Ceramic Media

[wonroc]

So awhile ago I stuffed a ton of ceramic media of different sizes in the rear of my AIO. My question is, do you ever remove any of these and clean them/replace? Or do I let it alone forever? My ceramic has no light on it and is contained in rear.

 

[DC Reefer]

I would occasionally vacuum out the chamber if necessary but would not clean or replace the media. That would remove the beneficial bacteria living in the media.

 

[ScottB]

Maybe a couple times a year, it is a good idea to vacuum out detritus that ends up there. So remove and rinse the media in TANK WATER. The media holds valuable bacteria that your system needs to remain stable. Don't kill it or throw it out.

 

[brandon429]

if you do not use them at all, your params will be the same so its ok to remove them or add more etc

display reef tanks never run low on surface area, I know the cer media is sometimes claimed to reduce nitrate but when I used some, it didnt. no change in stasis one way or another other than being a new zone of waste retention that will need cleaning occasionally, is no harm to use that's for sure.


complete removal and running an empty chamber is also ok, harms nothing

if polled nearly all reefers would respond that the system is adapted to the bacteria in these zones and must be weaned off slowly, but that isn't the case in the sand rinse thread

we could pull your whole sandbed out, pull the ceramic media, add three new fish and the system would still run just the same. thats been logged on seneye.

the rationale for this mechanism is that surrounding bacteria loading and surface area manages itself and live rock manages itself. whatever the least amount of surface area it takes to run a reef runs independent from the orders extra we add. you can reduce back to the least amount and its still the least amount to run a system.

any use of live rock at all will run more bioload than you run right now, alone and without any support.

thats not stated to cause procedural anarchy



its so we can move tanks, upgrade, downgrade, move to a trade show, change our own reef, remove the sand, add to the sand, change the rocks and never lose a single reef. the reason to be precise on filtration allowance is because it runs all that $

 

[brandon429]

some might say its bad to not ever clean that media, let's say you left it in place for eight years.



how would that be any different than someone's deep sand bed

if they have busy fish doing work then the sb might be cleaner, but again from the sand rinse thread how to 90% of people present: 100% cloudy sand. total cloud if disturbed is how 90% of any sandbed on this board will fare if we cell phone film a stick stirring

but not the ones with wrasses and divers and sifting gobies

that's what untouched unrinsed media becomes so in the end, like a common dsb catch point.

if you refuse to clean it, that is how most people run a sandbed anyway. I rate the presence or removal or clean vs dirty status of that media as 1% impacting on your overall tank arc

 

[wonroc]

So it may have been a better idea just to place some small bits of live rock in the back and no ceramic? Think i can still do that without the tank going haywire?

 

[brandon429]

excellent thread, there are two schools of practice developing I got this habit from watching Randy troubleshoot surface area questions in his fm


what parameter is lacking in the reef if you were to remove all sand, all that filtration all at once....which cycling param will change?


once we have that answer, we can state whether adding more live rock in the back is different from the ceramic media.

If polled, about 99% of reefers will say ammonia would be the param that changes, it gets accumulated beyond a safe zone bc we removed linked surface area.

but no seneye owners would say that...once we gained digital insight to what ammonia really does, and by extension surface area mechanics, we see that however much extra surface area we add beyond requirements is not a permanent fixture in the tank at all, its expendable. instantly.

like carrying 5 spares for a car

so you have a minimum amount of live rock already in the display that can run your current bioload, plus all the rest the tank will ever see. its probably about 1/3 of your current rock load, going off average ratios

post pics


that 1/3 of your current rock is what you can't reduce below.

Whether you hook up nine canister filters right now and cycle them in place for a year, then instantly remove them, nothing changes.


whether you double your ceramic loading, nothing changes. if you add live rock, nothing changes, its all catchpoints that need cleaning. Not any param you can accurately measure will be changed by what you remove from your surface area, just not that remaining 1/3rd amount of live rock.

post a tank pic

*for power-outage prone tanks, having too much surface area is dangerous. the extra bacteria are commanding o2 more than your whole fish loading, bigtime competitors.

 

[Labora]

yea id do live rock