Exactly's ZEOvit 90G has reached the end :(

Everything is looking great cant wait to do my LED build you guys convinced me lol

Someone can have all my coralline i dont wanna scrape it off the glass anymore haha

 

Thanks bro! The LED is for the 200G, correct? Gonna be full LED or addition to the existing light?

 

Looks really nice!

 

Well, the reactor wouldn't hold enough biopellets to keep up with the demands of my bio-load, so I had to start ramping up vodka dosing again. I'm basically running a combined biopellet/vodka dosing schedule, which seems to be working pretty well. Still, overall health of the tank seems to be a bit less than when I was dosing vodka only. I'm going to give it a little more time, but I know the pellets are working, as the volume they occupy in the reactor has decreased some since starting.

 

Thanks, Atticus! I like your SPS selection as well!

 

I see. I have had the similar thought when I was deciding to go BP route a few months back. I remember your TLF reactor would hold 350~400ml BP. My BRS reactor is holding 420-ish ml pellets for now and I think it might hold a bit more thanks to your mod idea. BRS suggests to use 236ml for every 50 gallon, so 420ml should do the trick for me. I started the BP on 8-12-2011, the pellets are all there as of now. Im dosing MB7 weekly with the waterchange.

Is there any cyano and/or algae creep in your 90? Why did you think you needed more carbon source to begin with?

 

So, before switching, I was running vodka/GFO combo successfully. When I added the BPs inline, I shut down the GFO completely as recommended, and slowly reduced the vodka to 0 over the next few weeks. I then, predictably, experienced a slight algea bloom as I waited for the BPs to kick in. That slight bloom turned a little more extensive after about 2-3 weeks, to the point of me having to wipe the glass every other day. Not sure on the algae/cyano ID, but I think it was similar to reefcleaners discription of Lyngbya. Sort of a red mat on the glass and rocks.

So after patiently waiting for 6 weeks, and seeing that the BPs did look quite "cultured", I started to run a very small amount of GFO. The Lyngbya stayed, but then also another algae/cyano appeared on the sandbed. This stuff almost looked like diatoms, brown rust that appears as the day progresses, and then disappears overnight. When I cut the GFO, the sandbed nusance disappeared.

By this point, some of my SPS had started to brown out and I saw a reduction in growth, so I started to go back to what I knew best, vodka. I'm now at my pre-biopellets dosing strength, and although still recovering, the tank is looking much better.

I'm still confused on the GFO part though, as I started to run GFO last week, and got the same wierd algae. So I am currently not running any GFO.

My overall thought is that perhaps the biopellets fuel a bacteria that consumes a different PO4/NO3 ratio than the vodka fuels. If running GFO along with biopellets results in algae/cyano, perhaps the biopellet method consumes more phosphate than vodka method, thus, running GFO starves the biopellets of PO4, reducing their effectiveness against NO3?

Confused yet? I am... lol.

 

Wow. Just wow. One of the things I can tell you is you must be frustrated. Have you checked the parameters? I only have API liquid test and when I was struggling with the cyano/algae, none of the PO4/NO3 was detectable with my kit. If I only had Hanna checker stuff, I might have been able to get better idea what the heck was going on.

I still dont understand tho, that people run BP and GFO at the same time, and they have successfully been keeping beautiful cyano/algae free tanks. But in your case, GFO is preventing the BP/vodka to work properly, causing some unbalance of beneficial bacteria in the system..

Wow. I wish I could give you the slightest input on this.

 

hmmm. i have been running gfo along with my bio-pellets. I seem to have something growing on 1/4 of my rocks. So after reading the above, i am Turing off the GFO for a few weeks and see what happens (and the maxi-jet is so loud so I don't mind turning it off).

 

When I was typing the post above, your tank was in my mind, JB. Please leave a feedback on this for sure. Maybe pics as well? Thanks in advance