(My first post after some time lurking this forum)...
Is it possible to use an algae scrubber as complementary filtration in a large system (1000 liter / 275 US Gallons) already using bio pellets and skimmer for filtration? How low nutrient levels (N&P) can such system go without starving the algae in the algae scrubber to death? Does the algae scrubber remove anything else than N & P that the aquarium would benefit from?
I dont see why not, the biopellets just provide a carbon source for the bacteria. I do tge same thing with vinegar and the scrubber works just fine.
The pellets will really slow down the algae growth; may stop it completely.
Bio-pellets are the C (carbon) part of the food source for Bacteria. The other 2 parts are Nitrate and Phosphate (same thing algae scrubbers consume). If you use Bio-Pellets it will eat the N/P faster than the algae can eat it, in turn starving the algae and worst case, causing all the algae to die off and potentially foul the water until bacteria can consume the die off. Just not a good combination as they both do the same things, so one is going to suffer from the other, and bacteria normally out competes algae.
So how can you guys explain paul b the guy with the 400gallon sunlit tank that got totm on reef keeping. He is running bio pellets , skimmer and a scrubber succesfully. Im also running bio pellets, skimmer and pellets the only thing I notice is that I might have clean my scrubber every 6 days cause on the 7th day I start to get dye off but my scrubber still grows algae like crazy prob more algae that most scrubbers in this forum. Paul b is using his scrubber to control phosphates only. I started my pellets on a low dosage now im gonna go full amount and just rely on the scrubber to remove acces nutrients that the pellets cant do plus will alow me to feed what ever I want.
I think you are confusing PaulB who has the horzontal scrubber at the top/back of this tank with Amfyn (or however you spell it) who has the sunlit tank in South Africa
On something like a 400G display tank, that would require a HUGE algae scrubber to solely handle the filtration, which for most people would be impractical. So for large tanks like that you can use 2 methods like bio-pellets and a smaller algae scrubber because neither is going to be able to handle the filtration by itself, but together it could work if both are sized properly. On a 100G or smaller tank, trying to dial in the screen size with the small amount of bio-pellets that would be required would be a big headache IMO and make the water unstable for quite a while until you find the proper balance. Can it work, sure, but on a smaller tank an algae scrubber can handle the vast majority if filtration without needing to resort to carbon dosing. Most of the time I am not a fan of carbon dosing because it just wreaks havoc on a system until you get it dialed in, and it can take 6 months to a year just trying to dial in bio-pellets on a small tank, put an algae scrubber in the mix while doing that and that is just too much instability for my taste.
Why do biopellets take so long to get 'dialed in'? I know you've explained this before, perhaps you can just reference your post...
Bio pellets are just a carbon source, aren't they? Surely the sugars released from the algae do the same job, as long as your skimming. Be gentle with me, not researched bio pellets.
In short, in most cases it causes massive bacterial blooms/die offs until the population can find a balance. A bad yo-yo effect that wreaks havoc on corals. The theory used to be to 'buffer' that effect by using a giant skimmer to remove the bacteria die off at the out take of the pellet reactor, but science has shown it doesn't work that way.
In the last 6 months there have been a couple 'usable' bio-pellet reactors come on the market. The only usable reactor IMO is a recirculating one where you can control the input/output to a trickle while still having lots of flow in the reactor, that way you can control the bacteria populations in the tank via a dial, otherwise it is a constant game/hassle adjusting flow, knocking reactors around to break apart pellets, etc.
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