EcoBak

[Chad and Belinda]

Has anyone tried using EcoBak? I was reading up on it today. They said it is used in place of GFO. Heres the link.

http://www.masna.org/IntheNews/tabid/400/ID/1019/Warner-Marine-unveils-EcoBAK-solid-vodka-dosing-pellets.aspx

[Rjohn]

Interesting. You try it and review the product for us.

[+o0zarkawater]

Sweet! Solid Vodka pellets! No more gagging after shots!

Also easier to sneak into bars, just order a sprite and drop in a pellet or two of vodka, bypassing overpriced drinks.

[Crab Rangoon]

Also easier to sneak into bars, just order a sprite and drop in a pellet or two of vodka, bypassing overpriced drinks.

Sprite is still extra costly, at bars

[reefman]

This is interesting. As a user of NP pellets, these look like about $20 less per 500 ml ($40 less on the 1000 ml size) than the NP pellets. John at Kingfish told me also that Vertex (I think I have that right) are also coming out with their version of the product, which Kingfish will be able to get.

Stephen

[reefman]

Also, generally you will still need to use GFO for Phosphates. The pellets (and as my understanding even straight vodka dosing) does not use up all the Phosphates because of the chemical reactions involved. These mainly work for Nitrates, and a little for Phospahtes.

Stephen

[Crab Rangoon]

This is interesting. As a user of NP pellets, these look like about $20 less per 500 ml ($40 less on the 1000 ml size) than the NP pellets. John at Kingfish told me also that Vertex (I think I have that right) are also coming out with their version of the product, which Kingfish will be able to get.

Stephen

Stephen, when we spoke last weekend, I was definitely glad to hear that somebody had taken the plunge on the NB bio-pellets. I was originally planning to outfit my tank with the CaribSea Live Sulfur Media product, which is definitely the least costly, but also the least uniform in pebble size/shape. With this (and possibly Vertex, in the near future) hitting the market, I believe I'll try my hand first at these instead.

On another note, given my tank is fresh, and new, how long should I wait before beginning engaging a nitrate reactor? Technically, I can indeed run it from the get-go, though it won't be doing much work yet, or is it suggested that I just build up to 20+ nitrate before initiating use of the reactor? I just wanted to make sure that I was able to start & seed the reactor properly, and with a low/unreadable nitrate, wasn't sure if there would be different results.

[reefman]

The normal parameter for Nitrates for corals is less than 10. Also be aware that anything you use (sulphur or pellets) is going to take a while to start working. If it was me and I was starting a new tank, I would have whatever equipment I was going to use ready, however I would not put it online until I saw Nitrates at around 5 ppm or so.

Again, that's just me.

Stephen

[Crab Rangoon]

The normal parameter for Nitrates for corals is less than 10. Also be aware that anything you use (sulphur or pellets) is going to take a while to start working. If it was me and I was starting a new tank, I would have whatever equipment I was going to use ready, however I would not put it online until I saw Nitrates at around 5 ppm or so.

Again, that's just me.

Stephen

Great! That was the plan, though - to raise the nitrate to 5-10ppm before opening the lines to the reactor (which I won't even have until next Thurs/Fri). I know a lot of people have had varying experience with how long it takes to really get their reactor running at efficiency, but I've done a lot of reading up on it, and it would seem that (at least with sulphur, it could be different w/pellets) the best way to break in is to start with minimal waterflow. Beginning the output at approx 1-2 drops per second for 1-3 days, and then increasing this to up to 4-5 drops per second will allow for much more contact time than typical, and the product coming out from the reactor at that point will have become 0-2ppm. It's much better, IMO, than waiting a few weeks for it to break in, running at full flow capacity. After 0-2ppm at many drops per second is achieved, you can open it up to be a small steady stream, and eventually enough flow to just shuffle the media inside the reactor. However, doing this with a tiny or minimal amount of Nitrate could make for an unknown break-in time, as your product water coming out of the reactor may not read any different than your aquarium water in ppm. Most people's articles/posts I read on the matter began at about 15-25ppm in the tank, FWIW.

Also, after doing a quick snoop around last night, I found that besides Warner Marine, both Two Little Fishies (NPX BioPlastics) and Vertex (Pro BioPellets) are coming forth with their own products to fill this niche. Minimal info on each of them can be found over the past couple days, on Reef-Builders.

On another note, with the sulfur medias, you must either have a calcium reactor equipped on your aquarium, or incorporate ARM media (or similar) in the reactor with the sulfur. Is the same true with the vodka/bio medias, or can they simply be run with no extra calcium compensation? The issue with sulfur is that when in the reactor under low flow conditions, it's reaction causes large drops in PH/hardness, and will eventually drive your aquariums parameters down with your Nitrate. Since I haven't looked into the bio-pellets quite as much as sulfur, I didn't know if this was true of them or not. Do you know, Stephen?

[reefman]

You don't need the Ca reactor for the pellets like you do for the sulphur. In fact mine run independent of each other.

Stephen