N-P nitrate and phosphate reducing bio pellets

[Adee]

My explanation was merely based on what I experienced (also made a lot of sense?) first hand. I was able to smell the contents of the reactor, it did smell terribly of rotten eggs, power failure was about 6 hours. All i'm saying, is that contents going back into your tank...may not be good for you. Then again (now that I think of it) Special Blend smells like there is a no tomorrow.

I would be interested for someone to run a before after evaluation of this product by taking phosphate and nitrate readings using a hanna mearsuring tool. that will help establigh long term success.

And do same of the effluent in the reactor by doing a simulated 6 hour off break, that will establish if the so called "gunk" is cause for concern in your tank...especaily should your water volume be small (dillution to pollution)...i'm just going for a simple smell test.

 

[Nemos Janitor]

@Adee no problems bud. My bad i did not realise this was a sponsors thread until after my post. Perhaps a mod could move my query to an open thread so that it does not offend.

 

[TonyDD]

As D-D market pellets under our Nutri-pellets product id like to add a few comments if this is o.k.

With regards to the smell of Hydrogen sulphide after the unit has been turned off for some time this is probably due to the fact that the pellet environment runs at an accelerated bacterial state. The number of colony forming units present at the pellets surface is huge compared to the rest of the system.

With this in mind cell respiration can quickly strip the water of oxygen and cause an anoxic environment within the reactor if a fresh oxygenated water supply is cut off. A similar instance can occur if over dosing ethanol (vodka) to an open system and strip the water of oxygen, killing fish and causing bacterial blooms.

The anoxic condition can then lead to bacterial anaerobic digestion and Hydrogen Sulphide to be released by the bacteria. The time scales involved that result in stripped oxygen and an anaerobic condition can differ depending on the amount of pellets used, size of the reactor relative to pellets, any mulm build up inside the reactor due to low flow before power outage other aspects of the system including NO3/PO4 levels in tank and ambient temperature.

Some may not get any sulphur produced even after a relatively long power outage and some sooner. Such events can happen with any other part of a naturally occurring biological system that could go anoxic including DSB's. The handy thing about the pellet reactor is that the pellets can be washed with tank water or RO water if you wish to start from scratch and put back online quickly and easily.

For the most part though power outages do not last more than a few hours and we haven’t had one report of anything similar to this in the U.K. After 6 hours a system would start to become quite lacking in O2 anyway so this may stress animals to the point of death. To sum up though if in doubt just give the reactor a rinse off of the system before bringing back online.

The pellet system can be an extremely useful tool in the reef keepers kit and if used correctly will reward with low nutrient effluent but of course the pellet results will depend on various system variables to get the best out of them.
I would advise starting with half the recommended amount if adding to a system with relatively high nutrient levels to begin with. Initial Bacterial blooms in tank can be due to abundance of nutrient levels to start so as with any addition to an established aquarium it is best to start off slow.
With regards to PO4 removal media and the use of pellets some experimentation maybe required to find the best usage regime to suit the tank and stocking levels. Pellets are often touted as a NO3 and PO4 removal system, whilst it’s true that PO4 is taken up as part of bacterial cell respiration the ration of PO4 to NO3 uptake is usually smaller. Equally if the system contains high NO3 and extremely low PO4 the PO4 may become a limiting factor and retard the number of colony forming units that the PO4 level can sustain hence limiting the NO3 uptake. To start with PO4 media should be taken off line if a very low PO4 level is found and then small amounts put back into service as NO3 levels start to drop to keep PO4 under 0.03 ppm.
Good flow through the pellets is also required to keep them in suspension and the surfaces free of bacterial mulm that may lead to the pellets starting mass together. All bacteria that is washed from the pellets should be directed at the skimmer uptake as although the mulm will be taken by fish and corals its can break down and release some nutrients back into the tank. With this in mind treat the skimmer as part of the pellet nutrient export mechanism. I would not recommend running pellets without a skimmer , as well as bringing oxygen back into the system that is being stripped off due to due to bacterial activity the skimmer will be removing nutrient loaded bacteria from the water.

More information concerning pellet use can be found at the Aquarium Solution website.


D-D Nutri-Fix NP Bio Media | The Aquarium Solution
Regards Tony

 

[leslie hempel]

As D-D market pellets under our Nutri-pellets product id like to add a few comments if this is o.k.

With regards to the smell of Hydrogen sulphide after the unit has been turned off for some time this is probably due to the fact that the pellet environment runs at an accelerated bacterial state. The number of colony forming units present at the pellets surface is huge compared to the rest of the system.

With this in mind cell respiration can quickly strip the water of oxygen and cause an anoxic environment within the reactor if a fresh oxygenated water supply is cut off. A similar instance can occur if over dosing ethanol (vodka) to an open system and strip the water of oxygen, killing fish and causing bacterial blooms.

The anoxic condition can then lead to bacterial anaerobic digestion and Hydrogen Sulphide to be released by the bacteria. The time scales involved that result in stripped oxygen and an anaerobic condition can differ depending on the amount of pellets used, size of the reactor relative to pellets, any mulm build up inside the reactor due to low flow before power outage other aspects of the system including NO3/PO4 levels in tank and ambient temperature.

Some may not get any sulphur produced even after a relatively long power outage and some sooner. Such events can happen with any other part of a naturally occurring biological system that could go anoxic including DSB's. The handy thing about the pellet reactor is that the pellets can be washed with tank water or RO water if you wish to start from scratch and put back online quickly and easily.

For the most part though power outages do not last more than a few hours and we haven’t had one report of anything similar to this in the U.K. After 6 hours a system would start to become quite lacking in O2 anyway so this may stress animals to the point of death. To sum up though if in doubt just give the reactor a rinse off of the system before bringing back online.

The pellet system can be an extremely useful tool in the reef keepers kit and if used correctly will reward with low nutrient effluent but of course the pellet results will depend on various system variables to get the best out of them.
I would advise starting with half the recommended amount if adding to a system with relatively high nutrient levels to begin with. Initial Bacterial blooms in tank can be due to abundance of nutrient levels to start so as with any addition to an established aquarium it is best to start off slow.
With regards to PO4 removal media and the use of pellets some experimentation maybe required to find the best usage regime to suit the tank and stocking levels. Pellets are often touted as a NO3 and PO4 removal system, whilst it’s true that PO4 is taken up as part of bacterial cell respiration the ration of PO4 to NO3 uptake is usually smaller. Equally if the system contains high NO3 and extremely low PO4 the PO4 may become a limiting factor and retard the number of colony forming units that the PO4 level can sustain hence limiting the NO3 uptake. To start with PO4 media should be taken off line if a very low PO4 level is found and then small amounts put back into service as NO3 levels start to drop to keep PO4 under 0.03 ppm.
Good flow through the pellets is also required to keep them in suspension and the surfaces free of bacterial mulm that may lead to the pellets starting mass together. All bacteria that is washed from the pellets should be directed at the skimmer uptake as although the mulm will be taken by fish and corals its can break down and release some nutrients back into the tank. With this in mind treat the skimmer as part of the pellet nutrient export mechanism. I would not recommend running pellets without a skimmer , as well as bringing oxygen back into the system that is being stripped off due to due to bacterial activity the skimmer will be removing nutrient loaded bacteria from the water.

More information concerning pellet use can be found at the Aquarium Solution website.


D-D Nutri-Fix NP Bio Media | The Aquarium Solution
Regards Tony

thank you tony for that very informative post.. it clears a few things up for me.

 

[Nemos Janitor]

@TonyDD a few questions.

1) Does one have to increase the food input to maintain sufficient nutrients for corals. We have read/heard that NP pellets strip a tank of nutrients causing bleaching. So the perception is that NP pellets are only good for SPS type tanks or tanks that require heavy feeding.

2) Would the use of NP pellets also be beneficial in fish only tanks or is it primarily meant for reef systems?

 

[TonyDD]

Hi Keith

1)This really depends on the present feeding regime; if you already feed well then extra feedings shouldn’t be required. Bleaching events usually occur due to nutrient free fall from higher than desirable levels. SPS are usually the first to suffer as in nature they turn to pray capture for extra nutrients in nutrient poor reef waters.

The home sps reef keeper will typically try to feed little in an attempt to reduce nutrient loadings on the tank. This is fine whilst NO3/PO4 levels float above 0 but below levels that may kill or stress the coral(>0.03 PO4 or over 25 ppm NO3 for sps). They then utilise nutrients via zooxanthellae to make up for prey capture deficit,colours may darken but the coral remains healthy and robust. Take away the nutrients abruptly without increasing feeding and corals tend to pale out as zooxanthellae cannot be maintained, then show great colour before starving to death or bleaching/stripping due to stress.

Bacteriologically the tank may also suffer as if nutrients reach extremely low levels we can push for a boom and bust scenario. Bacterial films bloom when provided with the carbon donor only to thin when NO3/PO4 drop through the floor. This can lead to Cyano bacteria’s moving in to displace weakened bacteria films and fixing Nitrogen directly from the water column.

So with the above in mind it’s important to feed whilst using pellets and not to force ones reef tank into becoming a nutrient waste land. All living things require a little PO4 for instance as it is an essential building block in the production of DNA/cell production. Also feed a variety of foods to increase prey capture choice(D-D now produce a selection of very good coral foods) and do not stock too sparsely with fishes.

2) Fish only systems would benefit from the pellets as although fish are pretty tolerant of Nitrate in numbers around 100ppm we can avoid NO3 building to undesirable levels that will encourage nuisance algae’s etc.

Hope this helps