Hi Everybody Joey Here again and Welcome back so in Today's Video?
We're Going to build A bio Pellet Reactor for Saltwater
Aquariums Now When I set my
Saltwater Aquarium Up I knew That There was Three Projects I wanted to do right [away] which is the bio Pellet Reactor
A nano skimmer as, well as an Auto Top
Off We'll Be Covering the bio Pellet Reactor in Today's Video and Then in Some Future Videos?
We'll get back to the skimmer as?
Well as the Auto Top off but if you can't Wait I've Actually Already built Those Projects in the Past
You Can go back Into my past Videos and Check Those out
Now if You're not Familiar With what I bio Pellet Reactor Is in The first Place Basically They
Allow you to remove Nitrates from your Aquarium System and This is due to the bio Polymer Pellets that
We're Going to Add to the reactor but
We're Going to come back to Exactly how that's Works After I show [you] how to build it first of all you're Going to need
Some bio
Polymer Beads Now These are Available in A wide range of bit of brands but These are going to act as your source of Carbon
for the Bacteria you'll, also need A
Small Aquarium Pump that is Preferably Adjustable The one I'm using IS 80 Gallons per Hour However I can
Adjust The Flow and it only uses four watts of Power the best part is i only Paid?
$7.99 on Amazon Now if You use this pump you'll need a little bit of knitting mesh as
Well you just need a small Amount Although you Could Use any Sort of mesh and Place it over the
Output of the Pump the Reason Being Is that
When the pump Shuts Off and The [Pellets] Settled They Can get inside the Motor so you want to be able to stop them Somehow?
you'll
Also need some Glue or some silicones and of Course A water Bottle and for this to be the most efficient you want to Make
Sure that it is Round and Smooth as Opposed to Rigid Now if There's Nano Sized
[Reactors] Not Good Enough for you you can go Ahead and get some four inch
Acrylic Pipe and Build A giant Sized One Like I'm going to do for my
375 Gallon in The Future This Build Should Take you
[No] longer than five Minutes Which [is] the beauty of it it's very
Simple Start Off By Drilling A hole in the Cap of your Bottle and Make sure that it Fits on
Snuggly to your Pump then glue the mesh Down
Over Top of the Output of the Pump but do not
Obstruct The Ability [to] put the Bottle Back in Place Now you need to drill a bunch of holes at the Top of the Bottle
I prefer to drills much Smaller holes and drill a lot
Of Them so the bio Pellets Cannot Exit the Bottle
Drilling Them at the Top Though means that the Chances of getting out Are Slim Anyways because the by
Pellets Are Only Going to fill up half This Bottle now
We just got to put it all together Now if You've Never dealt With bio Pellets in the Past There's tons of?
Documentation and Instructions on how to start One of These Up but ideally you
Want to start off With About?
25 Percent of The Amount you need in My case i'm going Ahead and Filling it up just for this Video to give you A
Visual
Then Attach the pump With the cap on it back Onto the Bottle and You're Done Now if You Didn't Soak the [vial] Pellets for
About 24 Hours Prior [To] Putting it in The Bottle They will Float A bit but that's not too
Much of A problem Once You turn the pump
On what You want to Look for Is that the bio Pellets are Simply Continuously Moving Around and They're not?
Compact Or Packing Together at Any Point You want the Water to Freely Flow Through it but you?
Don't want them to go
Crazy Throughout The Bottle so Make sure that you Would Just the Flow [of] the Pump to Make it just right
Now if You're going with this design it's best to put it in your Sump and put it after your mechanical Filter but before your
Protein Skimmer After your Mechanical Filtration so that you filter out the all of Particles From the Water before it reaches The bio Pellet Reactor
Yet before The Skimmer Because the Bacteria that's Going to be Living on the Bottle will be Dying off
Eventually and Exit the Bottle so you'll want your protein Skimmer to be able to remove that
For me I've Been Running mine on my aquarium for about four Weeks and I went from Having Nitrates to
Zero Nitrates Now Typically This will Take About Six Weeks to kick in and Cycle the
Bacteria On The Bio Pellets However You want to Speed that up you Can, add Bacterias like
Bio Digest by Pro Video and That will Speed the Process up
Tremendously Now There's A few Different Types of Bacteria in A Bottle [that] will Work so [i] suggest you do your research and [find] out
What's most affordable to you and Available to you within a couple of Weeks you'll Notice that your Nitrates in your Aquarium are?
Undetectable [and] Even your phosphates Come Down A bit you See this will Remove Nitrates and
Phosphates To a ratio of 16 to 1 so all in all i'm about
nine Dollars
Into This Project Plus Another Six Dollars Worth of the Bio Pellets that I used now the entire Container cost
Me $30 but I'm only using six Dollars of that at
Each Time it Should, also Be Said that the bio Pellets
Don't last Forever you do Have to Constantly replace Them as They're Consumed but Usually you
Won't have to do for several Weeks to several Months Depending on your System [now] This Bacteria Still has A life Cycle so it
[Eventually] dies and That
Fluidization of The Bio Pellets Knocks off That Old Bacteria and New Bacteria Can Take its Place but That Old
Bacteria Will Be tossed Back Into your Aquarium if you
Don't have A good
Protein Skimmer After it Or perhaps some sort of A
Mechanical Trap to Make Sure You [get] you traffic all so for [fifteen] Dollars you too Can build your Own
Bioreactor and Have A big Impact on your Aquarium but how [Does] This Work, well the bio Pellets are A?
Biodegradable Source of Carbon Now if You Give Certain Species of Bacteria A
Source of Carbon They Can Consume It and Basically use it as a food source [so] they Can Consume additional Nutrients in The Aquarium like
Nitrates and Phosphates Now if You, were to build this exact
Reactor That I've Shown you this Would Easily Handle about A 75 Gallon Aquarium using about
250 Milliliters of These Bio Pellets in A 500 Milliliter Bottle
However The More Pellets that You Use and the bigger the Bottle is the
Larger The Aquarium This Could Handle Now These bio Pellets Have Been in The Aquarium Hobby for A few Years Now [and] There's tons of
Documentation and Discussions out There That will allow you to really dive Deep Into
Whether or not you
Need Or Could want A bio Pellet Reactor so I suggest you doing your Research before Attacking This Project
Although This Is a really Affordable and Extremely effective Project to
Do so it's up to you and what you do here Anyways don't that you guys [Enjoy] [Today's] Project
I'D also like to thank you for Watching and if You join me next Sunday I'll have a new Do-It-Yourself Project for you