bio pellet tumbling

Hi All: I am finally up to the full amount of ecobak pellets in my TLF reactor. It's really weird though, I only get tumbling on one side of the pellets.....I've tried adjusting the top feed line and it doesn't get a tumble thoughout.....any advice? I'm sure it should be tumbling throughout to get optimal results....

 

I have had bad issues with tumbling recently as well. The reason why its tunbling on one side and not the other is two part. First your pump is undersized, and secondly, you reactor is not level.
It may be ok though, watch the reactor and see if it pulls the standing pellets to the tumbling side. If not then mess with it.

 

TLF reactors require a lot of gph moving through it. Leveling your reactor might help but I'm guessing your still going to need more flow in addition. I'm not sure if the type of pellet differs as well. Some may require more flow some less.

 

According to Jeff Macare of Reef Dynamics, good tumbling is important for shedding microfilm of bacteria off the pellets.
Do you have your reactor output going directly (or very close) to the input for your skimmer?

I assume you did the biopellet mod to the TLF reactor?

 

Ecobak is a great pellet, I know Greg Carroll has has success with no tumble. He beta tested them.

 

Really? Interesting. I wonder why that works.

I know he has quite an impressive tank and a metic ton of experience so his experience is gospel!

 

Yeah its worth sending him a message, I just remember him saying they worked great tumbling, tumbling lightly, or not at all. I've also read that you can tumble them for a few weeks then put them in a mess media sack and let them sit in the sump and you still get great nutrient reduction. But i have no experience with that.

 

yes, my output is right at my skimmer intake...interesting about the no tumble...I know it's not the pump, I've dialed it down a tad because I read where the ecobak aren't supposed to be tumbled super strong...it's just that they only tumble on one side....I'll look at the leveling, maybe that's it...

 

Thanks for the kind words about me.

I am in no way endorsing not having the pellets tumble but I will say that the most important thing is to insure that water passes through the media at a high enough rate to insure that it does not go anerobic. I do a lot of beta testing for companies and do sometimes vere from their instructions to see what can and can't be done for my own edification. Jeff is a friend of mine but I would not go as far as referring to him as an expert on biopellets. As a matter of fact I actually don't like his reactor design at all based on what my understandings are of bacteria.

If you want an understanding of bacteria call on those that make bio pellet products like John Warner and Dr Tim.

 

Lucas (Sacul1573) modded his TLF reactor and tumbling great. Here is his mod thread and I got inspired by his and modded my BRS reactor as well.