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DIY bio-pellets (1 Viewer)

wes

wes

aWESome
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Has anyone found a viable source of "DIY" bio-pellets and given it a shot? I'm tempted to try these, but I'm still as frugal as ever. :gay1: Has enough time passed for people to see some good results with these pellets yet? Any hints/tips? I suppose it's not really all that pricey to nab some of the TLF pellets, but still, if there's a DIY, I'm all for it.
 
I looked into "Friendly Plastics" once as it was rumored it was the same plastic as the earlier bio-pellets (Polycaprolactone). I never found patent info or anything to prove it, I was just taking the word of people online.

You could look into any "bio-degradable" plastic and see if it can be metabolized by bacteria, but you're going to need to make sure there are no impurities that are toxic to fish/corals.

The pellets themselves aren't that expensive really. $40 worth should last around 6 months with a ~100 gallon system. In my opinion it isn't worth the hassle and possible risk to save $5 every few months on pellets.
 
The earlier version assumed to be like Friendly Plastics but they to have changed what they use. It's definately not the same anymore.

Like mentioned, the price has come down some since then. BRS offers some discount when buying in larger portions or have been part of a group buy in the past to get further discounts. This is the way I would go.


PS: Good to hear your still in the hobby since the move.
 
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DG-
I gave away a lot of my SPS when school started to get intense, but my tank has been going strong the entire time we've been out here (knock on wood). I've now got an 'exit only' tank filled mostly with stuff I got in that awesome shipment way back when.

:biggthumpup:

I'll probably just give the ol' BRS pellets a try. About time for some new resin, anyway.
 
BRS has pellets but they are sold out of the reactors indefinitely as the vendor stopped making their inserts. Bummer!! just tried ordering one!!
 
Inserts are nothing special. Just get the plastic cross stitching sheets from Micheals for under $1 and cut to size.
 
Octopus is coming out with their own media also and reactor end of this month. :beerchug:
 
Now a DIY reactor I can do (in fact, it's already waiting for some pellets in the sump). :greenguy:
 
I tried the Avast unit and it didn't work well and I returned it this week , I have an octopus unit on order and I will give a review once I have it in my hands.
 
Jonty said:
I tried the Avast unit and it didn't work well and I returned it this week , I have an octopus unit on order and I will give a review once I have it in my hands.
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Really? Mine work great! I've got 1 running pellets and 1 running carbon. What didn't work about it?
 
The pellets fell through the bottom grid and the flow /tumbling was very uneven one side tumbled the other did not. I run the nox carbon and even with the foam the carbon went everywhere and I don't want to run a bag for the carbon in the reactor
 
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two little fishies has their own pellets and a screen kit to adapt the tlf 150 or 550 reactors. I can get any of them. I might try the 150 on the fo tank for algae control.

Sent from my SPH-M920 using Tapatalk
 
Jonty said:
The pellets fell through the bottom grid and the flow /tumbling was very uneven one side tumbled the other did not. I run the nox carbon and even with the foam the carbon went everywhere and I don't want to run a bag for the carbon in the reactor
Click to expand...

Interesting. I run Rox carbon. I'm not familiar with Nox carbon. It's very messy, but I'm pretty satisfied with its containment by sponges. It would be rather pointless to have a bag of carbon in the reactor. I don't have any escaped pellets. Are you pellets really small or something? I am currently using BRS pellets.
 
Sorry I meant Rox , late night last night
 
I was running BRS pellets , I think the quality control had gone awry with the two reactors I received as they were an 1" different in height and the internal perforated disks fit very loosely
 
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