bio balls good or bad

i was thinking of putting bio balls in my system. there seems to be a few opinions about this. this is the way i understand it but i am probably way off so somenone correct me. bio balls have a lot of surface area which enables a lot of bacteria to grow and this causes amonia and nitrite to be turned into nitrate quickly. however some say that bio balls cause nitrate levels to get too high. it seems to me if you dont have a lot of amonia and nitrite you wouldnt have a lot of nitrate. what do you think?

 

Bio balls are good at what they do, but not an essential reef hardware requirement. The internet tumbleweed is that they CREATE nitrates, but they don't.

But if you have a typical reef tank with a bunch of rock and sand, you don't need them as the rock and sand have all the surface area your bacteria need.

Good canidates for wet/drys with bio balls are fish only tanks or maybe a softy tank with clams would be cool.

Most reef tanks don't need them though and it's really just extra hardware in your sump. Although wet/drys do add a lot of oxygen which a lot of people don't really think about.

 

Bio balls do basically the same as live rock and live sand and sand and rock is much more eye appealing and more beneficial because what is living in and on the rock and sand. Also as Matt stated, less clutter in the sump. If you were doing a fish only tank, then I would possibly use bio balls as added surface for bacteria to live and grow.