20L Garden Reef

[Corsair]

I absolutly LOVE your tank... I wouldnt mind setting up something like that! I also really like that mollie in there a lot! Great job, keep it up

I absolutely love your macro tank! Nice job!

Very nice. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for the kind words!

I could be wrong ( I often am ) but from my experience with pellets the pellets -when working- put out a noticable amount of bacteria stuff that definitely is detectable in the skimmer (as in stinkier and richer) skimmate.
Nothing in the skimmer would make me suspicious that there is nothing much coming out of the pellets.
With your rockin' amount of macro though they probably also take up the nutrients that in other systems would go towards the pellet bacteria.
When my bacteria population on the pellets was very active macro was struggeling and often not making it.

I'll start by saying that I am by no means an expert here. I'm fairly new to marine tanks and learning as I go along. I can say that I have strong empirical evidence that the pellets are doing something. Before implementing them, my nitrates were always low, but always detectable. I also removed great heaping chunks of calurpa on a regular basis. Since the pellets cycled through, nitrates are gone and macro growth is moderate. The mermaids fan may not make it over the long run, but it may just need time to adjust (it's fairly new). The shaving brush looked awful too until it settled in and started growing. The pellets are absolutely killing the xenia, however. Those were doing well before.

The choice to add the pellets came when I fitted the sump. Since it shares the pump, the only real cost was the Phosban reactor, some PVC and a tiny <$20 bag of pellets. Nitrate drop began within days, and after a couple of weeks I had a mighty bacteria bloom that clouded the tank for a few days. During that phase, the skimmer was producing some utterly foul stuff. Once the bloom cleared, and nitrates bottomed out the skimmer production largely flatlined. Seems like it skims overnight after I've fed, then does nothing all day.

System definitely works. Until about a month ago, there was a Fu Manchu lion in there as well. He ate well, and he ate live, but the tank absorbed the waste without a hitch. That fish was removed for treatment when he got cloudy eye, and now lives in a FOWLR tank. Even with the current load of 9 fish, I'm fairly confidant I can add some shrimp and other small inverts now that the lionfish is gone.