re-doing tank to fix algae issue

my tank really never took off, i had a couple of frags that never grew and 2 fish :-/ that both jumped into the back of the tank and died.

i recently had a baby so all our attention has gone to him.
the tank has just been off. physically and mentally the last 6 months.

well anyways i had established a huge breeding ground for all kinds of algae so i decided to remove my rock and sand and start over since i have nothing living in it any longer.

we will start a new fish only tank and see if we can keep that going before i dump any money into more frags.
by the way its a 29 gallon biocube.

my question is do i clean the bio balls in the back or leave them be, i somehow remembering someone telling me once never to touch them. but in this case im not sure.

thanks,
Bill

 

Welcome back to the hobby.

Personally, I would remove the bio-balls permanently. Your live rock does the same job only better. Also, if bio-balls are not cleaned periodically, they will become the infamous nitrate factory. If cleaned incorrectly, however, they will cause an ammonia spike.

Good luck!

 

mine have been completely removed and replaced with chunk of LR macro algae and a light. bioballs get poor water flow and collect nasty stuff that just sits and never filters out. i also disregard the fill line and have more water depth in the back for my hydror slim skim

 

hate the to redu, i had flatworms, took a complete breakdown to get rid of.

 

If the algae was bad enough you might consider nuking the rock and letting it dry out for a few days. I had to when I got bryopsis.

 

actually i bleached the rocks and they have sat outside in the sun for the last 2 months.
can i still use them?

 

Yeah, as long as your rinsed them real well after the bleaching. If your not sure, I would put them in a bucket and fill it with water and the check the pH after a little while.

 

so what should i do inplace of the bioballs?
just remove them all together?

 

add ugly live rock, approximately 5lb?

 

trolling along this thread...

also to keep in mind seeing like your heading states that the problem Is an algae issue, then if you are thing of going to remove good portions of algae and silcates that help those algaes bloom then i say having a drilled system with an overflow leading into a sump with a partion'd baffle containg a refugium/ATS(algae turf scrubber)...These 2 addtional baffles in your sump compartment are now looking to be a must these last few years in my follow ups on closed systems...