Bio Balls vs Live Rock

wet dry

Ok here is my wet dry under tank in cabnet. I have an auto top off hooked to the 5 gallon white container, my skinner is in the the top off container, and you can see a switch panel that controls every thing, when the door is closed it is out of sight

 

tank picture

Here is what the cabnet looks like and what is in the tank and what it looks like, and 1 of my stone crabs that thinks he is hideing

 

Bio balls and live rock do not do the same thing. Bio balls are non porous plastic and only support aerobic bacteria on the surface.
Live rock, even rubble is porous and supports anaerobic bacteria in the rocks sponge like interior surfaces as well as aerobic bacteria on the outside. Very different as far as nitrogen removal.

 

I disagree. Unless your rubble is completely submerged, what you have is very expensive bioballs. Very little, if any, denitrification is going to occur in a wet/dry.

 

True, a wet/dry is not the best filter for a reef application but you still get limited denitrification. Its much like a trickling filter in a wastewater treatment plant which is what I do for a living.

 

I'm not entirely sure if I understand and agree with the anti-bio ball rhetoric on these forums. It seems the complaint is they are TOO good at turning NH4+ and NO2- into NO3... my gripe is that this is the immediate goal of all biological filtration correct? Then a secondary, but to me just as important goal, is nitrate disposal. So lets say you swap out or remove bioballs for a less efficient aerobic bio-substrate arent you just allowing more ammonia and nitrite spikes as opposed to nitrate spikes? Seems backwards. I would think one would want the best possible ammo and nitrite reduction first and foremost, then if you have high nitrate levels either reduce your bioload or increase your methods of nitrate disposal a la deep sand beds, macroalgae, fluidized bed filters, more LR, better skimming that occurs BEFORE the wet/dry... all seem like more plausible solutions than removing something that does its job so incredibly well.

Maybe I'm crazy. Remember there are no shortcuts.

 

Anaerobic bacteria reduce nitrates to nitrites which the are released as nitrogen gas.
Aerobic bacteria like live on the hard non porous surfaces of bio balls and other medias do not provide this benefit like a DSB or porous live rock.
Here are a couple of explainations:
Aquaworld Aquarium - The Adverse Affect of Nitrate on the Aquarium

Anaerobic Respiration

 

Well thats not entirely true, certain anaerobic bacteria are responsible for turning nitrate directly into nitrogen gas, not into nitrite. If nitrite was converted on an appreciable scale into nitrogen gas then we could save ourselves a lot of trouble.

My argument is that having bio-balls does not exclude you from having LR, a DSB, nitrate-fixing flora (algae and seagrasses as well as red mangroves), fluidized bed filters and carbon for nitrate reduction/removal.

So the real problem here is not bio-balls or other aerobic biofiltration media it's the consequent lack of nitrate removal that is the problem.

It's like saying dont take out the trash because the city sanitation department is understaffed, so if you take out the trash the streets will smell. Well all that trash has to go somewhere so why not get it out to the curb (ammo->nitrite->nitrate) then hire some more garbagemen and trucks (nitrate->nitrogen gas).

You get what I'm sayin here people?

 

I use a biowheel filter, same principle as bio-balls, I have a small tank with a high bio-load, I havr never had a nitrate reading above 0.5 ppm. I incorporate a DSB in my fuge with chaeto and other microalgaes transplanted from the main tank which i let grow freely aside from a few hermits and an astrea snail which just help prevent die off from overgrowth and competition.

I let bubble algae, GHA, cyano, film algae, really whatever wants to grow down there do as it pleases. This means that my display is relatively free of nuisance algae and nitrates and phosphates are always very low and sometimes undetectable with a salifert kit.

I feed 2x a day and my water is pristine, the fuge has a 24/7 light cycle to help assure good o2/co2 balance as well as pH balance at night.

I include this only to show that you should not be deterred from using aggressive aerobic biomedia for fear of high nitrates, nitrate production/accumulation is an inevitability in a reef tank but can be dealt with just like any other issue.

Oh and I forgot to mention, I dont do water changes except maybe 10-20% every few months to replace trace nutrients/minerals etc.

 

10001110101 ftw.