bio wheel or no bio wheel

thank you pgh for giving a very scientific explanation - wow. I can't explain it as nearly as eloquently. My simple processing would be why would one want to continue to have extra nitrates to have continuing contact with your water.

 

You don't want "extra" nitrates. You have to export them. Just so we are clear Biowheels do not create nitrate out of thin air.You need waste to create nitrates.If its in your system its because you and/or your animals put it there.

 

Agreed, that is basically what I was trying to convey earlier. That nitrates dont come from nowhere they come from the breakdown of nitrites which comes from ammonia. Biowheels do a great job at breaking everything down to nitrates but do not break down nitrates causing the false belief that the biowheel is what is creating the nitrates.
That is why we need to export them via other means of anaerobic biological filtration, liverock and DSB;D

 

I ran my first reef tank with nothing but a HOB filter. I've always been anal about husbandry so that helped I'm sure. I will say that when I added my first protien skimmer I couldn't believe the junk it pulled out. I had a flourishing reef with crazy growth so there's nothing wrong with HOB filters. I always left my bio wheel on and never had an issue, it was over a year old.

 

I didn't mean that the biowheel creates nitrates, it's just that they are there as a process of the nitrogen cycle - no? and in continuous contact with the water. Why run it on there unless you are wanting to seed it.

 

Bio-wheels are actually more efficient than LR; the bacteria are constantly exposed to air, and therefore do not compete with livestock for oxygen. We started using LR because we couldn't mount corals on bio-wheels.

 

I am pretty sure you can mount xenia on a biowheel!!!! Stuff grows anywhere lol

 

My 3.5y old 55g is still running original Aqueon hob filter with some carbon/phosgard in a media bag inside. Works perfectly. But it's just a hob filter, not a bio-wheel per say.

I am not sure if all bio-wheels have this issue, I have a small marineland bio-wheel on my 20g QT tank, and it creates insane salt creep. I mean it creates so much salt creep everywhere it's just nuts. I am actually thinking about tossing it, and changing it out for another regular hob filter and just tossing some Seachem Matrix inside in a media bag.

 

The master has spoken (bow). I'm done

The only reason I even weighed in this was way back when I started on my journey to transform my FOWLR into a reef and battled serious nitrate problems. One thing I did, was to remove the ceramic rings from my canister and I was considering the biowheel analogous (sp) to this (without the air which may be the big difference) in that additional materials were not needed because the live rock is the biological filter.

 

You are partly correct, OFK- given enough LR, bio-wheels are not necessary; however, there are still some benefits to using them. Same can be said of trickle filters with bio-balls. Proper maintenance is key to success regardless of your preferred method of filtration.