need help with wet dry

[tarponiser]

i was just wondering if i should switch out my bioballs for live rock.
what do you guys think i should do.

 

[ophiura]

The general "problem" with bioballs in a wet/dry is one of lack of maintenance. And if you don't do it for bioballs, the LR will have the same trouble. Basically if you feed a lot and don't have prefilters or such, the get full of gunk, and this will happen either way. So keeping it clean is critical.
What are you nitrates like? What fish do you keep?

 

[tarponiser]

nitrates are 8.3 i keep a yellow tang ,naso tang, powder blue, coral beauty, maroon clown, and some damsels. i was just wondering if it had any benefits in doing so.

 

[ophiura]

There can be benefits, but it depends very much on the overall tank set up I think. But the switch to LR rubble will not help if you find that the bioballs are getting gunked up. But there may be other options for reducing nitrate levels as well based on feeding, water changes, skimmer, etc.

 

[xdave]

What size tank is that?

 

[tarponiser]

its a 55

 

[hemicj]

i would use live rock and put some hermits,and snails in there to eat any food waste also the pods, and little starfish would thrive in such a enviroment, just dont overpack the area you need to a;llow flow so you dont have dead spots, my friends and i all use live rock and have had great succes in multitude of tank sizes and setups

 

[colourmop]

yeah get some hermits/snails/cleanup crew, and make sure you have somekind sponge/fibers to filter out gunks before they hit the bioball, you can throw those sponge/fibers out once couple week(or when they get dirty)
also, turn off your powerhead and drop some pellet food, once they hit the bottem, turn the powerhead on. if some food stuck in a corner, you better find a way to get current to that area

 

[bkvreef]

When you say clean up crew do you mean in the tank or actually in the sump with the LR?