Bio-Pellets Question

[brick-brothers]

I understand that bio-pellets is used to bring down your nitrates. But what do you run besides the pellets to bring your phosphates down?

 

[piranhapat]

Gfo

 

[brick-brothers]

Gfo

Do you run all 3? ( Pellets, Carbon, and Gfo)

 

[Buck0land]

You can dose nitrates to lower your PO4. The Bacteria on your bio pellets use more nitrates then po4. I think it's something like 16:1.

 

[piranhapat]

Do you run all 3? ( Pellets, Carbon, and Gfo)

Right now I use carbon and little GFO. Nitrates are not that high and was thinking of placing my third reactor if the nitrates numbers go higher. They are others ways as vodka and vinegar and even sugar. Yes, you can run all three. Sometime we are chasing numbers when your tank might be good were they are. As long everything looks good and growing. I say that because I know a vendor that grows SPS just wrote something about nutrients and levels of po4 and nitrates.

 

[piranhapat]

Sorry not a vendor here but read this...


http://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sp...i-finally-finished-this-thing-sort-of.216694/

 

[bklynreef]

Right now I use carbon and little GFO. Nitrates are not that high and was thinking of placing my third reactor if the nitrates numbers go higher. They are others ways as vodka and vinegar and even sugar. Yes, you can run all three. Sometime we are chasing numbers when your tank might be good were they are. As long everything looks good and growing. I say that because I know a vendor that grows SPS just wrote something about nutrients and levels of po4 and nitrates.

Just read through the R2R thread and makes sense depending on YOUR system and bioload. Im running BP's for the past few weeks and getting great results so far. Had a little algae bloom for a week and lowered the output on the BP reactor and i hit the sweet spot for the pellets. during the pellets i still ran GFO so i could maintain my .03-.06 PO4 numbers. But what i saw was my PO4 climbing slowly and today is .11 BUT my growth and colors were like never before so i decided not to bring down that number yet by changing GFO since is was only replaced 2 1/2 weeks ago so it cant be exhausted or because i had 2 big fish die it might have brought the numbers up or mabe the pellets brought the numbers up. i really cant say but so far everything is better than i imagine and never saw sps in my tank thriving so nicely. Ill need to moniter the number but more so moniter the sps as they are the indicators if theres anything going wrong, only problem is you dont want to catch it too late so that being said i think once this number reaches .13 i will change GFO and try to keep the numbers slow and steady.
But if I were you I would keep doing the GFO to help out the pellets until you may not need the GFO any longer. I also too my carbon reactor offline when i started BP's. Cabon really strips the water and so does the GFO and between the both together i always had issues which is why i switched to BP's so i can get away from GFO and a carbon reactor. Soon i may go Ozone for the water clarity instead of carbon. right now im just using 100 micron filter socks for the weekends and running the tank without them during the week. feeding fish every other day sparingly and corals once a week heavily while all pumps off for 4 hours at night and just the power head blowing for aeration.
Whatever you do just go slow and steady.

 

[brick-brothers]

Im now running all 3 and see a big drop in my po4. I got it down to a .06. Now I just have to get a control of my nitrates. I will continue to monitor my po4 to so I can take my gfo offline.