color have done this with ONLY regular water changes.

Yes water changes are always best, but do you remember when Bob Fenner came down and gave his speech some years back? He tells the story of back then when skimmers were the hype. We all no where that one ended up.

[FireWater]

I have more questions than answers regarding bio pellet reactors. I have been swaying back and forth on the decision to install one on the new tank build. I plan on keeping a mixed reef tank with the majority being lps and softies so I am concerned by the reviews of folks having difficulty with these.

One of the things I have noticed is that a lot of people here have put the reactors on line on an established tank. I wonder what the difference would be if it was started from day one on a new tank?

[ErikH]

I assume on a new tank the bacteria would grow at a rate in line with the growth of the aquarium.

[FireWater]

I was thinking the same Erik. I was wondering if or how it would affect the system as a whole since there would be nothing there to start with. Might avoid some of the issues people have been talking about - cloudiness, coral stress, algae blooms. I guess I shall find out. LOL

[Big_Pun]

I was thinking the same Erik. I was wondering if or how it would affect the system as a whole since there would be nothing there to start with. Might avoid some of the issues people have been talking about - cloudiness, coral stress, algae blooms. I guess I shall find out. LOL

I believe it would work out better on a new system. all problems stem from excessive nutrients in our tanks, or maybe setup traditional with fuge then add the pellets after tank has settled in, then take fuge offline

[Europhyllia]

One of the things I have noticed is that a lot of people here have put the reactors on line on an established tank. I wonder what the difference would be if it was started from day one on a new tank?

I started my Caribbean reef with the pellet reactor online from the start. The nice thing was that I never had that hair algae bloom that new tanks usually get.
I did get a cyano bloom big enough to make me feel guilty every time I tease Allan about his. I'd say the avoidance of hair algae at the start was the only difference though.
I added the pellets when my old 125g was already running for quite some time and I added the pellets to the 215 before anything was in it and in the long run it didn't make much difference. Keep in mind even once your system is set up it changes over time. It's not a static environment.

One thing nobody mentioned here is the money. For my amount of feeding I do on a 215 gallon tank I can buy a years worth of Purigen,deNitrate and Phosguard for about $90 versus the $300 I spent for 1 year of pellets.

Here are a few more questions to consider (and some possible answers although I do not claim to have answers to everything ;) ):

* are pellets the only way to reduce N&P?
No (consider macro algae, mangroves, nitrate reactors based on sulfur or carbon/coil, nitrate absorbing media, media and substrate using anaerobic areas for nitrate absorbtion, etc.)

* are pellets the most convenient way to reduce N&P?
Maybe for some but not for everybody

* is 0 nitrate better than 5 ppm or 10 ppm or 20 ppm?
Maybe. Maybe not

* are pellets the most cost effective way to reduce N&P?
Probably not

[allan]

The only thing I'm experiencing is the coral stress. I never got an cloud bloom, and I believe the general consensus there is that since I didn't have any nitrates (probably has a sufficient quantity of phosphates) I didn't get it.

And to tell the truth, could be that my LPS are reacting to something else, but Rick recognized it as something he went through. My zoas are all doing fine, my candy cane are all swolled up. My green acans are trying, so is the colony of acans that I've had about a year and a half. But they haven't started really swelling out like they used to.

At night they all seem ready to eat, and I've been feeding them a couple times a week. Only one of my SPS isn't extending, but the color is great and I 'think' I see growth even though it's not extending its polyps.