Bio Balls and Live rock

[jabari]

I've been told once that you should have a pound of live rock for every gallon of water that u have in your tank, currently i only have a total of maybe 40lbs of live rock in my 125gal. Another lfs said that since i have bio balls in my wet dry i don't need that much live rock with a fowlr tank...give me your opinions and what you've heard

 

[spanko]

IMO if you have a wet dry correctly sized for your tank you should be fine with little to no rock in your tank. Just remember there is a maintenance schedule that needs to be kept diligently for the wet dry to help to maintain acceptable nitrate levels in the water.

 

[ibew41]

in a fish only you can have higher nitrate levels then a reef but like spanko said you have to make sure you clean it all the time or nitrates will go up

 

[geoj]

First off I am not a fish only guy but I would set up a sand bed to do my bio filtering. I would just add enough rock to make the tank look good. Now for Bio Balls if they are the old empty woffal balls forget it, there as useful as the glass walls. My opinion is and I have said in the past that for live rock one pound per gal is a good start for a reef tank. In a fish only it would be very easy to add more fish then the filter could handle so all of this is null and void because it is up to you to test the waste numbers and to only add what the bio filter can handle. A good sand bed is how I would go…

 

[srfisher17]

Good bio-balls in a system with proper flow will handle ammonia and nitrite as well as LR. However, as mentioned above, they will do nothing for nitrate. Nitrate can be much higher in a fish-only tank than a reef; but the bio-balls still need regular RINSING. Do not scrub them, I've seen this suggested many times. The slime coat on the balls houses the friendly bacteria. IMO & IME; in a fish-only system; any type of good outside filter (bio balls, canister, big HOB, etc) will be completely adequate for ammonia/nitrite control. Aerobic bacteria (to control ammonia & nitrite) is very easy to culture; bio-load should never be a problem in an established tank---stocked with common sense. I'm always amazed how often folks have ammonia show up in a long-established tank.