to bio-balls or not to bio-balls?

Where do you grow your cheato and what advise do you have for people trying to grow cheato/macro in a biocube?

 

i grow mine in a refugium. for lighting i use a $3 florescent Daylight bulb with a $5 clip-on fixture both from home depot. it grows like crazy and eats up all my nitrates.




as far as a bio-cube is concerned, you would need to get light over the compartments, and since they are deep with a small surface area on top im not sure how well the chaeto will respond to the light above it.

 

I agree with mostly everyone here. I've read up on this a bunch and as far as ease of maintenance is concerned and just as an overall better form of biological filtration skip the bio-balls. There are just so many other ways to do biological filtration in your sump that are far less maintenance and just better for your tank.

 

I have a Wet dry sump with bio balls, but i also have a HOB Refugium where my Chaeto goes. that takes care of both.

 

Well stated and correct.....

This is an ambiguous and blanket statement.

Well put and also correct.

So......
Keep the bio balls. The people who talk against them are "parroting" what they have heard or been told. When questioned, the only negative they state is that detritus gathers on/in them causing nitrate. What they either don't know or care to acknowledge is that the same thing happens with rock rubble used in the place of bio ball, ceramic or any other media. Keeping any media clean negates any possibility of nitrate formation.

 

Agree with above post.

 

keeping the balls clean does work fine. as for a biocube fuge light, do a search here or google. I remember a while back somewhere that someone sells a light for that or made one themselves.