cleaning biopellet reactor
- Thread starter doug864
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Acrokeeper3729
Premium member
I don't clean it. I would only clean it if it was getting clogged or if it was in an area of high light and was getting dark from algae or bacteria or whatever it is. If you can see in it and the pellets tumble then don't bother, but if its clogging up then you may want to clean it or make the holes in the plastic plates a little bigger with a drill bit or something. Hope that makes sense.
Mr.Firemouth
FIREMOUTH WIZARD
There is no need to rinse the reactor if the reactor is working properly. The clear to tan colors of the reactor biofilms are what we want in our reactors. The reactor media should tumble, but many brands are waxy and clump together. My buddy John has a product that doesn't clump(phos-balls).
If your product isn't tumbling then I suggest that you shut down the reactor and remove it to an area where you can vigorously shake it and loosen the media. Some people with efficient skimmers pump the dirty water back into the system and let the skimmer work on removing any excess particulates, others flush the media with tank water into a bucket and return the reactor back to the system.
I personally have a giant 6' skimmer and I shake my media up and then pump the water through my system. I also have 300g water volume on a 180g display tank. I am currently using the NP-Bio-Pellets from Premium Aquatics but when these are done I will order the other media. My media clumps quite a bit.
My system recently was neglected for about 9 months due to work and things survived, but algae started to go nuts, and some LPS and most of my Z-P's started dying off! I lost 85% of my Z-P's and half of my chalices. After several water changes(6 weeks worth and I am doing another one tonight!) I added the reactor and the media. Since I have done this my tank has turned around 100%! I know the water changes helped, but believe me they aren't responsible for the amazing amount of healing, growth, color, and die-back of the algae I am witnessing! 7 people I know are currently using this system and are all having good results. I have had SW reef tanks since 1989! This is the best product so far that I have used and gotten rapid results. I have had DSB, Plenums, wet-dry's, large scale refugiums, mud filters, Berlin systems, Bare bottom tanks, etc! I have tried almost every product on the literally dozens of tanks I have had over the years.
Now, will these bio-pellets hold up long term as the miracle product with regular water changes? I don't know yet. I do know that these pellets incorporated into a system will reduce nutrients much better than the Zeo-lite systems I used and with less dosing. I also know soft corals do better with regular additions of Iodine with pellets. Finally, the absolute best thing is that I can feed more with out having to worry about loading my tank up with pollutants.
For foods, Golden Pearls is great for filter feeders, and live baby brine shrimp work well with all other corals. Mysis works good with larger LPS, but you wil be amazed what live Baby brine shrimp fed daily to your tank will do.
Hope this helps.
BTW, if your reactor flow is too slow you will have rotten egg smell to the output flow and possibly get black films inside the reactor. If anyone experiences this they need to increase the flow through the reactor.
~Rich
If your product isn't tumbling then I suggest that you shut down the reactor and remove it to an area where you can vigorously shake it and loosen the media. Some people with efficient skimmers pump the dirty water back into the system and let the skimmer work on removing any excess particulates, others flush the media with tank water into a bucket and return the reactor back to the system.
I personally have a giant 6' skimmer and I shake my media up and then pump the water through my system. I also have 300g water volume on a 180g display tank. I am currently using the NP-Bio-Pellets from Premium Aquatics but when these are done I will order the other media. My media clumps quite a bit.
My system recently was neglected for about 9 months due to work and things survived, but algae started to go nuts, and some LPS and most of my Z-P's started dying off! I lost 85% of my Z-P's and half of my chalices. After several water changes(6 weeks worth and I am doing another one tonight!) I added the reactor and the media. Since I have done this my tank has turned around 100%! I know the water changes helped, but believe me they aren't responsible for the amazing amount of healing, growth, color, and die-back of the algae I am witnessing! 7 people I know are currently using this system and are all having good results. I have had SW reef tanks since 1989! This is the best product so far that I have used and gotten rapid results. I have had DSB, Plenums, wet-dry's, large scale refugiums, mud filters, Berlin systems, Bare bottom tanks, etc! I have tried almost every product on the literally dozens of tanks I have had over the years.
Now, will these bio-pellets hold up long term as the miracle product with regular water changes? I don't know yet. I do know that these pellets incorporated into a system will reduce nutrients much better than the Zeo-lite systems I used and with less dosing. I also know soft corals do better with regular additions of Iodine with pellets. Finally, the absolute best thing is that I can feed more with out having to worry about loading my tank up with pollutants.
For foods, Golden Pearls is great for filter feeders, and live baby brine shrimp work well with all other corals. Mysis works good with larger LPS, but you wil be amazed what live Baby brine shrimp fed daily to your tank will do.
Hope this helps.
BTW, if your reactor flow is too slow you will have rotten egg smell to the output flow and possibly get black films inside the reactor. If anyone experiences this they need to increase the flow through the reactor.
~Rich
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