Is biomedia useful or is it a nutrient trap?

[homer1475]

For me ceramic based bio media cause me more trouble than good. After found out from ICP test that my tank had very high aluminum, I removed them all. Then 3 months later the aluminum dropped from 386 back to 28. The tank didn't miss those bio media either and doing very well. I probably won't use any ceramic based bio media in a coral tank anymore.

I have the removed bio media in a bucket if water with a pump. Gonna let it run for more months, or a year, then ICP test that water to see if how much aluminum they will be leaking out there.

Back when marine pure was introduced, there was a lot of concern over AL. The actual marine pure stuff was fine, the cheap knockoffs from fleabay and amazon were found to knockoffs and leached AL very bad.

I've had marine pure in my tank for about 5 years now. Many ICP tests and never have had elevated AL.

I also do not trust ICP testing. We do not know there testing practices, whether they clean the machine between testing, whether the machine is calibrated between sample, etc, etc. There can be a whole plethora of issues with ICP as @Randy Holmes-Farley has pointed out before.

I once had an ICP come back that was no where near where I tested my tank at. Contacted the manufacturer, they dug into it, and found they mislabled many samples and sent out the wrong results to the wrong people. Had I acted on those results, I probably wouldn't still be in the hobby. So take every ICP test with a grain of salt(pun intended). ICP to me is a another testing tool, not an absolute.

 

[HaveFishWillTravel]

I use Maxspect Bio balls in a mesh bag which have proven to be fantastic. They took a few months to build the necessary bacteria, but once established, they knocked my nitrates from 15/20ppm to <2.5ppm and that's with 10 fish and feeding at least 4 times per day with frozen mysis, flake and reef roids. Defo worth it. I've always had minimal rockscape in the display tank so bio-media has always been a significant part of my setup. I often hear stories about people using media and it doing nothing after a month so they chuck it in the trash. Media takes time to establish, there's no instant gratification.

Hey there, where exactly in your sump do you place the mesh bag with bio balls? How many...approximately? What size is your tank?
I’d like to keep Nitrates <5ppm, but struggle to keep them less than 10ppm. I have a 50 gallon tank. Bare bottom with a fair amount of live rock. 2 clowns and a damsel, they get Mysis and pellets (my CF are old and blind). I like to direct feed my corals reef roids and Mysis and my tank runs nutrient rich. It flourishes nicely...but, I worry about Nitrates all the time. I put a bio-media lava rock in there right after my filter sock. I have no idea if it helped. Mostly, it disintegrated and created a mess in my sump so I took it out after a couple of months.

 

[Daniel400G]

I use siporax in a bag.
I find the best way to use it is after mechanical filtration to prevent any Gung buildup on the media.
I use 2 roller mats, which don't do much, I had to install a baffle with floss to stop large Gung entering my sump.
My nitrates are 0 according to salifert test kit.
Siporax is made from glass which won't ad aluminum to your tank and shouldn't break down.

 

[homer1475]

Siporax and marine pure are both made of sintered glass.

 

[brandon429]

Fact: unneeded. In all reefs. It’s a habit we’ve imposed upon ourselves by being trained by peers that we constantly lack both enough bacteria and surface area, we don’t.

in any reef posting here, we can instantly disconnect all your bio media. And your sandbed, gone in two hours, leaving you all your fish and only your live rock, and the tank will live on

Mindstream or seneye will show continuance of filtration with no spike. Api or Red Sea will have you running for the hills.


that which we thought was an integral required can’t live without surface area just got left behind...because live rocks are all the surface area we need. That’s an over abundance, the live rock alone. We could remove a third of your live rock too, and things proceed onward. Already been done several times in our move threads.

(but he’s lying thinks the crowd)

Daniel already has seen the vast rippage of surface area that is the sand rinse thread and we want more jobs, send em

let’s yank out everything they said we couldn’t, so you can move homes, or upgrade tanks, or just break the rules as the tank sits now so we can decrease waste catch points and increase flow and oxygenation.


stacking miles of unneeded surface area represents doubt and fear and insurance buying, but not when it’s designed to reduce nitrate.


using it all as extra ammonia control is where there’s no benefit.

specifically: when we disconnect extra surface area within a reef tank, lost bacterial mass does not migrate onto live rocks, that’s made up by forum posters, and slow removal does no good. Live rocks have enough bacteria on their own, that’s the truth, the extraneous filter areas are simply expendable at all times without being removed in sections.

here is us taking someone’s sump sandbed and instantly taking it offline, with follow ups. Same as removing bio media

Removing remote deep sand bed

I setup a removable deep sand bed in my sump 9 months ago but now I’d like to remove it to give me more room in the sump. What do you think the impact to tank chemistry might be and how to mitigate any negatives?

www.reef2reef.com

these changes to old school rules reflect new incorporation of surface area science into reefing. Saves money, saves tank life ends guessing. Allows for much more deliberate control over our investments. If we used old school surface area rules, the incorrect ones, we’d have to have cycled media in place to replace that removed sump bed, because the live rocks didn’t have time to take on more bacteria.

theres no harm in adding extra surface area if we want to, its just fun to relate instances of rule breaking to show how much leeway we have in reef design. Even in the reduced surface area tank, if a fish dies it’s not going to cycle the tank. I have never in my life seen a reef tank get a cycle from lack of surface area, all possible ending mass was always enough, live rock is this powerful.

 

[homer1475]

Fact: unneeded. In all reefs. It’s a habit we’ve imposed upon ourselves by being trained by peers that we constantly lack both enough bacteria and surface area, we don’t.

in any reef posting here, we can instantly disconnect all your bio media. And your sandbed, gone in two hours, leaving you all your fish and only your live rock, and the tank will live on

Mindstream or seneye will show continuance of filtration with no spike. Api or Red Sea will have you running for the hills.


that which we thought was an integral required can’t live without surface area just got left behind...because live rocks are all the surface area we need. That’s an over abundance, the live rock alone. We could remove a third of your live rock too, and things proceed onward. Already been done several times in our move threads.

(but he’s lying thinks the crowd)

Daniel already has seen the vast rippage of surface area that is the sand rinse thread and we want more jobs, send em

let’s yank out everything they said we couldn’t, so you can move homes, or upgrade tanks, or just break the rules as the tank sits now so we can decrease waste catch points and increase flow and oxygenation.


stacking miles of unneeded surface area represents doubt and fear and insurance buying, but not when it’s designed to reduce nitrate.


using it all as extra ammonia control is where there’s no benefit.

specifically: when we disconnect extra surface area within a reef tank, lost bacterial mass does not migrate onto live rocks, that’s made up by forum posters, and slow removal does no good. Live rocks have enough bacteria on their own, that’s the truth, the extraneous filter areas are simply expendable at all times without being removed in sections.

here is us taking someone’s sump sandbed and instantly taking it offline, with follow ups. Same as removing bio media

Removing remote deep sand bed

I setup a removable deep sand bed in my sump 9 months ago but now I’d like to remove it to give me more room in the sump. What do you think the impact to tank chemistry might be and how to mitigate any negatives?

www.reef2reef.com

these changes to old school rules reflect new incorporation of surface area science into reefing. Saves money, saves tank life ends guessing. Allows for much more deliberate control over our investments. If we used old school surface area rules, the incorrect ones, we’d have to have cycled media in place to replace that removed sump bed, because the live rocks didn’t have time to take on more bacteria.

While I would mostly agree with your points. I do want to bring up the "new" idea of negative space aquascaping.

With the apparent lack of rock and/or sandbed(actual surface area), biomedia becomes the biohome of your bacteria. I would almost bet that with most of these "new" types of aquascapes that lack surface area, biomedia is in fact needed for proper filtration.

 

[brandon429]

The only way we will know is when someone strips down too low and their stuff recycles / wipe out.


as of now, all failed cycles are determined by api and red sea so that means five hundred thousand surface area removals have failed (yet the tanks work fine)

agreed there will be a breakpoint of loss for each system.

zonation matters too: we need contact area in the display, where the ammonia is excreted live time. I’ve seen setups where the display was empty and the media or rock was down in the sump only

that’s a lot of swirl time with no contact for waste up top, could see some problems developing there if applicable. Typically though we’ve got a few pounds of LR in the display, that’s how we get away with the quick removal jobs.

 

[Blknovass]

Wow I am happy I came across this I run a fair amount of Matrix but did not know to pull it out and rinse it in tank water every so often.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, and if you pulled it out and didn’t put it back in the display tank with rocks, your whole tank and every parameter measures the same. It wouldn’t matter in the least if you pulled the media, used bleach to sterilize it totally, and put it back. It’s not making a difference one way or another.

 

[homer1475]

Agreed, and if you pulled it out and didn’t put it back, your whole tank and every parameter measures the same.

People never think.....

This is esentually what quite a few reefers do for QT tanks, but never think about it when just pulling it out to throw in another tank to "quick" cycle the tank.

 

[brandon429]

I better go edit in ‘display tank’ you’re right a qt needs its media.

 

[MnFish1]

I keep a few bags of biomedia in my sump, for an instant cycle on a QT tank. Works great!

After QT I trash the media.

I do have a lot of rock in both my tanks. So I haven’t seen a need for them “yet”.

I use Matrix, also I don’t really see a difference when I remove them from the sump. But I do replace immediately and only have two bags.

To answer the question - I do not use any of these products (have not seen the need) - but I don't think they are 'nitrate traps' either. The 'detritus' is going to go somewhere with or without the matrix. I would think a good pre-filter before the area those would be in - would solve any detritus problem.

It was my impression that QT tanks shouldn't use rock from a display tank or sump (it kind if defeats the purpose of QT - if you mix the 2 tanks (just incase there could be a pathogen in your tank) - and also It was my impression that this type of media/rock can also ad/absorb medications - and make them less effective if you're using medication in QT

 

[threebuoys]

If you are using it to supplement the live rock as a home for bacteria to convert ammonia/nitrite to nitrate, then some types of biomedia are more effective than others. The following link is to an in depth analysis of filter media effectiveness. While the analysis was conducted using freshwater aquariums and a variety of filtration methods ( canisters, HOB, sumps), the findings would be equally applicable to salt water aquariums.

https://aquariumscience.org/index.php/7-filter-media/

Based on this analysis, and my experience with my freshwater tank/sump, I dedicate a portion of my salt water sump to poret 30 ppi foam and I've bee very pleased with the results. I use socks or other methods before the foam to trap detritus.

 

[brandon429]

Saltwater though already has more surface area by rocks than all those freshwater filters doubled, freshwater is a world of round shapes, polished, with slicks. Low surface area, legit fear of nitrite, they need the surface area extra media.


but reefs are opposite. Zero nitrite concern, never slicks, jagged, crusty, massive area, convoluted, trenched, benthic growths that quadruple surface area, and so much surface area in rocks that any extra is simply oxygen tax on the system.

apples vs oranges it really is though I know what I’m typing sounds loco

 

[McPuff]

I've got 4 marine pure blocks in my sump and one of them is around 5 years old. They do get really brittle after a while but I think it helps to rinse them monthly... and this also makes them more effective.

 

[threebuoys]

Saltwater though already has more surface area by rocks than all those freshwater filters doubled, freshwater is a world of round shapes, polished, with slicks. Low surface area, legit fear of nitrite, they need the surface area extra media.


but reefs are opposite. Zero nitrite concern, never slicks, jagged, crusty, massive area, convoluted, trenched, benthic growths that quadruple surface area, and so much surface area in rocks that any extra is simply oxygen tax on the system.

apples vs oranges it really is though I know what I’m typing sounds loco

I agree with your premise that live rock is the biological filter media of choice in a reef tank. On the other hand, those who feel additional biological filtration is needed should understand that the effectiveness of other bio-media varies significantly depending on the characteristics of the media. Many of the media users swear by are very ineffective. As you suggest, those that have adequate live rock would not even notice a decline in the effectiveness of their system if they permanently removed the commercial bio-media.

In a QT or observation tank without live rock, a simple foam filter could, depending on the bio-load of the tank, provide adequate biological filtration.

In both salt and fresh, the key to success is to have an adequate amount of surface area to which the bacteria can attach, and the presence of adequate water flow to ensure all of the biological contaminants touch that bacteria.

So, if anyone feels the need to use more than live rock, at least be aware of the effectiveness of the other material you choose to use.

 

[schooncw]

I think it’s a wonderful addition to systems that do not have much area for bacteria to live on. The issue is, some of the media’s are breaking down and polluting the aquariums, namely marine pure and brightwell. As long as you keep an eye on them and dont let them waste away into nothing, they are a wonderful addition

I will never add MP or Brightwell Blocks again. What a mess!

 

[NYBumkin]

Anyone running a k1 style media.. Like a bashsea bio reactor.

I purchased and am in the process of setting up a Bashsea media reactor, 4-18, which will house brightwell bio-media and some xport no3 media, about 70/30 ratio. Upstream of that I will have my brs media reactor with carbon, and upstream of that a brs full size reactor with filter floss. I plan to keep the flow around or below 50 gal/ hour. It’s about a 75 gal system.

 

[schooncw]

Hey there, where exactly in your sump do you place the mesh bag with bio balls? How many...approximately? What size is your tank?
I’d like to keep Nitrates <5ppm, but struggle to keep them less than 10ppm. I have a 50 gallon tank. Bare bottom with a fair amount of live rock. 2 clowns and a damsel, they get Mysis and pellets (my CF are old and blind). I like to direct feed my corals reef roids and Mysis and my tank runs nutrient rich. It flourishes nicely...but, I worry about Nitrates all the time. I put a bio-media lava rock in there right after my filter sock. I have no idea if it helped. Mostly, it disintegrated and created a mess in my sump so I took it out after a couple of months.

Try SeaChem denitrate. For a 50 gallon, do 2 liters in a media rector but the key here, is to regulate the flow at 50 gal/hr or less, to facilitate the growth of nitrate-consuming anaerobic bacteria. Not necessary to seed it but better to do so....look at Bacter Gen MD

 

[schooncw]

I purchased and am in the process of setting up a Bashsea media reactor, 4-18, which will house brightwell bio-media and some xport no3 media, about 70/30 ratio. Upstream of that I will have my brs media reactor with carbon, and upstream of that a brs full size reactor with filter floss. I plan to keep the flow around or below 50 gal/ hour. It’s about a 75 gal system.

Take a look at SeaChem denitrate for your media. Xport made a huge mess in my sump.