Remove bio balls and go live rock?

[Frattoniser]

Hi all, been mulling this over for quite some time. I use bio balls in my sump, I started out that way and all has been going well really over the past couple of years. I have however noticed the high amount of detritus that accumulates and have removed everything from the sump a few times and given if a good clean.

I have been giving a lot of thought to removing the bio balls altogether but it seems as many suggest using live rock rubble as there are that say just use the rock in large chunks otherwise the problem of detritus will still remain. I'm not using a fuge and have no desire to have one, so pleas don't recommend me having one.

I must admit, I have no problems with the parameters and the livestock has been thriving well - I'm generally a great advocate of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" bug I'm also a great believer in prevention being better than cure.

Any thoughts?

 

[Frattoniser]

Please excuse the typos, the iPad isn't always as sensitive as I would like - also can't edit our own posts!

 

[Reefing Madness]

Don't mess with it if its working for you. If you use Rock, it will do the same thing in the long run as bio balls.

 

[Tylermacdonald15]

The only problem is if the power goes out for a while, all the nutrients will die in the bio balls since they are out of water. I have some live rock in my sump with a small LED LIGHT from lowes, work great for me. But if you don't have a problem, why change it?

 

[mcarroll]

I wouldn't be in a hurry to remove the bioballs, but adding some fully cured live rock wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

It would be ideal if the rock were never exposed to air during the move to your tank. This should prevent any kind of cycle from happening.

-Matt

 

[Thomthom329]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I went through the same thing about 6 months ago. Assuming you have LR in your DT, I would just slowly remove the bio balls (20-30% at a time, every week or two) and NOT add any LR to the sump. There's really no need if you have enough LR in your DT, IMHO. I have a 90 G RR tank with about 75lbs of LR in the DT, with only my equipment in the sump. I had a FOWLR with large dirty fish so my BB became a nitrate factory quickly. Removing my BB was the best thing I did for my tank. My 2 cents. GL!

 

[Threesixright]

I currently have both. Couple handfuls of bio balls and about 4 large-ish pieces of live rock

 

[Adam Baggett]

I had live rock with a small power head. The power head kept the detritus suspended. I know bio ball are in and out of the water but I wonder if you can do something like that.

 

[Dalmatia]

Hi all, been mulling this over for quite some time. I use bio balls in my sump, I started out that way and all has been going well really over the past couple of years. I have however noticed the high amount of detritus that accumulates and have removed everything from the sump a few times and given if a good clean.

I have been giving a lot of thought to removing the bio balls altogether but it seems as many suggest using live rock rubble as there are that say just use the rock in large chunks otherwise the problem of detritus will still remain. I'm not using a fuge and have no desire to have one, so pleas don't recommend me having one.

I must admit, I have no problems with the parameters and the livestock has been thriving well - I'm generally a great advocate of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" bug I'm also a great believer in prevention being better than cure.

Any thoughts?

Put it this way, the more pores your rock has the more surface area your bacteria has to live on. Now compare that to a piece of plastic? Lighter liver rock verse heavy live rock, what's the difference? You know, so don't be scared to get the lighter rock for a bit more cash, best of luck and have fun

 

[Dalmatia]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I went through the same thing about 6 months ago. Assuming you have LR in your DT, I would just slowly remove the bio balls (20-30% at a time, every week or two) and NOT add any LR to the sump. There's really no need if you have enough LR in your DT, IMHO. I have a 90 G RR tank with about 75lbs of LR in the DT, with only my equipment in the sump. I had a FOWLR with large dirty fish so my BB became a nitrate factory quickly. Removing my BB was the best thing I did for my tank. My 2 cents. GL!

LR will do best in dark places and some flow (the more the better), so it's actually a good idea to place some in your sump that doesn't get to much light.

 

[Neptune1707]

90g FOWLER, trying for years to reduce nitrate. Do lots of water changes to keep in check. Recently read about my wet dry BB filter being nitrate factory.....so just took all bio balls out. Filter floss in for awhile to help clear display. Any thing else I should do?

 

[mcarroll]

It's usually recommended to remove any biofilter in phases so you don't cause an ammonia spike.

Do you also have high phosphates or algae growth? Or only high nitrates?

 

[Neptune1707]

Nitrates around 20ppm, replaced bio balls with some live rock from another tank. Ammonia is in check. Haven't tested for phosphate. No algae growth, but guessing zoas and torch coral not Doin as well due to higher nitrate. Mushrooms growing well. Have larger yellow tang, blue hippo tang and nasotang. 1 striped humbug and 1 blue damsel. Fish very healthy. Will be moving tank soon to fiancé place....will be there about 6 months and then moving into new house, ordering new red seas s series 175g. Bigger home for fish and proper light, and filter set up to house more corals. Gonna work with local reef club to help me set up and figure out what other equipment I neeed i.e. Doser, phosphate reactor, RO unit etc. At this point trying to keep tank as stable as possible till the big move. Have had fish long time.

 

[Neptune1707]

 

[Robertchrisroph]

Are you using tap water treated test tap has nitrate already in it maybe good luck with the move

 

[Neptune1707]

Yeah using tap water. I know a lot of people say that's bad, but I live in Chicago and Chicago has some of the best water quality parameters in the nation...so my hope is with the right equipment any trace amounts of nitrate that might be in the tap water will be removed. At this point I have moved handful of nicer pieces to my 24g nano tank at my office to keep stable while this tank remains as Live Rock only with fish....well maybe a few mushrooms here and there. Been reading a lot of the use of dry rock....thinking when I upgrade to bigger tank may add more rock and use dry so that I don't have to worry about all the hitchhikers and issues the live rock. Figure my current lived rock will help "seed" the addition to any dry rock I add. Did similar experiment in my nano tank...added dry rock for base...added one main rock with corals attached. tank is doing great.