cet98
Active member
My BioPlastics experience
Well…after a few of months I think it’s time I shared my experience with using BPs in my 40B system…
Last year I had foolishly started adding Fuel to me system as directed and to make a long story short, I had a massive outbreak of HA
After trying large WCs, dosing vinegar and manually removing the HA over and over again, I had finally decided (against all the negative horror stories I had read) to give BPs a shot.
After reading all the stories of people “stripping” the nutrients from their systems even when starting out with using ½ the recommended dosage, I made up my mind to try using no more than 1/4 of the recommended dosage and wait an extended period of time before adding any more.
I picked up a PIF 400ml of TLF NPX Bio Plastics from an extremely kind local reefer (and I apologize for not remembering his name as I lost all my PMs after the Crash of 2014) to whom I still owe a PIF too…
I started with ¼ cup of BPs which is approx 25% of the recommended amount for a 50 gallon system. (100ml per 25gal) I did NOT use any additional bottled bacteria or the like.
At first I started using an Avast Marine MR-5 reactor but quickly realized that the ¼ cup amount of BPs I was using seemed extremely undersized for this sized reactor. I quickly replaced my reactor with an in-sump IM MiniMax reactor and couldn’t be happier with that choice.
The reactor is placed in the first of my three sump chambers and I set my skimmer to skim wet in the second chamber and waited….
Within the first week I immediately noticed one of my blastomussa wellsi colonies had started to recede as well as my largest Rhodactis mushroom starting to shrink in size and bleach. I quickly removed all of my blastos and placed them in my office nano but could not do anything for my Rhodactis, shy of cutting it off, as it was securely attached to a large piece of LR along the sandbed…
This is what my tank looked like at the time I started using BPs:
Well…after a few of months I think it’s time I shared my experience with using BPs in my 40B system…
Last year I had foolishly started adding Fuel to me system as directed and to make a long story short, I had a massive outbreak of HA
After trying large WCs, dosing vinegar and manually removing the HA over and over again, I had finally decided (against all the negative horror stories I had read) to give BPs a shot.
After reading all the stories of people “stripping” the nutrients from their systems even when starting out with using ½ the recommended dosage, I made up my mind to try using no more than 1/4 of the recommended dosage and wait an extended period of time before adding any more.
I picked up a PIF 400ml of TLF NPX Bio Plastics from an extremely kind local reefer (and I apologize for not remembering his name as I lost all my PMs after the Crash of 2014) to whom I still owe a PIF too…
I started with ¼ cup of BPs which is approx 25% of the recommended amount for a 50 gallon system. (100ml per 25gal) I did NOT use any additional bottled bacteria or the like.
At first I started using an Avast Marine MR-5 reactor but quickly realized that the ¼ cup amount of BPs I was using seemed extremely undersized for this sized reactor. I quickly replaced my reactor with an in-sump IM MiniMax reactor and couldn’t be happier with that choice.
The reactor is placed in the first of my three sump chambers and I set my skimmer to skim wet in the second chamber and waited….
Within the first week I immediately noticed one of my blastomussa wellsi colonies had started to recede as well as my largest Rhodactis mushroom starting to shrink in size and bleach. I quickly removed all of my blastos and placed them in my office nano but could not do anything for my Rhodactis, shy of cutting it off, as it was securely attached to a large piece of LR along the sandbed…
This is what my tank looked like at the time I started using BPs:
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