the official ECOBAK thread...

Hello, just run less ecoBAK for less nutrient reduction.

 

Are the levels of bacteria populations proportionate to the amount of bio-pellets in the system? If correct,

More pellets = more bacteria = lower po4 and nitrates faster. The more pellets in a system at one time means that the levels will get lower faster and eventually stay low. Fewer pellets in a system would mean that getting to a ULNS would take longer, but would still occur eventually. Correct? If so, how would fewer pellets keep a system from becoming a ULNS? I feel that less really means slower in this situation.

Light bulb:

Run less ecoBack for slower nutrient reduction, but feed more to keep po4 and nitrates up.

Hmmmm....

 

Remember... ecoBAK is not only a food source for bacteria but also a substrate. When you have a smaller volume of ecoBAK you will have a smaller "active surface area" on your system.

It's important to understand that ecoBAK adds NOTHING to the water and is NOT a slow-release Carbon dosing strategy. EcoBAK is a food source and substrate for naturally occuring bacteria.

 

Jon,

I have been running the ecobak for a few months on Bill Lange's recomendation. I am still not 100% on the product as I am stil having some issues with my tank. I have a 180 with a 150 sump. total water volume is about 225gallons. I stated off with 1000Ml of the pellets as of the first part of May. I have had issues with Cyano showing up. I got rid of it with Chemiclean but it is starting to come back. I have a medium bioload with the following fish : 10" sohal, 7" naso, juvi atlantic blue tang, yellow pyramid butterfly, 6 line wrasse, cherub angel and a clownfish. I feed once or twice daily either flakes or home made frozen. when testing I test at zero nitrates and zero phosphates. (undetectable on my test kits). I am about to start dosing MB7 in the coming days (when it comes in), but I am at a complete loss. in addition, some corals do very well while others seem to be stagnant and will actually burn at the tips. my KH is 9.0 with my salifert kit, salinity is 35ppt, Ph is 7.9, water temp is 80.

as for my skimmer, I have a MRc-MR2 skimmer that is run off my main system pump thru the manifold. it is fed off a 1" line directly from the manifold and gets close to 1000 gph or more. the pellets discharge is fed back into the sump

any help of advice is very much appreciated. I am so frustrated with my system as a whole and need to find an answer. just yesterday I noticed some white stringy stuff in the display that looked like the bacteria strings one gets when dosing vodka.

 

tomorrow will be 3 weeks the pellets have been online... tomorrow im adding my last dosage, 250 ml which will put me 750ml of pellets in 180 total water volume with a medium bioload...

i had cloudy water for 2 days, other than that i have had no problems with bio pellets...all my corals look awesome, my fish have more color it seems...

still have yet to test water.. NO CYANO, and the little bit of bright green slime algae is going away, and my coralline is starting to take off...

so far im pleased with the pellets...the skimmer is pulling out tons of black tar looking stuff and can barely go 4 days without cleaning the skimmer cup before my girlfriend starts to b**** about the smell..

 

Some of your coral burning may be caused by your 9.0KH.-I'd try bringing it down slowly to about 8-8.5 and maintain that for some time and note changes.

 

strange.. it tests 1 pt lower on a hannah meter. ill give that a shot first....

 

That is strange but I have no experience with the Hannah. I wish I truly understood the correlation of low nutrients and forms of carbon Dosing and they're effect on some SPS. For some of us, myself included, as low nutrient as our systems may be still have enough to support some sort of algae growth. After all, the algaes want to survive too and some have adapted to very low nutrient waters-like bubble algae. Yet, run too high and Alk and you may encounter SPS burning. ????

 

I gut the gas to the CaRx this afternoon. this way the tank will just use it down to the proper level. I will have some green growth on the back wall of the tank and a few tufts of some sort of macro algae on the walls.

**patiently awaiting jon warner.

 

Hello,

You're still pretty early in the process. Remember the purpose of the ecoBAK is to reduce nutrient levels in the system including Phosphate and Nitrate.

Cyanobacteria is usually NOT a problem with nutrients, although the presence of nutrients feeds it. It is an instability in the bacterial populations in the system. This is why most ecoBAK users don't report Cyanobacteria issues but some still do. They're unrelated. Fortunately it's relatively easy to fix. Keep running the ecoBAK to keep nutrients low and use a product like Prodibio Bio-Digest or Microbe Lift - Special Blend to fix the bacterial end of the system.

In addition make sure you're running a modest water flow through the pellets, around 100 gph. You want to see a slight tumble and NOT a vigorous tumble.

And your burnt tips are probably related to your alkalinity, most run 8.0 in SPS tanks.