the official ECOBAK thread...

These power outages around the nation always seem to occur about this time of year... and always cause problems for people.
What happens is, when the power goes out for multiple days the oxygen level drops and fish and coral start to die. Then the dying organisms begin to pollute the water and when the system comes back online the bacteria bloom and cloud and slime up the water.

At this point I recommend multiple large water changes and removing the ecoBAK and rinsing the pellets moderately in salt water. Then restart the ecoBAK. It will take several weeks for the system to stabilize but it will recover with time.

 

Thanks for the fast reply Jon..this thread is great to have for reason like these..I will get on that right away..

 

I've been using ecobak in a reactor for 10 weeks and I have been battling brown cyano for the last 5 weeks. The pellets are tumbling properly and the output is right by the skimmer intake. I upgraded my skimmer and it is pulling a great deal of skimmate. I have been adding special blend for the last 3 weeks and the problem is only getting worse. At this point, I can only assume I am one of the people for whom bio pellets are not a good fit. It did reduce my nitrates from 5-10 to a consistent 1, but phosphates have stayed between .04 and .08 for the last few weeks on a Hanna checker. I have seen tremendous coral growth, but it is not worth the cyano.

My assumption is that there is no way I can get a good enough skimmer in an all in one system to use the bio pellets effectively. I am throwing in the towel, but I want to make sure I do it safely, I was thinking I would remove 25% of the bio pellets each week to allow the system to adjust. Any feedback is appreciated.

 

Hello,

Just a few points for others in your situation.

1) The primary export for PO4 using Carbon dosing is protein skimming. With insufficient protein skimming all forms of Carbon dosing, whether liquid or solid Carbon polymer will be inefficient at eliminating PO4. The presence of increased skimmate tells you the ecoBAK is working but if you can't remove that waste product it recycles into nutrients for undesirable algaes and or Cyanobacteria.

2) Remember, an increase in Cyanobacteria and ecoBAK are not directly related. Cyanobacteria comes from a bacterial imbalance or nutrient related issue.

Jim, in your situation, try integrating GFO into your system. If you're not sufficiently exporting PO4 try that first. The ecoBAK is only doing positive things in your system, you just need to add another element to bring down PO4.

Without ecoBAK your NO3 will be back at 10ppm in no time and your PO4 will be above .08ppm.

I would look at other possible sources for the cyanobacteria nutrients... your salt mix, your food, your additives...

Here's my theory about solid Carbon dosing and cyanobacteria...

Let's say that 3/10 hobbyists have severe Cyanobacteria problems before they try solid Carbon dosing... then 2/3 of those people have the Cyanobacteria disappear, that leaves 1 person out of 10, or 5 people out of 50 that still have Cyanobacteria problems using solid Carbon. So we tend to hear about Cyanobacteria and solid Carbon dosing when in fact the instance of Cyanobacteria among solid Carbon dosers is lower than the non-solid Carbon dosing population. So a connection is wrongly drawn between the two.

As far as removing ecoBAK from a system, be aware you will experience a spike in NO3 and PO4 so prepare to use other nutrient export methods to make up for the loss of ecoBAK.

Happy Holidays!!

Jon

 

Thanks Jon! I'll give that a try. Happy holidays to you as well.

 

let me know how it goes...

thanks

Jon

 

Hey Jon, I have a couple of questions that have been recently asked in my local reef club. the club just purchased some test kits for potassium, iron, and iodine. there is at least 8-9 of us running ecobak on our systems, and someone had mentioned that they read somewhere that ecobak could deplenish potassium levels in the tank. they couldnt recall where they read this, but they thought that it was something worth asking. Have you noticed anything similar to this?
Also, is there any reason to run your alkalinity levels at certain parameter with ecobak? Most of us are in the 8-9 dkh level. But one of our guys runs his at 7 dkh, thinking that it he heard to do this with ecobak?

Thanks in advance, Chris

 

Hi Chris,

Being a ULNS promoting product, ecoBAK has similarities to Zeo type systems. So many of the tips and tricks of ULNS aquaria have been applied to ecoBAK use and I think they're all reasonable. I have found an ALK no higher than 9 works best ( I personally run 8 and my friends run 7 to 8 ) and indeed it seems that Potassium does become depleted faster.

Please send me an address and I will send samples of our Potassium product for the ecoBAK using club members.

Jon

 

Jon,

Something in a recent reply of yours triggered a question. I run a reef octopus skimmer (110 I think). My tank is a 57 gal and so far it seems to do well, but I do remove phosphates by other means. I'm left with some uncertainty as to whether I'm running "enough" skimming. My question is two part, a) will any decent skimmer like mine do the trick, or do we need to aim high, and b) if we need to aim high, can you name a non-exhaustive range of units you think are sufficient? I'm not looking for a specific recommendation, but an idea of which ballpark to play on.

 

Nice find, I did not know that WM was a sponser here! But i do now
Bill