cfsindorf

That doesn't add up to me. How many fish and what types are they. The weekly water changes should be all you need unless the tank is crawling with fish... do you have plenty of flow and a clean up crew? My understanding from somewhere, is that you have to have phosphates also for the bacteria to grow. Are you having algae issues?

1 scorpion, 1 fuzzy dwarf lion 1 banded eel 1 Rhinopias , pencil urchin and long spine both small. No algae so to speak of as urchins and I keep it clean. PO4 is between 0 and .03

A month is too soon to call it an issue. How much did you use? It will take two to three months for it to drop them. The first two weeks it only seeded with bacteria, assuming you used MB7 in your system.

I used MB7 at the beginning but stopped. I started up again to give it a kick. I think I have a total of 2/3 of a cup or so it might be more but not a lot more. Was thinking about adding another 1/4 cup.

You might not be worried about phosphates because you have no corals, but you should track them. Bio pellets require both phosphates and nitrates to work. If you find yourself in a situation with nitrates and zero (or very low) phosphates, bio pellets will not be effective... so you would need to find a way to add phosphates in that case, usually through extra feeding.

However, I agree with Melev, you need to wait longer before bio pellets will kick-in. I think the general rule of thumb is that bio pellets will not do anything for at least 6 to 8 weeks, then you will start to see your nitrate and phosphate levels drop.

They have been in close if not over 8 weeks. I feed these guys a lot so there should be plenty of extra "stuff" in the tank. Mybe with me hitting the MB7 again that will help. PO4 is really low, .03 or lower, never did have an issue with it.

At 8 weeks, they are nearly at the point of being beneficial. You can dose MB7 weekly. A bigger water change would be quicker. What are you running the biopellets in? You can add more. 1 cup seems like the bare minimum.

Pellets in SMR1 tank is 30 gallons sump is 20 galllon tank. With rock and said I figure 30 or so total water volume. Pellets are moving niceley as no clumping. I diid not want to do huge water change because I want to see if the pellets can do their thing. As long as they do not get any higher then they are I am fine with that since I do not have any coral in this tank.

2/3 of a cup ... how did you come to that number?