Oceanic Reef Setup - a bio balls idea......

MarsRover · Apr 17, 2016

All,

I have recently acquired a used Oceanic ~40 Gal reef ready setup with a ~10-15 gal reef ready sump.

I ran it for about a week with vinegar (4.5 gals) and fresh water, scrubbed and rinsed thoroughly, ran with fresh water and drained yesterday.

Filled it with saltwater last night and about 20lbs of live rock. Going to add some aragonite sand tonight and possibly pick up some more live rock today.

My question now is with Bio balls. I have read peoples opinions about them starting a "nitrate factory" but i have also read, and am more inclined to believe, that they generally tend to do this if detritus gets entrapped in the bioballs.

I'd like to keep the bio balls out of the sump and convert it into a refugium with cheato and LR. Attached is a picture of my sump setup with the bioball box empty.

I think the additional surface area of bioballs is still beneficial if used properly however. So here's what i'm thinking:

Why not toss the bioballs into the overflow box? Making it more of a wet/dry filter? Also the turbulent flow over the bioballs will prevent detritus from getting stuck?

One concern i had was it might plug the drain hole so i plunked one in there (fits perfectly.............) and added a few more back there to float around for solidarity and i am currently awaiting any filling up of the over flow box (been about 10 minutes now and nothing noticeable yet).

I'm thinking about getting some eggcrate and putting a platform at the just above the level of the drain hole. I think this will further reduce the likely hood of a nitrate factory and in a way produce a wet/dry filter. Additionally i'll be adding a mechanical filter sponge to pre filter the water after it pours over the over flow, prior to it reaching the balls.

This all serves the added benefit of quieting the slosh noise as the water pours over into the box.

Thoughts??

Thanks!

zoomonster · Apr 17, 2016

Well for one thing bio balls are meant to be slow flow water mixed with air hence the sprinkler arm and/or distribution plate on classic wet dry "trickle" filters. And yes IMO a nitrate factory because you have media converting waste into nitrate before the skimmer can remove it. Put sufficient rock in the tank and you should be ok. If you really want more surface area then look into ceramic plates. I don't know a lot of details but I know of at a least a LFS that uses them in healthy coral tanks that don't have live rock in the tank or in the sump. Basically porous ceramic plates that are stacked up in the sump after the skimmer.

Sabellafella · Apr 17, 2016

I use a handfull in all my setups. Collecting ditritus happens anywere and everywere in an aquarium, unless your going bb and syphoning cups out everyweek. The real reason bioballs are so called nitrate factorys is because they are so good at breaking down ammonia to nitrate before your inner rockwork/low o2 zone denitrifying bacteria even have a chance to complete the cycle. Hence the nitrate factory

Sabellafella · Apr 17, 2016

You could mix them with live rock, but mr zoomonster recommended marinepure, theres bricks plates and balls. Deffinitly a better option

EpicWin · Apr 21, 2016

Do NOT use marinepure if you have sps. I bough the cubes and they nearly wiped my tank. In doing research the are made with an aluminum ion that they release. Some corals are fine with it some aren't.

Sabellafella · Apr 21, 2016

EpicWin said:
Do NOT use marinepure if you have sps. I bough the cubes and they nearly wiped my tank. In doing research the are made with an aluminum ion that they release. Some corals are fine with it some aren't.

Aluminium sulfate,like with any media/plugs/Aluminium based binders(phosguard), marine pure will melt at a low oxygen deprived zone in saltwater withen its network pores. Now im not sure how far in the denitrifying bacteria happens. I triton test my tanks every month and a half, i use 2 bricks sheets and 2 boxes of gallon balls with a steady 90 ugl without problems on a 200gallon 95%sps tank. Its different for everyone. Its a good thing to run gfo or some type of polymer once in a while regardless if marinepure witch may have made me lucky.