Bye Bye Bio-Pellets

The day has come where I see more downside to using bio-pellets than benefits. After a year in use they have done what was expected which is strip almost any detectable levels of phosphate or nitrate from the aquarium. With that my stony corals have begun to appear faded, and show less aggressive growth than before. My intuition is the demand for small levels of phosphate and nitrate has increased to the point that dosing nitrates or the removal of the bio-pellets seem to be the only options.

My refugium has been showing little to no signs of algae growth, but I expect this will maintain a biological balance during this transition and will monitor closely. After removing the pellets, I replaced the media with a polyfilter/carbon combination. This will help keep the water clear, but the additional carbon will be used to fight any chemical reaction (toxins) from tank inhabitants should they be stressed by the changes in their environment.

Fingers crossed I didn't make a major mistake in making this change...

International Travel Time - November 2018

Day 1 of 12 away from the aquarium, heading over seas on business. I completed 3 X 10% water changed on back to back to back days before departing. All the pumps were also cleaned of any debris to ensure or at least leave as little chance as possible for failure. Below is my complete check list.

Check List

- 3 X 10% water changes (rock work blasted in between of debris)

- 30 Gallon ATO tank topped off

- Protein Skimmer cup and pumped cleaned

- Tank return main pump cleaned

- Activated Carbon Replaced

- Water tested

- Battery back ups tested in the event of power failure

- Automatic feeder batteries changed and tested

- Nest camera pointed at sump and tank for random monitoring

- Emergency contacts available in the event I receive a message from ReefLink