Is my tumbling good?

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ItsTheNano

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My tank as been up for 9 months & i have never gotten my nitrates under .10 ppm so i decided to add a reactor with pellets. My question is my tumbling any good? I want to remove both nitrates & phosphates so i was told my tumbling has to be in between. Is this considered in between? Also in the beginning of the video you can tell that one side doesnt tumble as much, is that bad?

http://youtu.be/-3k-XaTPb6s


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solitude127

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How big is the tank and how much volume of pellets do you have? Overall, the tumble looks good. In the future, if you do add more pellets, it may be difficult to get a decent tumble with that reactor.
 
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Usingthejohn

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solitude127 said:
How big is the tank and how much volume of pellets do you have? Overall, the tumble looks good. In the future, if you do add more pellets, it may be difficult to get a decent tumble with that reactor.
Click to expand...
Agreed.

In my reading, a common theme I've come across is to have a reactor specifically for pellets in order to obtain the best results.
 
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ItsTheNano

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solitude127 said:
How big is the tank and how much volume of pellets do you have? Overall, the tumble looks good. In the future, if you do add more pellets, it may be difficult to get a decent tumble with that reactor.
Click to expand...
Its a 60gl tank with .25 L of pellets. (Half a cup)

Later down the road if I get a reactor specifically for pellets can I use this for gfo?


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Wankel

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Any reactor will work, as long as it can tumble well, and as long as you can control the output of the reactor. Output is the most important, i've read so many things about people being paranoid about the amount of media, but this is false, its the amount of treated water coming out of the reactor that matters the most.
 
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ItsTheNano

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Wankel said:
Any reactor will work, as long as it can tumble well, and as long as you can control the output of the reactor. Output is the most important, i've read so many things about people being paranoid about the amount of media, but this is false, its the amount of treated water coming out of the reactor that matters the most.
Click to expand...
So besides the water going out i should also control the water coming out? The TLF diagram has the ball valve on the input. I read that to avoid problems with the water from the output that its better, if possible to add a T connection to skimmer input & directly attach this. Is this a good or bad idea? For now i have the output in my skimmer chamber.


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If one side is not tumbling as well it is usually because the reactor is not level and is leaning to one side. In this case the higher side tumbles and lower side stays still or moves less. try adjusting the set screw on the phosban reactor in order to fix this issue.
 
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ItsTheNano said:
So besides the water going out i should also control the water coming out? The TLF diagram has the ball valve on the input. I read that to avoid problems with the water from the output that its better, if possible to add a T connection to skimmer input & directly attach this. Is this a good or bad idea? For now i have the output in my skimmer chamber.


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Click to expand...
Yeah thats ideal, I cant do that in my Nuvo 30 AIO though. But yes the balls create a film and its best to skim it out immediately so the nutrients don't go into the tank.
 
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ItsTheNano

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Wankel said:
Yeah thats ideal, I cant do that in my Nuvo 30 AIO though. But yes the balls create a film and its best to skim it out immediately so the organic material doesn't go into the tank.
Click to expand...
How can you tell if i can add a T to my skimmer? I have a BM nac 5.5 if that helps


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You could just put the return hose right in front of the intake, should be good enough. You would need some sort of adapter to press into the input of the skimmer pump to actually hard line it in.
 
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Wankel said:
You could just put the return hose right in front of the intake, should be good enough. You would need some sort of adapter to press into the input of the skimmer pump to actually hard line it in.
Click to expand...
Yeah just put the outlet hose close to the inlet of the skimmer. That's how I have mine.
 
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Wankel said:
You could just put the return hose right in front of the intake, should be good enough. You would need some sort of adapter to press into the input of the skimmer pump to actually hard line it in.
Click to expand...
pgr11 said:
Yeah just put the outlet hose close to the inlet of the skimmer. That's how I have mine.
Click to expand...
I agree, the skimmer will pull in the majority of what comes out, not worth the hassle of hard plumbing it
 
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ItsTheNano

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So i have another question mi nitrates are kind of high, my question is if i can add more flow to my reactor so the pellets can eat my nitrates faster & once my nitrates are removed can i just decrease the flow & tumble to keep my nitrates stable?
 
Wankel

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Neeeegative, that's how people crash their tanks. You have to remove it slowly, that's also exactly why people hate on biopellets. As far as I know you don't want it to ever get to 0 anyways, unless you're running sps only, you want to get it down it like 1 and keep it there.
 
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ItsTheNano

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Wankel said:
Neeeegative, that's how people crash their tanks. You have to remove it slowly, that's also exactly why people hate on biopellets. As far as I know you don't want it to ever get to 0 anyways, unless you're running sps only, you want to get it down it like 1 and keep it there.
Click to expand...
Got it! I just asked since the video said the faster you tumble the faster it eats up nitrates. But i also remember that stripping your tank of nitrates can crash it
 
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