Oh god... I bet your old man was excited when you broke that out in his kitchen... :D
I was not game enough to clean it with anyone in the house :eek
Trust me, it smelt 5 times worse than it looks ;)
Thanks mate :D
I thought I might display the Solid Carbon Dosing System I have been using for the past few months.
After doing extensive research and reading many many articles about bio-pellets, I came to the decision that they would be a valuable addition to my tank to control Nitrates and Phosphates.
The brand I chose was the NPX Bio-Pellets.
You will come across many horror stories about bacteria blooms and tanks crashing from these pellets. Some people have even named the pellets ""Crash Pellets" :eek
The top 3 most common problems associated with them are;
(1) Too much flow through the media/reactor
(2) Too less flow through the media/reactor
(3) Inappropriate amount and initial dose to the aquarium
I tried to learn from these 3 problems that many others have encountered and came up with a solution that has worked considerably well for me.
My tank has never suffered a nutrient problem, this could be due to many factors, a large skimmer, frequent water changes and sensible feedings. I believe all these things work to keep my nutrients at a maintainable levels.
I had read that many people reccomend the TLF reactors with around 1000-1200Lph for fluidization.
I tried the small reactor and couldn't get the pellets fluidized
I then tried the larger of the two reactors and an Aquabee 2000/1 pump for fluidization.
This combo has worked the best for me. I think it helps to have a larger pump that you can dial back.
A larger pump will also allow you to momentarily flush the media if it compacts over time, or mulm accumulates.
Here is 500mL of media in the TLF 550 Reactor.
A fair amount of pellets have been consumed by the bacteria already since they were put online.
Here is a video of the tumbling rate I have had success with
It is important to run the outlet of the reactor very close to the intake of your skimmer to ensure all excess waste/bacteria can be skimmed out ;)
Many people use a screen to stop the pellets from dropping to low in the reactor, I have had no problems using the supplied foam, there are a few pellets that are stuck between the foam - Oh well :p
I strongly believe the bio-pellets have helped considerably to maintain my N + P. ;)