Running Bio Pellets

[DrAsTiC]

Hello everyone,

I recently had a tank crash since I was out of the country for a while and my gf doesn't know much about fish and corals. I lost all of my sps but my fish are still alive. I tested my water and the nitrates were super high. I did a 30 gallon water change on my 75 gallon tank and the nitrates are still high. I have read a lot of post on the bio pellets so I went out and bought a pack. I have the mr1 reactor and I am not sure my marineland mini 404 or 606 is strong enough to work with the pellets. Has anyone used one of these pumps with the reactor for bio pellets?

 

[Widdy]

I tried a Minijet 606 on a Nextreef Shorty with 200mL ecoBak pellets. I added 2 mesh screens (top and bottom) so the pellets wouldn't fall to the bottom of the reactor, but that also added resistance to the flow; ended up using a MJ1200. If you have both Minijets on hand give them a try. I would've like to have used my Minijet 606 for the flow control, but alas it wasn't strong enough...

 

[DrAsTiC]

Is the mj1200 to strong? I have 6 of them but I was scared it would blow the pellets around to much.

 

[Widdy]

For my application, the MJ1200 was perfect. But only due to me adding the mesh screen so the pellets didn't fall to the bottom. I don't know which pellets you're using, but the ecoBak version was small enough to fall through and end up at the bottom of the reactor covering the output flow holes. The mesh was needed because I removed the 2 sponges that came with the reactor. They tend to gunk up rather fast and cleaning them will be a tedious task.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1972155

 

[DrAsTiC]

Okay I hooked everything up and the mj1200 works pretty good. There is just a little tumbling which I figure is what should hppen. Thanks for pointing out the mj1200.

 

[Widdy]

No problem. You can Youtube videos for other people's tumbling speeds.

 

[DrAsTiC]

What kind of screens did you use? Where did you get them? I don't have a ton of flow because I am using the black sponges. I know I have to change them out for the screens because I see the videos on youtube a a lot more flow.

 

[Widdy]

I used some knitting mesh found at Michael's Arts and Crafts. Or something like

http://web1.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=17396058&postcount=86

 

[DrAsTiC]

ahhhhhhh thank you very much.

 

[Widdy]

You're welcome, g'luck!