EcoBak Pellet Journey

[thewackyreefer]

The biggest change I have made is pointing my pellet reactor away from my skimmer to the return pump to feed my tank. My thinking is that the 'mulm' of bacteria and plakton will help feed the system. So far I havent seen any negative effect and I am getting PE on some off my harder corals.

Interesting. Anyone else going this route?

 

[Mavjoy]

I've been running mine for more than 6 weeks now and so far, my water is crystal clear(maybe due to my carbon), all my corals are doing ok(no SPS at the moment), hair algae are growing in different spots of the tank. I'm considering of putting the output in my return part of the sump also, and adding a bag of GFO for good measure.

 

[Paul_N]

Interesting. Anyone else going this route?

I am doing that also. I have an old zeo reactor so I pump it a few times at night when the lights are off before I go to bed.

 

[Nuocmam]

Kind of, I still use zeobak with ZeoZyme about once a month.

The biggest change I have made is pointing my pellet reactor away from my skimmer to the return pump to feed my tank. My thinking is that the 'mulm' of bacteria and plakton will help feed the system. So far I havent seen any negative effect and I am getting PE on some off my harder corals.

Interesting. Thanks for your response. That does make sense. Please keep us posted. I may try this too.

 

[Guerry]

I just got some new goodies to go along with my bio-pellet juorny

 

[Oiseau Reefer]

Interesting. Anyone else going this route?[/QUOTE
Mine just goes into my filter sock to help reoxygenate the water then goes through the system I use to run in away from the skimmer but after a week or so my ph started dropping a lot so I went that route and my ph went back up!

 

[brahm]

Interesting. Anyone else going this route?

I am, I've been running them now for about 3 months, started using them about a month into setting up my solana, they then got migrated over to my current tank. I've managed to feed somewhat heavy and maintain nitrates 2.5-0. I still run GFO, and I'm running in it a BRS dual reactor. I also do weekly 10 gallon water changes. (Which I would really like to cut by to back to bi-monthly.) Up until now I've been running the ecoBak in the first chamber, and the gfo in the second. As I read that you need a bit of Phosphates to make the pellets work. The problem with this has been that the bacteria from the first chamber kept clogging up the pads for the GFO. Last nite I reversed them, and everything seems to be tumbling alot better again. I also pointed the output right into the return pump.. I have seen no ill effect. (before it was just randomly placed in my sump but I believe most of the bac was getting caught going threw the gfo/filters). I'll be doing some testings again this weekend, but my last run of full tests with my reactor screeching to a halt due to clogged filters yielded phosphates @ 0, and nitrates at 2.5-1. I've been feeding a bit heavier lately, (added more fish), but also swapped out my skimmer to a larger SRO2000 Cone, from my older octopus, as well as started using filter socks.

I clean my glass maybe a couple times a month so far from a little brown algea, outside of that I do have tiny patches of deep red almost purple cyano slowly growing in lower flow spots, a quick squirt with a turkey baster and it's gone for a week or so.

 

[Acronuts]

Well guys it now has been 4 1/2 months since I added 1 liter of EB to my system. System is now 1 year 4 months old.
Phos are at 0 - salifert test kit
Nitrates are between 0.5 to 0.8 - salifert test kit
Things are REALLY stable with all the other water parameters.
No hair algae or red/green slime algae!
Growth has been very good with my sps's, even the newer pieces. Color is OUTSTANDING!
My sps's that were on the verge of complete extinction are coming back. Even Mike's Paletta's blue monti is coming back from with in the rock it died on!
One other thing I have been doing as well is feeding the tank once a week with Dr. G's decapsulated brine shrimp eggs, oyster magnifique, phytoplankton enriched brine shrimp, copepods,rotifers, and Brightwell's zooplanktos-s, microvore.
I still clean glass about twice a week though.
Skimmer is pulling out a LOT of gunk for sure.
EXTREMELY happy right now with my tank!!!
I'm in the poor house after holidays, but it feels good not adding anything new and seeing what I have grow and prosper!