Bio balls or not?

+3 The only people who have "issues" with bio-balls are those that either overfeed or don't keep them clean or both.

 

I could not agree more with you I read and hear all this carp about bio balls collecting waste . , And worrying about not allowing the skimmer to collect it.. Well a skimmer does not collect solids so much. But dissolved solids and or very fine particles of broken down solids.. I have never had an issue with BIO towers and Balls or plastic pipe or any media .. The benefits far out weigh the negatives if any ?

All of you who fell the are an issue to the tanks health and can cause a problem . Is this something you know from experiences or something you have read by an expert selling you something ? How many of you nay sayers ever truly ran a wet dry ?

 

Impossible to do .. I run a Dolphin SAS 9700 on a 180 the pump is in the basement and all that water that the Dual 1.1/2 overflows and 1.1/2 bulkheads connected together under the tank to a 2 x 1.1/2 cross then a 2 inch drain to the sump with a 1/4 in per foot fall over to the sump ,
Then all the water outlet from ETSS 900 skimmer about 2 foot above the sump I still get waste collected in the sump. I'm sure you have read somewhere that water is the universal solvent .. Well it is and over time everything becomes TDS in it thats when the skimmer gets a whack at it.

 

Interesting comments!

 

I looks like a matter of placement in the system, whether you have had any positive results with them.
From the replies, putting them after a filter media with high flow would be the best?

 

And keeping large particle from gathering on them. All you really need it s filter sock.

 

I have never had anything to collect on or in the bio balls myself. But think about it , If the food was carried to the particular area once by water to collect there then the constant ponding of the water over and few hrs or days will beat it out and flush it out and away in my thinking anyways. All people ever see is the black/brown bacterial jelly slime between the tower and the Bio Media I think that what they feel is waste ?

And to go one more many people have just read the Nitrate factory B/S somewhere and just spread it as Gospel . And they have never really used the method,

I never heard of this issue until someone was sponsored to sell L/R and Sand for a DSB and Berlin system 20 yrs ago.Thats when it was started to be mentioned by the Sand and rock experts in their books .

 

The black/brown bacterial jelly slime, isn,t that what you want? My thinking is if its growing , it,s feeding on something thats abundent in the water. So why clean them at all, unless it obstructs flow. True???

 

Like I said earlier I have had them in towers for yrs and right now at the place I work we have a tower that is full of the black slime and its 2 ft in Dia and 6 ft tall and the bio balls are covered almost with the balso slime , Never a sign of NO3 yet and its been running since 94 I think I was told.. By the boss and I grow corals there abd if there where a issue I'd fix it.. I also feed the systems really heavy 2 times a day unlike a home aquarium..

I call it a old wives tale spread by reading repeaters.. People how no only what they can google .. And nothing they have ever experienced.

 

In my opinion, If you are overfeeding!!! The waste will collect somewhere in your system. and It makes no sense to think that the bio ball are the cultrate of your nitrate level. Over feeding is your problem and that is you're nitrate factory.