Replacing Bio Balls

[bram]

Hello everyone, this is my first post, and I must say this forum is full of wonderful information.
My setup is that I have a 55 gallon tank with overflow, and a wet/dry sump that houses my Prizm Protein Skimmer, heater, pump, and bio balls. I currently have two clown, one yellow tang, two blue green chromis, five turbo snails, five blue legged crabs, and one sand sifting star. I also have 75lbs of live rock with two power heads. Everything is 8 months old currently.
Everything is doing fine except for my Nitrates are too high. I know from what I've read that bio balls have a tendency to cause this. My question is I would like to replace my bio balls with something else? Any recommendations?

 

[lion_crazz]

I replaced my bio balls with pieces of rubble live rock. It works out nicely because it serves the same purpose of bio balls, yet, there is no nitrate production.

 

[larrynews]

sorry to bump but how do the bio-balls cause the nirates to rise

 

[dmc888]

I would try flushing them and see if it helps. Also rinse the filters off. I do mine about once a month . Use saltwater to save the bacteria. Whens the last time you did a water change? If you did both recently i would go with the live rocks.
I have no problems with mine but my 55 has a wet dry 125 size filter on it. Nitrates are 10ppm and its been about a month. You might also want to get some nassarius snails. They will help clean up by eating fish waste which helps alot.

 

[lion_crazz]

Originally posted by dmc888
I would try flushing them and see if it helps. Also rinse the filters off. I do mine about once a month . Use saltwater to save the bacteria. Whens the last time you did a water change? If you did both recently i would go with the live rocks.
I have no problems with mine but my 55 has a wet dry 125 size filter on it. Nitrates are 10ppm and its been about a month. You might also want to get some nassarius snails. They will help clean up by eating fish waste which helps alot.
Let me just clarify some of the things said in the post above. Do not take out all the bio balls at the same time because you will lose a great deal of biological and your ammonia will spike.
Take out about a handful of bioballs once a week. How high are the nitrates? In order to lower extremely high nitrates, you need to perform large water changes on a frequent basis. Depending on how high they are, I would do about 25-40% water changes once a week, and see if this helps. You may want to pick up a bottle of Cycle just in case these large water changes promotes an ammonia spike. While you are doing the water changes, move around your live rock and be sure to vacuum under the live rock because there is probably a good amount of build-up underneath the rocks. Also, take the live rock out of the tank and shake them in the bad water bucket to get all the dirt off the rock. There may be a lot of dirt building up on the live rock or in it.
Next, do not clean the filters off with just any saltwater. You need to use dirty tank water from when you are doing a water change so that you do not wash off the bilogical on the filters.
Hope this helps. Post any other questions you have and I will be glad to help you.