Should I take out my Bio Balls?
- Thread starter sarge
- Start date
tangman99
Active Member
You only remove the Bioballs if you can replace the biological filtering that they do for you. I converted over to a DSB and live rock and they are now my biological filter in place of the bioballs. The bioballs are a nitrate trap in that they collect tank garbage as water flows over them and it breaks down into eventually nitrates. They do absolutely nothing eliminating nitrates but just contribute.
When I was FO with bioballs, my nitrates were usually over 60 and once your tank gets around two years old, the nitrates are hard to control as the bioballs are rather filthy. I am slowly removing all of my bioballs as my DSB and live rock take over. My nitrates now stay at around 5 or less due to the denitrification properties of the DSB.
If you have enough live rock and sand and want to remove the bioballs, do it slowly over time. I remove 10-12 every weekend and have had no problems. They will all be gone in another week or so. If you must rely on bioballs for your biofilter, you can rinse about 1/3 of them a month to get rid of the garbage collected on them in salt water from the tank. Don't rinse them all or you will get rid of all your beneficial bacteria. The easy way to do this is keep them in three separate mesh bags or use three different colored bioballs.
When I was FO with bioballs, my nitrates were usually over 60 and once your tank gets around two years old, the nitrates are hard to control as the bioballs are rather filthy. I am slowly removing all of my bioballs as my DSB and live rock take over. My nitrates now stay at around 5 or less due to the denitrification properties of the DSB.
If you have enough live rock and sand and want to remove the bioballs, do it slowly over time. I remove 10-12 every weekend and have had no problems. They will all be gone in another week or so. If you must rely on bioballs for your biofilter, you can rinse about 1/3 of them a month to get rid of the garbage collected on them in salt water from the tank. Don't rinse them all or you will get rid of all your beneficial bacteria. The easy way to do this is keep them in three separate mesh bags or use three different colored bioballs.
pbuck
Member
I have had bioballs for a year and I have had no problem with them. My nitrates are always 0 and my tank is doing fantastic. I can imagine bioballs being a problem if you do not have a decent flow of water over them to not have any dead spots in the water but if you have a good tank you probably have enough water flow coming from your return pump that it should be no problem. Also bioballs should not and probably are not your only source of biological filtration. LR and LS will do the trick and the bioballs can be a secondary method.
tangman99
Active Member
I guess I should revise that a little. Bioballs do not themselves contribute to "excessive" nitrates. When my nitrates were high and bioballs were getting buildup, I had a tank full of messy eaters like puffers and triggers. With a reef tank, it is probably not that big of an issue.
Bang Guy, I read somewhere exactly what you stated about a wet/dry making a DSB less effective, but I don't remember where I saw it.
Bang Guy, I read somewhere exactly what you stated about a wet/dry making a DSB less effective, but I don't remember where I saw it.
arkman
Member
I'm a little unclear on this topic --- do nitrate PRODUCING bacteria live in a different environment than nitrate CONSUMING bacteria? SHouldnt there be an equilibrium somewhere?
e.g. do Nitrate producers prefer a high oxygen content (i.e. wet.dry) and nitrate consumers prefer a anerobic/anoxic environment (DSB) --- very curious.
THanks!
e.g. do Nitrate producers prefer a high oxygen content (i.e. wet.dry) and nitrate consumers prefer a anerobic/anoxic environment (DSB) --- very curious.
THanks!
pbuck
Member
I am not sure if there would be a certain type of environment that nitrate producing bacteria would prefer. For the most part they live on live rock and in the strata that you would have on the bottom of the tank. What I know is that the nitrate consuming is done by algae. In reef tanks this is done by harvesting macroalgae or water changes.
bang guy
Moderator
Originally posted by wamp
Bang,
Would you explain why you feel that other forms of filtration affect a DSB? Just curious.
Wamp - My research (non-scientific as of yet) indicates that a DSB (or even live rock) needs a concentration of Nitrate several time higher than the tank water to be effective in lowering Nitrate.
The only means of concentrating Nitrate for the sand bed is to have the Nitrate produced on the surface of the sand bed and slowly flow down to the lower depths of the bed through worm holes (and other sand bed infauna).
If the majority of the Nitrate is produced remotely in a trickle filter then the water flowingthrough the sand bed has a diluted concentration of Nitrate. ie. The concentration of Nitrate just below the surface of a sandbed without a trickle filter is in excess of 100ppm. The Concentration of Nitrate just below the surface of a sand bed WITH a trickle filter is about double the water level. In the cases I've tested the level ranged from 10ppm to about 40 ppm. I believe this makes a very big difference.
Tricklt filters with a very high gas exchange are MUCH better at converting Nitrite to Nitrate. They are so good at it that I think the sandbed is deprived of Nitrite and is less able to convert the Nitrate to Nitrogen gas.
The number and diversity of sand bed infauna is another huge variable so my results may be just anecdotal.
Guy
mrmaroon
Member
I built my wet dry with bioballs and have 0 Ammoina, 0 Nitrite, and 0 nitrate. I did put in a sponge and a floss prefilter to catch any large devris. I clean these reguallry. I also put my bioballs in removable tupperware containers that I remove and rinse every 3 months or so. They seem to stay pretty clean w/o the rinsing. I also have a fair amount of LR and a skimmer so I probably have overkill but better safe than sorry!
bang guy
Moderator
Originally posted by Draxx
Anyone (BangGuy) care to comment on any problems I may have or things to look out for? I'm almost 4 months old and am starting to think about nitrates.
Thanks!
IMO you won't be seeing any problems if you can harvest a handful of Caulerpa every week and remove it from the system.
