NP Biopellets started over weekend, I feel like a newbie overnight need some advice

[jdemarco]

SteveDola my bad if i made is sound like the tank was "perfect" before i started the pellets because it wasnt, whose is right?. I had no algae problems and have VERY been lucky in that i have never really any nuissance algae problems to deal with but although the tank had been looking great IMO as i mentioned above i have ALWAYS wanted to lower my nitrates which have been 20-40ppm for a long time even with a refugium about 1 year old so i thats why i went down this road to begin with.....but i am somehwat comforted by the 6-7 days u mentioned above as i am only in day 3-4.......

but awefully cloudy water it is nerve racking i must say the one thing about my tank is that I always run carbon and always use a UV and my water,( IF NOTHING ELSE) has always been very clear for what thats worth. What type of adverse effects u referring to in your comment regaridng SPS?

Nicks387 thanks for the response, I am considering pulling some out. I continue to skim ( i hear ya on that), i am def aware of oxygen and ph potential issue..thats one thing i knew going in to this ordeal. I orginally had it plumbed directly into skimmer but a few pellets popped out (yes even with the all powerful and suposedly match made in heaven NextReef reactor) and it of course caused my injector in ,y skimmer to malfunction so i have the reactor output and skimmer input RIGHTnext to each other in the sump, literally 2 inches away but not officially connected to each other...but now that the pellets have settled down in the reactor i may hook the reactor back up directly to the skimmer .....might help a bit more who knows.

 

[jdemarco]

I couldn't stand looking at the tank as it was last night so i did a water change and it looked like it was on the mend but came home today to the cloudiest that it has been and when i say cloudy i mean if you get down to tank level and look from one of the tank to the other you cannot see the other side........and i mean you cannot see the back of the tank....what a joke.....i caused this on my own when things were humming along. The SPS i have at the top are starting to die off now......i am about to change the water again but not sure that helps. I guess i should yank the whole reactor as it is not clearing up on its own. its unfortunate because this was totally self inflicted by an unnecessary attempt to lower nitrates which were manageable levels prior.......

 

[reefkeeper2]

The cloudiness is a normal result of too much at one time. You are experiencing a bacterial bloom and it will pass. I had this happen in my tank and it lasted a week. However, I would take out about half of the pellets from the reactor and rinse them off in fresh water and put them in a zip loc bag to be added again in about a month or so. Make sure that the pellets are tumbling and make sure the reactors output is feeding into the skimmers intake. Adjust the protien skimmer to wide open if its going nuts and keep making adjustments to it as things calm down and it can skim again. Dont shut off the skimmer or the oxygen will be depleted in the tank. This will pass and water will be crystal clear any day now. Do not use GFO or the UV with the biopellets. Carbon is fine.

Follow the above directions and you will be fine. Reducing the amount of pellets by half should help clear your tank. You can put them back in a few weeks.

 

[SteveDola]

my sps ended up stn'ing. Not that I had alot to begin with but I lost my 2 stags, green milli, tenius, and half killed my tricolor and purple plasma. I had a cynaria and plate coral end up dying too over the course of the pellets too. Its weird what they effected...

 

[reefkeeper2]

Sorry to hear you have lost some of your stock. A bacterial bloom can cause rapid changes in water chemistry, and anything that occurs rapidly is bad for our reefs. You did not make a bad decision to try the pellets so don't beat yourself up over it. It was definately the right move for what you wanted to accomplish. You were just over enthusiastic and made a mistake with the amount. Stop your reactor and start again when the tank clears. Go slow this time with the right amount, maybe one quarter to one half the volume you have in there now. Don't give up and good luck.

 

[Andy V]

Sorry to hear you have lost some of your stock. A bacterial bloom can cause rapid changes in water chemistry, and anything that occurs rapidly is bad for our reefs. You did not make a bad decision to try the pellets so don't beat yourself up over it. It was definately the right move for what you wanted to accomplish. You were just over enthusiastic and made a mistake with the amount. Stop your reactor and start again when the tank clears. Go slow this time with the right amount, maybe one quarter to one half the volume you have in there now. Don't give up and good luck.

I don't mean this as harsh as it sounds, but this is terrible advice. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT STOP THE REACTOR unless you are going to remove the pellets and start with new ones. If you don't, the bacteria in the reactor will continue to consume the pellets, despite the fact that water is not flowing through. This process produces poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas, which when the reactor is run normally, is slowly (but safely) released into the tank and exchanged out through the skimmer, airstones, etc. If you stop the reactor and then start it again, all of that hydrogen sulfide gas will be released into the tank at once.

I made this mistake myself, but in a different way. The ball valve on the output of my reactor was closed and I did not realize it until a few days later. Without thinking, I opened the ball valve, and let all of that poisonous gas into the tank. All of my fish were dead within thirty seconds.

 

[jdemarco]

I did my second water change in 3 days last night and took the advice of a few people to reduce the pellets (basically I removed 2/3 and left 1/3) and I am not worried about reusing pellets etc, probbly just throwm em away as i know there are some issues around trying to reuse.... i will deal with when time comes but basically i aware that leaving pellets stagnant in reactor is a BAD IDEA so i wont be making that mistake, thanks though. i am keeping ears open so keep advice/instruction coming its much appreciated. So thanks for advice to people who are responding and i hope i go home to a little clearer tank but last night when i returned home from work after all day it was at its worst!!!! as the skimmer wasnt functioning optimally since i could NOT be there to make adjustmenst as needed while at work.....basically I couldnt see the back of the tank, amazing. My feeling is that the cloudiness which is caused by the immediate bacteria bloom wont be helped by reducing the pellets because they have already "bloomed" intot he system....anyway I am open to all suggestions....still skimming and still have ph above 8.0 and still being very aware of oxygentaion issues so with skimmer and water crashing in my sump and koralias breaking the surface of my DT i dont think that is a problem for the moment. i put another new bag of carbon in a bag into my canister last night so running that as well......fish still seem fine...corals are not happy and I am not sure how much longer some of the other corals will take this abuse......

 

[reefkeeper2]

I don't mean this as harsh as it sounds, but this is terrible advice. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT STOP THE REACTOR unless you are going to remove the pellets and start with new ones. If you don't, the bacteria in the reactor will continue to consume the pellets, despite the fact that water is not flowing through. This process produces poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas, which when the reactor is run normally, is slowly (but safely) released into the tank and exchanged out through the skimmer, airstones, etc. If you stop the reactor and then start it again, all of that hydrogen sulfide gas will be released into the tank at once.

I made this mistake myself, but in a different way. The ball valve on the output of my reactor was closed and I did not realize it until a few days later. Without thinking, I opened the ball valve, and let all of that poisonous gas into the tank. All of my fish were dead within thirty seconds.

When I said stop the reactor and start again when the tank cleared, I certainly didn't mean to infer letting it sit stagnant for that time. Nicks387 had already instructed rinsing the media and placing in a plastic bag. Definately my error for not repeating it again.