NitrateMinus Pearls from Tetra are the first Biopellet product offering from a multinational aquarium product manufacturer. We spotted these Nitrate Minus Pearls at the giant Tetra booth at InterZoo and it was a surprise to see these high tech reefing beads coming out of a mainstream fish food canister. We find it curious that Tetra is also marketing the NitrateMinus Pearls for freshwater tanks which seems to undermine the role of a protein skimmer in physically exporting the bacterial mass that sequesters the nitrate and phosphate that biopellets are designed to reduce. We are still very much on the fence about how well biopellet technology works, what kind of results we can expect and how best to use them but if a mainstream biopellet offering from a large company like Tetra isn’t a sign that there must be some potential for the biodegradable nitrate and phosphate reducing pellets, then we don’t know what is.
