Disheartened.

reeferkeeper420

reeferkeeper420

Distinguished Member
Whats the reasoning for me having to take pellets offline? What are there side effects in my tank? Just trying to understand the science behind it all. :)
 
pulpfiction1

pulpfiction1

Reef Scavenger
i went from vodka to pellets years ago to better manage my nitrates,pellets have done that and then some,wouldnt go back to dosing vodka ever unless i had no choice
 
T

TORX

Administrator
Staff member
Website Admin
Some things are just personal choice. Both methods are proven to work. Either way, I would not just take them off all at once.
 
reeferkeeper420

reeferkeeper420

Distinguished Member
No i wont. But some are saying that i should take them off like theyre doig harm in my tank. My n03 stays at around .2 .1. Personally id rather have them a bit higher, for my zoas and lps, but hvent managed to achieve that yet. That and im a little weary on the side effects vodka may have on my acros. I thought curiousphil was using vodka and had mysterious bubbling tissue on some of his acros.
 
curiousphil

curiousphil

Super Active Member
reeferkeeper420 said:
No i wont. But some are saying that i should take them off like theyre doig harm in my tank. My n03 stays at around .2 .1. Personally id rather have them a bit higher, for my zoas and lps, but hvent managed to achieve that yet. That and im a little weary on the side effects vodka may have on my acros. I thought curiousphil was using vodka and had mysterious bubbling tissue on some of his acros.
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That was with vinegar, and a very high dose at that!! I think I was dosing upwards of 100 ml per day towards the end of my experiment. I've never tried vodka.
 
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Pipes

Pipes

Active Member
Riley. When was the last time your testing equipment was calibrated? You should never get a 0 ppm in salt water, as there is content to the water. ppm is a measurement of parts per million ( solids in water which is the salt etc.). Our water here in town is about 380 ppm + all the chemicles. R.O. water should be between 5 and 20 ppm. D.I. is less than 1 ppm. Hopefully you have also changed your filters on your R.O. Make sure to test your ppm coming off the membrane too. If you don't change your filters the membrane will puke straight tap water, and carbon filters can only absorb so much of the chlorine too. Check your system. Ingersoll water really sucks not to mention stinks ( literally ). Just wait until you see the new cocktail we are about to get hit with from the County water department.....
 
Pipes

Pipes

Active Member
btw I also have some water softner carbon if you want a bit. Just don't have anything to put it in. Don't know if it is the right kind, but had some left over from a job.
 
Pipes

Pipes

Active Member
ok. My misunderstanding. It's good you changed them in the last few months. They are about to get the Sh*! kicked out of them in the next few months with the new water.
 
Pistol

Pistol

Super Active Member
Donor
reeferkeeper420 said:
Whats the reasoning for me having to take pellets offline? What are there side effects in my tank? Just trying to understand the science behind it all. :)
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It's a fact that some tanks experienced hair algae problems with pellets, pellets are the highest form of carbon dosing, they break down from polymers to alcohol to vinegar to sugar. Every tank is different and not everything works for everybody. I had 2 perfectly healthy systems for years then I tried running pellets in my 80gal and it exploded with hair algae, never had it before, I ended up tearing that system down. If the pellets are causing your problem then you will never win this battle. I have never heard of anybody getting HA from vodka or vinegar and I have researched both a lot, I have successfully dosed both vodka and vinegar. Of course the people who have had success with pellets will tell you not to stop, you seem to be doing everything right, except maybe going too fast,
so why the HA. Wean the tank off the pellets and try the vodka, It's going to promote the growth of beneficial bacteria and take up no3 and a little po4 in the process, the bacteria feeds your corals and and is skimmed out there by exporting the nutrients. It is more a controllable form of carbon dosing than pellets, you must do it slowly.
As for side effects, I think the worst you could do is a bacteria bloom which means you have dosed too much in which case you would skip a dose and start dosing less, or your HAIR algae might fall out.
 
reeferkeeper420

reeferkeeper420

Distinguished Member
Well right now my biggest concern is STN'ing acros. Everything slowly starting to go, just lost my hallucination zoas, my red dragon is half gone same with my pink milli, red planet and BS pink green aussi milli.My RR Jawsdropper, RR Pretty In Pink, green slimer, green efflo, RR Pink floyd, blue tipp red stag are all on their way, some worse than others. Lps softies and montis, digis all seem fine. So f@$king pissed off with this. All these have taken me so long to get them to grow out, and now thats all going down the tubes.
 
heath

heath

Distinguished Member
Pistol, loved your comments.. I use vodka on my tanks and all that I will add other than the hair algae was literally gone in 3 days is use socks, the gunk that was sluffed off was disgusting and you definitely don't want it going back into the system, my socks needed to be changed every 4 to 6 hrs in the beginning...they were full/plugged...
 
pulpfiction1

pulpfiction1

Reef Scavenger
I've never seen pellets cause hair algae.
Maybe post some stuff to back that up
I have seen a few tanks get cyno from it though
Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk HD

after i got home last night i did try to find any direct links to hair algea and bio pellets,
i did not find any hard facts,what i did find was some people started pellets and found
hair algea did not go away after they started,pellets require min 6 weeks to establish the bacteria needed for using up nitrates and phosphates,seems most are impatient,there can be some variants,like water flow to fast or slow,should dump in front of a skimmer.
like i said ive seen cyano and also white cloudy bacterial blooms which disapate after a few days.
was a die hard vodka user for years until pellets came out and i did the switch and theres no goin back for me,ive used vodka,sugar and vinegar,and have never witnessed the dissapearance
of hair algea in 3 days ,but we all have different results i guess
 
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Pistol

Pistol

Super Active Member
Donor
pulpfiction1 said:
I've never seen pellets cause hair algae.
Maybe post some stuff to back that up
I have seen a few tanks get cyno from it though
Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk HD

after i got home last night i did try to find any direct links to hair algea and bio pellets,
i did not find any hard facts,what i did find was some people started pellets and found
hair algea did not go away after they started,pellets require min 6 weeks to establish the bacteria needed for using up nitrates and phosphates,seems most are impatient,there can be some variants,like water flow to fast or slow,should dump in front of a skimmer.
like i said ive seen cyano and also white cloudy bacterial blooms which disapate after a few days.
was a die hard vodka user for years until pellets came out and i did the switch and theres no goin back for me,ive used vodka,sugar and vinegar,and have never witnessed the dissapearance
of hair algea in 3 days ,but we all have different results i guess
Click to expand...
This is my experience with pellets, it was a few years ago when researching and I found several others with the same result, I didn't save the links.
 
heath

heath

Distinguished Member
that looks like my tank before the vodka, I needed a lawn mower to cut mine, lol..
 
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