Remove my bio balls in wet/dry

Raysup88 · Dec 28, 2020

Ok so never thought of it but my tank is established not over a year and I’ve got 65gal tank with about 50lbs live rock and about to add 20lbs this week. Can I go ahead and take the bio balls out and should I put anything in that section of the sump?

Waters · Dec 28, 2020

Depeninding on your fish load, you might want to do it slowly in stages, but yes, definitely remove them

. Post some pictures of the sump and what you currently have in there........

Raysup88 · Dec 28, 2020

I’ve got newly added yellow tang medium size. 2 smaller clowns and a anthias as far as fish. About a dozen hermit crabs and the 50lbs of rock. My wet dry sump I’ll have to get a picture when I get out of work I thought I had one I guess now

Waters said:
Depeninding on your fish load, you might want to do it slowly in stages, but yes, definitely remove them . Post some pictures of the sump and what you currently have in there........

Waters · Dec 28, 2020

Raysup88 said:
I’ve got newly added yellow tang medium size. 2 smaller clowns and a anthias as far as fish. About a dozen hermit crabs and the 50lbs of rock. My wet dry sump I’ll have to get a picture when I get out of work I thought I had one I guess now

I personally would remove half....wait a week testing for ammonia, then remove the rest, just to be safe. Removing them all at once would probably be fine but why risk it.

Raysup88 · Dec 28, 2020

Waters said:
I personally would remove half....wait a week testing for ammonia, then remove the rest, just to be safe. Removing them all at once would probably be fine but why risk it.

Ok that’s easy enough. Should I place anything where the bio balls go? Or just let water flow down? That may also create more noise?

Raysup88 · Dec 28, 2020

Waters said:
I personally would remove half....wait a week testing for ammonia, then remove the rest, just to be safe. Removing them all at once would probably be fine but why risk it.

I would also like to say that it’s a trickle system with the bio balls sitting up and not fully submerged but maybe the bottom couple inches of them. So I was thinking maybe either 2 things start removing some of them and cleaning the others that I’m keeping until and then when I remove all of them replace with live rock but the rock won’t be fully submerged either?

Waters · Dec 28, 2020

Raysup88 said:
Ok that’s easy enough. Should I place anything where the bio balls go? Or just let water flow down? That may also create more noise?

Without seeing pics it is hard to say, but one thing that comes to mind is a bag of carbon or GFO (if needed). You could also fill it will floss and use it for mechanical filtration.

Raysup88 · Dec 28, 2020

Waters said:
Without seeing pics it is hard to say, but one thing that comes to mind is a bag of carbon or GFO (if needed). You could also fill it will floss and use it for mechanical filtration.

I also keep a bag of carbon behind the pump as well

Raysup88 · Dec 28, 2020

Waters said:
I personally would remove half....wait a week testing for ammonia, then remove the rest, just to be safe. Removing them all at once would probably be fine but why risk it.

So I just took out about 1/3rd of the bio balls there’s surprising very clean I keep a filter above that I cut myself so trickle system hits that before bio balls but my nitrates are through the roof I just got a test kit for nitrates from api.