The Bio Aquatek Marine Bio Pearls being shown at the D-D booth here at MACNA are a little bit more than just your average “me too” biopellet. Developed in the UK, the major differentiator with the Marine Bio Pearls is the lack of foreign binders you’ll find in other similar products on the market. So what are these elusive fillers? Most likely many biopellets are utilizing paraffin, starches and other polymers as a binding agent in the production of the product. In the Marine Bio Pearls the only thing besides the base food for the nutrient-reducing bacteria is a buffer agent to help counterbalance the effects of the extra CO2 introduced to your system as a byproduct of the bacterial process.
The small spheres are pretty solid and will work quite well in any fluidized reactor and can take a bit more flow without breaking up into smaller pieces. Another nice thing about these biopellets is without the extra stuff hopefully we’ll see more efficient skimmer and less cloudiness with the pellets. All the other stuff in pellets can have an impact on the protein skimmer’s production causing havoc with foam production possibly collapsing the foam column too soon or changing the surface tension of the water causing the skimmer to overflow.
All-in-all we are glad to see companies taking a deeper look into the biopellet market and with more research, are finding better ways to make the product more efficient. D-D is hoping to have these pellets on the market in the UK in the next few months and are working on the final pricing. Expect to see these come in on the middle to higher end of the market pricing range on similar products.
