Live rock Bio balls?

I have just bought a new 29 gal. biocube and it comes with the bio balls i was wondering if i should put live rock in where the balls are and just remove the balls or just stick with the balls. The plan for the tank is light bio load and lots of coral.

 

Live Rock

Hey Tavast,

If you are going to have live rock in DT then you can leave out bio balls. You don't even need to put rock in your filter, that area can just be extra sump area or a place to but carbon. If you do decide to put rock their keep it open for good flow and use clean rock that won't add crumbles to your filter area.

Happy ReefN,

 

I recomend the media basket and refugium basket from in tank. There made for the Biocubes. I'll be getting them for my biocube. http://shop.mediabaskets.com/BioCube-29-Package-Deal-BC29-Bundle.htm

 

def remove them esp if you are adding coral. i have a 29g biocube, kept the bioballs for a little bit and they became super nasty. put 1 or 2 lb of LR back there with a 5500kelvin bulb from Lowes for $6 and put it over the clear panel in the back of the biocube, also i'd throw in some chaeto or some sort of algae back there! hope ur enjoying ur biocube! i love mine just needed to upgrade the pump, and got a nice nano skimmer (hydror slim skim)

 

do you like the hydror slim skim? Does it fit good in your back of the tank

As far as bioballs or lr rubble...in these tanks I would not recommend it. If you do go this route, I would place the balls/rocks in a filter bag that you can easily remove and clean them out easily. IMO biocube and Nano tanks are hard to keep clean and will build up a lot of detritus. I have a non-photo tank that we are starting up in our 28g biocube. This weekend decided to remove the balls and OMG...........it was like a snowstorm of fish poo and NPS food! I no longer have any bioballs back there.......plus did major water changes

 

You are not accomplishing anything different with LR than you were doing with bio balls. Same thing, same poop trap, same need for maintenance. LR should be in a tank so it can be maintained properly.

 

it is actually only one rock that has plenty of space beneath because its kind of stuck between the two sides. i vacuum it out every time i do a WC and it's not to bad, it gets really good flow, i also have a flow divider that i made from a plastic piece to stop micro bubbles. I have disregarded the "fill" line on the side and keep the back filled nearly to the top. I also do not have any live rubble or rocks in the back, only this one nice porous piece of live rock(with a stone crab hiding in it, he hitch hiked and i never had the heart to flush him! so he thrives off whatever ends up back there! lol sometimes i forget and get scared when i'm putting my hand back there)

The slim skim is a tight fit and because its such a small tank, I find the biocubes "sump" to lose water level nearly 1" per day or two so I'm constantly topping of with RO/DI - I have yet to come up with a nice way to do my ATO's.

Also the slim skim pulls wetish skim. I like it a lot compared to the Oceanic Biocube Skimmer, (terrible) it pulls out some nasty gunk I def do not want in my system. On the other hand its a tight fit to get the skimmer lid off and do any kind of maintenance.

 

Swim look around, you can find something much easier and more cost effective. The first chamber of the biocube gets a lot of flow and all you would really need to do is fill a micron bag with active carbon, then in chamber two where it's lower flow you could have gfo. I haven't done this yet but my phosphates aren't too crazy either so I don't worry about it. But it is something else I've been considering for added filtration, although I try to go all biological and not chemical filtration. (lots of live rock, good flow)

i always try to stack my rocks so they can get water flow underneath the entire tank by using very small rocks and securily stacking heavier ones on top so i have many cave networks, good flow around and through the entire rock makes a world of difference from just piling rocks together in a corner