pellets ?

Man there is a ton of info out there.

Basically it is plastic that has a ton of carbon in them. The best way to run them is through a reactor of some type to keep them tumbling. As they disolve, the carbon feeds the bacteria allowing for more bacteria. As your bacteria population explodes, it eats nitrates & drives off phosphates some how.

I am not an expert my any means, that is just the general explanation as I know it

 

Bingo. I have been running them in my sump for 4 months now. The water clarity is amazing and all my corals have awesome poly extension and growth that is noticable over a weeks time. The recommend that you run the reactor effluent to the skimmer intake and keep them tummbling so that you don't build up gas in the reactor. Some people experince a large aglea bloom when they first add to the system which turns the water cloudy for a couple of days. I myself did not have this happen and added them over a period of 3 days. No one mentioned adverse affects from the bloom though.

 

I think fishbrain is using them also maybe he will chime in and tell us his experience also

 

What do you guys recommend? I was looking at trying ecoBAK. Its $60 per 1000mL, which would take care of a 200g system for about 12 months. Was considering doing this. Worth noting that from what I read, this does far more for your nitrates than phosphates. Is this true?

Side note: Anyone know of a place that will do bulk orders on this stuff to make it cheaper? Would be nice to cut the costs a little!

 

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1883610&highlight=rice+bacteria

 

Reefified wherre did you buy your pellets and what reactor are you running?

 

I had seen this post before. I have also gone through just about all posts on RC relating to the subject, be they the commercially available sources of pellets as well as the DIY stuff. As a very rough and dirty summation of my readings, the rice didn't end up working well LONG TERM (turned to mush, got brown, packed down in the reactor and created anaerobic black pockets). The DIY plastics are tough to make into small beads (or similar shape... surface area is the critical thing here). The friendly plastics already come in a bead form, but they are very smooth and bactiera seem to take a long time to colonize. i think that the DIYers are on the right track, but there is still a ways to go. The ecoBAK seems to be the cheapest (although I can't really find a place aside from an eBay store that stocks it) and has the greatest surface area (the beads are actually rough/textured).

 

I'm running ecoBak in a Nextreef reactor. You'll need a good skimmer. And if everything works as it should, you'll save some $ from not using gfo. So far so good.

 

I'm running the ecobak as well and it works great.

 

Looks like BRS is on board.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/products/aquarium-additives-supplements/bio-pellets/brs-bio-pellets.html

 

Links not working, but go to BRS and see for yourself. Nice explanation of the whole process from what we know so far.

 

Or use Vodka!

 

I am going to try some from BRS and see how it goes. Joel we are not talking about drinking! One shot for the tank and one for Joel /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/wink.gif

 

At 3ml per shot ....... 1 shot for the tank and 100 for Joel! /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/cool.gif

 

Joel, I bet you really tear it up at Pufferbilly Days.

 

+1 on vodka. $10 a bottle. No reactors,No GFO,No Reactors, No Refugium, And No Phosphates.

 

Yea but vodka is a pain to have to dose all the time. Gered Be sure to let us know how the BRS pellets work for yea. Ecobak seems to be least likely to give you a bactera bloom I wonder about the BRS pellets.

 

I usually dose same time as i feed my tank not to much hassle at all.

 

Who told on me?
No PITA, just a doser, controller and a bottle.