Bio Balls

Bioballs Nitrifying bacteria = NH3 > NO2 > NO3
Live Rock Nitrifying bacteria = NH3 > NO2 > NO3 + Denitrifying bacteria = NO3 > N2

If you do bio balls, you'll need to remove nitrates with water changes. Live rock does this by turning nitrate into nitrogen.

If bioballs aren't Pre-mechanical filtered, all kinds a organics and detritus collect on them and stick. These left over organics need to be removed, hence the mechanical filtration. If they are allowed to build up and stay, you will have all of that decomposing and going through the nitrogen cycle. More stuff sitting around decomposing (higher bio load) more rapidly nitrate builds up in the system.

 

Not denying bio-balls may have a place, just seems there are ALOT better alternatives today, and there are CONSTANT threads on here with high trate problems, and then often times ya hear there are bio balls, and once those are removed, the trate problem is gone.

Just seems like an unnecessary maintenance problem to me.

 

The process of turning nitrate into gas is a very inept process and cannot keep up with the ammonia and nitrite process, thus it bottle necks and rises. This happens in both the trickle filter and LR. Either way, you have to change water to reduce your nitrates. Just as many people have nitrate issues who have never even laid eyes on a trickle filter, so that can't be blamed on bio balls. I also wasn't referring to bioballs in place of LR, but in addition to LR.

I agree detritus can get stuck in there if mechanical filtration is not used. That why I suggested mechanical filtration before the bioballs.

But like I said, they have their place in this hobby. I believe I said that they were awesome in the proper environment, such as my livestock room for my business. I never made an argument to bring them back to the common tank.

 

I've also seen them used as a bubble trap just before the return section of a sump. They run the width of the sump (say 16") but are stacked in a vertical wall. Only 1 bioball wide (left to right). The water has already passed through any mechanical filtration, protein skimmer, and fuge if you have it, so the detritus has been taken care of.

 

Just consider how much more surface area you will get using rock than bio balls. If you absolutely wont use rock, then I would suggest ceramic media as a better alternative to bio balls. Search around the internet, and you can find estimates of the surface area of different bio media. Bio balls would be towards the bottom on my list.

Conversely, they are not prone to clogging with detritus or absorbing chemicals in the water. They are easily cleaned and will last forever. In the end, live rock is a better choice for marine systems

 

I don't think the argument was for one over the other. If you have enough LR in your tank, it won't make a difference if you have rock or bioballs in your sump in regards to essential filtration.

I'm not talking about bioballs being submersed like liverock. I'm talking about bioballs used correctly in a trickle filter. That's way difference than the function of submersed LR.

 

I just ran around and checked the tanks to see what we had running over here. All my tanks look the same and require the same maintenance in proportion to the bioload. If you decide to use bioballs, you'll be fine. If you decide to ditch them, you will be fine. Back in the day, I had a SPS tank that had a trickle filter when that's what everyone had. I think that was my best tank ever (not because of the bioballs!).

- 28g Mombasae tank = sponge/ceramics
- 28g Frondosa tank = sponge/ceramics
- 100g Lion/scorp tank = nothing
- 28g Orange Spotted Filefish tank = nothing
- 28g Fuzzy lion tank = bioballs
- 28g Fuzzy tank = bioballs
- 40g Scorp tank = Live rock
- 28g Hawaiian lion = bioballs (that was a surprise, actually).
- 20g Scorp tank = nothing
- 10g Wispy tank = nothing
- 210g Things with Stings = fuge
- Business tanks = trickle filter with bioballs

 

Sure, if you use bioballs. Denitrifying bacteria works best if there is a "proximity association" between the denitrifying bacteria and nitrifying bacteria. That is, if the nitrate is produced near the denitrifying bacteria, the denitrifying bacteria can convert it to N2 before it disperses all over the system. If you have bioballs, the NO3 is produced away from the denitrifying bacteria and collects all over the system before the bacteria can act on it. So, nitrate accumulates. If NO3 is produced near the bacteria then this doesn't need to happen. The bacteria does need other things though, to make this work, such as organic carbon, however, if there is sufficient organic carbon and a proximity association between the nitrifiers and denitrifiers (such as in live rock or sand) then there is no reason for a bottleneck. So, your statement, "is a very inept process and cannot keep up with the ammonia and nitrite process" only holds true in certain situations and is not by any means a general rule.

 

Why do you think people have such issues with nitrates as the tank matures, but not ammonia or nitrite past the initial cycle (unless something goes wrong)? Tanks without bioballs.

 

That is answered above... remember nitrifiers fall under a variety of trophic levels, such as (especially) chemolithotroph/chemoautorophs. Denitrifiers however, in our systems are facultative heterotrophs. So, chemolithic autoroph= CO2, facultative heterotroph=Organic C....