Bio Balls or NOT Bio Balls That is the Question

OK... I cannot find consensus on the usage of Bio Balls

1. some people say you should just remove them once tank is cycled
2. some people say you should never use them period
3. some people say you should use them but rinse them during water changes
4. some people say live rock does the same thing

Trouble is - I see the point on all of these arguments! Yarg! :-/

I have a tank that has been running for 4 months:

75 Gal, FOWLR (probably 25 lbs supplemented by a big fake rock that has cool tunnels and caves etc. Plus I have live sand. I have a wet/dry with bio balls and sponge and fiber filter etc. 2 saddleback clowns, 1 medium yellow tang, 1 blue tang (small), one SW cat 3 inches and one 6 lined wrasse - plus your mix of snails and crabs etc.

I feed them once a day either a cube of mysis shrimp, some smashed up krill or formula 2 marine pellet. I also occasionally put a little seaweed in (2 inch square) for them to munch on. They finish all food in 3 mins.


my Nitrates are high even after water changes - I do 10% every week.. this week I have done 2 so far... nitrates are still around 40 ppm

Would it make sense to slowly remove SOME of the bio Balls and see if I can slowly balance the Bio Balls with the Live Rock?


OH I forgot to mention Ammonia is 0 Nitrite is 0 PH is 8.4

Oh and I eventually want to start corals (My new light comes SATURDAY!) I know I need to fix the Nitrate problem first, thanks to another topic....

 

Bioballs are very effective at Nitrification (converting Ammonia into Nitrites and Nitrites into Nitrates) as well as Oxygenation of the water. If you use them, a pre-filter (mechanical pad or fiber floss) should be utilized so that detritus doesn't get caught in the balls and rot. This prefilter should be rinsed or replaced often. This will also make rinsing the bioballs less necessary.

 

Ok cool - I rinse the fiber filter at least weekly (plus I have the sponge filter at the intake which I rinse a couple times weekly) and I replace the fiber once a month.

Does it make sense to remove some of the bio balls slowly and see if the nitrates drop? or should I just try rinsing first... another debate I have seen is to rinse bio balls, rinse only 1/4 of them at a time, do not ever rinse!

 

Definitely don't rinse all of them at once. Since you are pre-filtering, they might not even be dirty.

Other places to look for sources of Nitrates could be detritus in your sump, uneaten food and detritus in your overflow, uneaten food or detritus on your rockwork. For instance, how often do you turkey baste or powerhead off your live rock?

 

Gulp - never Sounds like I just learned yet another thing I am doing wrong! Should I do that (turkey baster) once a week? Month?

I don't see much in the way of uneaten food or detritus in any of the other placed mentioned. sometimes it gets caught in the sponge prefilter - but like I mentioned I rinse that pretty regularly...

 

So what is high? When you say you have high nitrates, what are they?

I was a little anal with my W/D. I actually put ceramic ring IN. My thinking was to remove as much poo as possible before it broke down. I changed my filter floss every week. cleaned out the sump when necessary. Turned off the pump when feeding to keep food out of the filter. Cleaned off my rock before changing water.

It is my understanding you can only end up with as many nitrates as you add. Uneaten food, eaten food that is then put out as waste. All that material is turned into ammonia then nitrite then nitrate. What ever media you have, rock, sand, bioballs will host enough bacteria that can be supported by the food. Removing bio balls does not change that.

To get rid of nitrates, you need places with no oxygen to host nitrate eating bacteria. Deep sand beds, lots of live rock, or algae. If you don't have enough of those, then water changes are the only thing left.

In my 90g with more fish, more LR, and more sand and 4 cubes a day, I have never had detectable nitrates. I had a wet dry and did probably too many WCs. Now with a fuge and much less water changes, I still have pretty much no nitrates.

 

It varies with everyones systems. For instance some people have real good flow and most of it is removed. In other systems, someone might have real clean rocks with the exception of one dead spot and there's all sorts of detritus in that one spot only.

Do what Powerman does. Before your next waterchange, hit all the rocks with a turkey baster or small powerhead. I have a feeling you're going to be shocked with how much detritus blows into the water column.

 

40 ppm after a water change... I never thought of turning off the filter during feediings I will try that.

 

Sounds like a plan! Thanks. I seem to be captain unlucky when it comes to weird little water chemistry things

 

Just to add on to this I had a quick question. I have the water going thru the bio balls then it goes thru a fiber filter then back to the tank. do you think I should add a fiber filter to where the water goes thru it first then the bio balls then the other fiber filter?