Jeff, I’m not sure which reactor your planing on getting, but for the price I went with the TLF 550. I started with the recomended pump MJ1200, but I found it was not sufficient. So, I went with RIO 2100 pump.
Manufacturer notes for best results: use the 200 mL NPX Bioplastics Media in the PhosBan 150 with the NPX Bioplastics Screens in place of the sponges. A 300 - 350 gph flow rate is also recommended.
For your setup if your planing on getting TLF, I’m guessing the 150 will be Ok for your setup. Since you will only be putting at least 200ML max. They recommend using 100 ml per 25 gallons for TLF. So initially you should put 100ml to start and for at least a month.
After 2-4 weeks, nitrate and phosphate levels should decrease. Because these pellets are slowly consumed, more pellets have to be added periodically. Observe the level of media within the filter and top off as necessary about every 3-6 months.
Others recommend to have the exit port from the reactor to be near the skimmer be removed by your protein skimmer. However, you will still have excess bacteria falls off and can also serve as food for filter feeding inverts like corals, clams, feather dusters and sponges.
One more thing for you to be aware of. When I first hook it up after the 4 or 5th day my water started getting slight haze due to bacteria bloom and some people got real heavy bloom, its all depends on how much nutrient you have in the water. Nothing to worry about, it should clear up after couple of days. That is why they recommend use only half at the start.
Also, to soak the plastics for at least 24-48 hr, cause if you put it stright out of the package it will clump up in the reactor. After the soak you can de-clump it before you put it in the reactor.
Good luck with it. If you have any more questions please let me know.
::thumbsup::
Tank is looking great!
Thanks Bill. Trying hard to keep it that way.
Thanks for the info. I saw online most people did get cloudy water but they were dosing the plastics for what they thought was their actual water volume and not starting slow like you would when vodka dosing.
I was thinking of TLF 550 also due to the price and I would be able to use it later down the road if I upgrade my tank. The 550 is only 2" taller then the 150 so not sure which one I will go for exactly yet.
Where do most people put the pump if you want the exit to be in the skimmers pump section? I have an external Red Sea C-Skim 1800 with pump in first chamber.
That’s your choice as to the size of the reactor as long as you don’t overdose in the beginning. And when you are able to add full strength of the bio-plastics once everything kicks in and are able to keep those beads tumbling.
I have my reactor exit port dumps near the skimmer’s pump to where it maybe only skim out 75% of the bacteria and the rest hopefully goes into the DT to feed the filter feeders. You’ll notice in the DT (at least in mine) you will see white sponges or maybe other kinds of sponges growing more in your tank.
One more thing forgot to mention. When you start the reactor most people recommend adding recommended dosage of bottle bacteria to jump start the bio-plastics, other wise it would take a little longer to get the bacteria to house those plastics. Also, that will be your choice if you decide to do that no specific brand that I know or heard of that are better than others. Of course other people will tell you differently.
Good info. Thank you very much 
Do you also run carbon or anything else in you’re system?
Yes, I still run carbon and that’s it.
I should be up and running next week. Just made a order with MarineDepot.com They had pretty much the best pricing online for everything. I am going to use a rio+ 1100 pump with the amount of tubing needed I will still be in the recommended pump GPH range. I also picked up another unit to run carbon through since they were so cheap.
I can’t wait I have been fighting this nitrate issue for some time now. Which reminds me it’s time to add some Reef BioFuel.
Good to hear Jeff. Keep us posted and update. The recommend pump/GPH for those reactor are way off. It need to run with higher flow rated pump. The Rio 1100 may work out for you. Like I’d said, I run Rio 2100 and it’s running/tumbling just fine.
How long have you been using that Bio Fuel? Brightwell right? does it work for you? It was causing cyano for me, so I stop and went with vinegar.
Yes it’s Brightwell, When I first got it I was using it just like it said to and did not have any bad outcome. It helped a little with nitrates but I don’t remember how well. Right now I have a little bit of cyano. When I do get it I usually only get it on one corner of the tank and nowhere else really and only a little area nothing major. I have used it off and on though for about 5 months.
I can’t find the site that I pulled up the info from on what pumps to use with each reactor. The 150 they said to use a mag-3 or equivalent pump which is rated at 300gph the rio+ 1100 is rated at 382 down to 299gph with 2’ tube.I believe they lower gph by the vertical running of the tubing and the horizontal is not as effected.?. The 550 model requires a mag 5 pump with the bio plastics. Would not think that just those 2 inches would make that much of a difference.
Do you have your valve fully open on the 550 model? how much tubing did you have to use?
The valve is fully open. I have 1/2" od tube about 8" up from the second stage in the sump from the pump and about 6" going across the first stage to the reactor.
Thanks for the info, I set my unit up sometime last month and have noticed a difference already a lot of my corals seem to be happier and the growth has really showed in just the month I have had it hooked up. my zoa’s are spreading faster, my staghorn that never really grew has started popping out new branches all over and my other sps colonies and frags are doing great.
I do think I am going to need the bigger pump as you mentioned, I have good circulation with 100ml of the plastics but I do not think it will be enough when I up it to 200ml. There was no bacteria bloom either since i used much lower then half of what would really be recommended.
I still need to hook the other reactor up for the carbon and phosguard. Only problem I have with this is I have 2 pumps jammed in a small section of my sump/fuge tank so a upgrade is going to be almost required to make the addition of another pump mandatory.
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:92, topic:4187”]
Only problem I have with this is I have 2 pumps jammed in a small section of my sump/fuge tank so a upgrade is going to be almost required to make the addition of another pump mandatory.[/quote]
If you don’t really have any other reason to upgrade the sump/fuge and this would prevent you from moving forward with it then you could consider using one large pump with a manifold. If you don’t have a controller to manipulate every pump, or didn’t plan to do so anyways then there isn’t a major reason to have separate pumps and many small pumps use more electrical then one large pump.(in general the larger the pump often the more efficient they are in terms of watts per gallon)
Just T off the other pump and use ball valves to manipulate how much flow.
Why exactly do you think you’ve had more coral growth recently? If you think the biopellets decreased the nutrient level and that helped your zoanthids… Zoanthids really really like dirty water. If you think the bacterio plankton is feeding the zoanthids then perhaps your system ran too clean in the past and you need feed planktons a bit more. It very well could have been other changes to your system that caused the changes you have seen.
I believe it is important to make a good effort into understanding why you are seeing changes in your aquarium overall and in your animals. I get many ques from my corals. The color density, pigmentation, color shifts, inflation, tentacle length, and many other things I try to make an effort to read into to judge the corals health and the health of the system. Microfauna can also give you a decent read on a system at times.
My point being is that I am not sure biopellets would quickly, easily, and directly cause a boost in coral growth, but it is possible.
Good to hear things are going well for you Jeff. I don’t have any suggestions for you for your over populated pump problem. But it seems what Jon is suggesting is a good idea if you can make that happen. Most of the times the area around the sump below is fill with other stuff already and not much room to work around it. Too bad we can’t foresee the future so that we can make better plans with our set ups. I’m glad you brought it up though cause this will be a consideration in my next tank build.
As for the corals. If you notice things are better off now than before than I wouldn’t even considered the science behind it, continue doing what is best for your tank. Every corals and every body tanks are very different. Corals now a day are very adaptive to their environment, especially those that come from lineage from captive breeding. And who to say that those that do come straight out of the ocean are not coming from an area of the same tank parameter as yours.
By using bio-pellets will help with lowering the nitrate in your tank. But it will not go down to zero unless you stop feeding your fish and somehow the animals in your tank stop producing those bacteria that convert to nitrate. I’m not sure what your goals are for your tank, but I’m sure it the same as mine. I don’t want high nitrate or phosphate to help produce the unwanted/dreaded HAIR ALGAE!
Good luck and please keep us posted.
Good point on the single pump with a manifold. not sure why I did not think of that. I would have to upgrade the pump to handle the skimmer and the 2 reactors. I think the pump I have was 740gph max for the skimmer. I might try what you said to test it with the flow before buying a new pump no need in wasting money if I do not need to.
As for the growth issue, I had high nitrates and my sps would not grow much it was very very slow if any. The green staghorn for example I have had for probably almost a year did not grow taller or branch any. After the bio pellets I have noticed a lot of new stubs and branches forming. My digitata is hard to gauge by since I have gone through times where it looked great and some where it was receding and now back to normal but on 1 colony of the digitata I have noticed new branches. My frags are encrusting better and much fuller looking. As for the zoanthids growing better I think they have always been good growers but just the past month seems like they have spread faster then normal.
There are a couple of factors in everything here as to what changes I have made. I cut back feeding to once a day to once every 2 days depends on how I feel and how busy I am. I am sort of happy with this all my fish still seem happy but I notice my foxface seems to be skinnier so I am starting to feed him more algae again. The foxface also takes the nastiest poops in the tank also another reason I cut feeding.
second thing different was adding the bio pellets.
I like to look at things in a more simplified way as not to make things to exaggerated(I have a mechanical engineer friend that over thinks cars to much). The science to me is biopellets and less feeding = less nitrates = happier tank = happier coral colonies = Happier frags = happier me LoL I just had to laugh as I typed this one.
I almost forgot to mention I cut back on using the t5’s so I have been only using the MH’s. (clams all on the sand now and still looking great).
Well, it’s been a while, 4 month to be exact since I updated this thread. So, I figure I should.
To update: 3 month ago I decided to change from using TLF NPX Bio-plastics pellets to Warner Marine EcoBak ULNS Pellets. The reason why I change was that I notice from using the TLF I was still getting cyano and it would not go away. So, I decided to change to something else.
No really specific reason why I chose the WM EcoBak ULNS Pellets. Actually it was on sale from one of our club sponsor so, I got it. Of course I did a little research about it, compare it to others and for the price and ratings I choose to give it a try. So far no cyano, no HA, all still at bay. My nitrates however, still little high for my taste at 10-20 ppm according to the API test kit. My phosphate is at .10 ppm from the Hanna test kit. I took the GFO off line to see if it will help lower the PO4 but, it hasn’t really helping. So, I think I will put it back on line.
All in all, everything is running fine, corals looks good and growing but, I do need to lower the NO3 and PO4. I think I may be feeding the tank too much and maybe because I have high bio load.
I am still happy with my tank and here some pics to go with the update.
Looking good. Glad to see the pellets have worked out for you for the most part.
I just started getting some hair algae in the tank and my bio pellets are starting to clump up I am in need of upgrading pumps Maybe a mag 9 to run my skimmer and pellets and whatever I use on the second reactor I bought. I pretty much swear by the pellets now though. I have noticed a difference in my tank since I added them to my system.
Glad everything is going good for you,A. YahoO
Pictures look great, you have some really nice colonies in your tank.
Awesome :
:
Looking pretty good from what I can see. Are you planning to hook up a frag tank fairly soon? Or are the nutrient levels keeping the growth rates down a bit and it hasn’t become a necessity.
What is the orange-ish colored coral in the bottom left of this image?
Looking really nice A ::
just keep everything happy until the big move :BEER