K1 media really work?

Hi, everyone. i have some concern/question about the K1 media im using right now.
hope someone can help me with.
This new grow out has been running for 6 weeks now.
this  system include 75 and a 40 breeder both connected to a 40 sump. on week 2 i started putting fish in it. now there are around 300 1~1.5" fish in it. the feeding is less than 10grams a day.
first chamber of the sump is used for K1 media. its 9" x 18" x13"H which makes it arund 32Liter. i have around 1.5kilo=10liter of K1 in it powered by a 1300GPH powerhead.
i did a water test today with bad result: NH4:0.25 NO2: 1.0ppm NO3 UNKNOW (> 80)

With only 10grams of food. Consider the 2% daily water change/cleaning & octopus prime skimmer & 20~30lb LR. i don't think the K1 meida is doing anything.
the following are a few possible reasons might causing this issue.
i didnt put a air stone in it, because the water passed through ATS before entering the K1 chamber. so i think there are enough oxygen/air in the water (maybe this is the problem??)
2. i notices about 10% of the media been pushed out of water. maybe too much media in a small chamber?
3. the width of the chamber is only 9", the 9"x18" makes the surface area too small. causing media to accumulating on the top/ been pushing out of water
4, its been only 6 weeks, K1 take longer to cycle
5. K1 is not working as good in saltwater?
these are all possible reasons i can think of.
anyone has experience with these media can give me some suggestion???
 
thanks a lot!

Hello. I wanted to reply so you don't feel forgotten but I don't have any definitive answers. The K1 media is good stuff though.
Some questions / thoughts I have are: (take some with a grain of salt as I haven't raised that large of fish at that quantity)

1. What is your flow rate through the system?
2. 300 1.5" fish is a lot of fish and waste
3. 10g of food is a lot
4. What other filtration media do you have in place to remove the detritus?
5. I would recommend getting a good number on your nitrates. They could be WAY higher than 80 and I would be willing to bet if you are seeing ammonia they are. Maybe try diluting a sample and testing them multiplying by dilution to get the value if your test kit maxes out at 80.
6. The media should be churning like a fluidized bed, I am thinking if 10% is out of the water then you are not getting a good churn on all the media. The churn helps to keep a too heavy of film from forming on the media and reducing its effectiveness
7. A typical cycle takes 6-8 weeks. So I would say yes your K1 is still developing. Did you have another established bio media present before you added the fish?

thanks for your reply!
i agree that you said the media should be churning like a fluidized bed, i adjust the direction of the power head and drain today to prevent it been pushing out of water.  i will see if it helps.
i use a mag 9.5 pump. water is going through each tank for at least 10 times/h
the reason i said "ONLY 10 grams of food" is because they said 50L of the K1 is designed to handle 250grams of waste. in my case 10L should be able to handle 50 grams of food. ???
also with the skimmer, 20~30lb live rock, i think there is way less than 10grams of bio load, K1 need to handle.
about nitrates, i think you are right, i didnt do the test, but the number should be larger than 80. i didn't pay much attention to it because the nitrates for my other growout is way larger than this may be >500, and i didnt see any affection on my fish. but if you have some good ways to reduce no3? please let me know. 
 

Hi,
Ideas I have, please take into consideration, forgive me if I'm stating things you already know:
K1 doesn't come with nitrifying bacteria.  You have live rock in the system, and that's good, but might not be enough for the fish load and feeding schedule you have. You can add nitrifying bacteria from a bottle (Dr. Tim's one and only, or Fritz's #9 saltwater, to name two.) and that may help to resolve your problem most quickly.
K1 was designed to be used as a wet dry and it is most efficient when used this way.  The kind of bacteria that are the MOST efficient at inactivating/removing ammonia generated by heterotrophic bacteria are the kind that consume a lot of oxygen in the process, and for that you need a wet/dry application.  If you submerge the k1 in water, that means you want to have air bubbling over it.  If you keep the k1 over the water level, that means you want the water dripping through it, hence the name trickle filter.  K1 was designed to tumble submerged, but it should be moved by the force of air bubbling through it, not a power head, however oxygenated the water is. Air mixed with your water from well fed fish is the thing that will culture the bacteria that are most effiient at removing ammonia and keeping your water safe.  K1 is just the surface upon which the bacteria cling.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

I think Kathy handily answered your questions, so all I'll add on is that I run two Bashsea Bioreactors which basically use a K-1 type media.  They are "stirred" by the water coming in from the top, while they are tumbled by the air that comes up by the bottom.  It's an amazing design, and the best part, arguably, is that if there was, say, a power outage, so long as the AIR-PUMP was backed up to the reactors, my biological filtration would stay alive.  That's a pretty impressive thing when you think about it.  I think it works, and I particularly like how it works in the Bashsea reactors that were contributed to me when we did the Banggai research for the book.

Thanks a lot Kathy.
im going to add a air line in my K1 chamber tmrw.
a few more detailed questions:
do i need a air stone, or just an air line??
do i still need the powerhead to move the media around?
 
about water change, im trying to do less water change as possible, to save salt, thats why i added an ATS. but what level of no3 do you think is reasonable for grow out? i had a hard time keeping it under 300 even with 2% daily water change and ATS...
 
 

Thanks Matt for the description of your bioreactors.
i checked online about those bioreactors, look pretty cool.!! just not sure where to get those and prices? can't find it online anywhere.
i realized in the video, the water movement in the reactor is kind of slow. in my media chamber, i have a large powerhead in it, so the water is moving kind of fast. do you think it may affect the effectiveness of the media？
 

Just search youtube - hundreds of DIY reactors on there for next to no cost.

Airstone(s). If you use enough air that the media moves around, you don't need the powerhead.  Also, the media will become more dense as bacteria colonize on it, and it should get more neutrally buoyant.
I think if you want to reduce nitrates, you need to be less concerned about saving salt. Change enough water to lower your nitrates to the level you feel comfortable with, and keep monitering it.  When it goes up, change enough to lower it down. What level? I don't know. Probably 300 is too high, 200 is too high, 100 is too high.  What is your pH? Get a reliable pH meter.  When nitrates go up, pH goes down, and I think it's the pH that affects the fish the most.  Change enough water to get your pH to 7.5 -8 and the fish will be fine.

check out Kathy's Clowns, llc website:
http://kathysclowns.com
Captive bred clownfish and more
(Wholesale to the trade.)

 
thanks for the reply, do yo mean those reactors built in the sump or something different?