My experience using biopellets

I thought I'd make this thread to give a little insight on anyone interested in using biopellets to help reduce excess nutrients in the water.

My rock was full of red turf algae. Not sure if any of you have dealt with the stuff, but it's a mess. It spreads, doesn't come off. It feels like velcro. I've tried everything, including reducing lighting, manual removal, water changes, etc etc. nothing would kill the stuff.

Finally I used Vertex biopellets. Within months, every single spec of algae in the tank was gone, including the turf algae.

That's the good part!

now the bad: besides the algae, my corals started dieing off as well. SPS got STN, my LPS, leathers, all died. My mushrooms, riccordia, hammers, etc. were all dieing off (which is weird considering how easy those pieces are to keep in a well established tank).

At first I thought it was my lighting (having recently switched to LEDs). After nothing else worked, I finally decided to cut the biopellet load in half. Didn't help.

Finally, I figured I'd remove it completely and see how it went. Within 3 weeks or so, my hammer opened up. my last SPS is opening up nicely and is sprouting new branches.

I'm figuring the biopellets were doing such a great job at sucking up nutrients that they were also starving the corals.


Maybe I had too many biopellets for the tank. (I did follow instructions).

So a little advice if you want to go the biopellet route:

- Start with very little at a time, and take your time.
- make sure your reactor is installed for the proper use of biopellets (enough flow for proper tumble, no sponges in the reactor. only add a mesh that won't allow pellets through but will allow for nothing to get stuck inside it.
- If (after your algae dies out, and it will) you see your corals closing up, either reduce or remove the pellets completely.


Might not be the best advice, but it worked for me. 1 year after the ordeal, my corals are finally starting to grow again.

greech said:

It may be that your tank was cleaner than you thought to start with and the biopellets stripped the tank too much. That algae is really tough to beat as you mentioned and it is often in tanks that are otherwise healthy. Did you have any other algae in the tank beside the red turf?

I have read quite a few posts like this. After reading the directions on the Vertex site there are a lot of warnings about starting slow particularly on established systems with an already efficient bacteria population. Also, when you calculated the water volume of your system did you account for displacement? Read another post about an overdose because the rock was not accounted for.

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Yeah, I didn't overdose, and I added small amounts slowly in a span of a few weeks. you're right about the red turf, that stuff is terrible, and it almost convinced me to tear down the tank and move to freshwater. Fortunately the pellets did what they were supposed to and starved the turf algae completely.

As it stand the tank is very stable with (knock on wood) no algae in it whatsoever. In time, if I get enough problematic algae in the tank, I'll definitely reinstall the pellet reactor. However, I won't be using one long term, and as soon as the algae issues are resolved I'll remove it.