Wet Dry with Bio-Balls. Keep or Remove?

I have a 10 Gallon Wet Dry Sump for my 46 gallon bow. It is divided in half and i have a filter pad and under that i have 3 pounds of bio balls and than some rolled up filter material under that, and then there is a 1 inch gap at the bottom where the water is sent and returned to the DT. I have heard about bio balls and LR Rubble being detrius traps. If this is the case, what should I do? Do i remove the bio balls? if i do this what is the point of having a sump besides for water movement, and removing big floating particles in the water column? Some advice please

 

I filled my old wet/dry with about 10lbs of LR rubble. I never had any problems with detritus. I used a 100 micron pad above the rubble so the rubble was strictly biofiltration.

 

i use a pad abouve my bio balls, wouldent that serve the same purpose?

 

Not all pads are equal. A 100micron pad is very fine and will remove particulates that your pad may not remove. However, you should be just fine using rubble. I would remove the old pad that is below the rubble. Could you post a photo of your filter as well?

 

yeah as long as your mech filtration is before the bioballs you're g2g.

and every 6 months or so clean those bioballs off with just saltwater.

 

if you have a drip tray theres usally room for a filter pad above bioballs or lr rumble.. clean that every 1-2 days.. should be fine. thats the only filter 1 have in my whole system. I removed the overflow cylinder style foam filter and box filter from sump.. those are not needed and allways get clogged and filled with poop.

 

Absolutely, 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.

 

Word! Never had a problem with bio balls.

 

I have used both and would suggest rubble over bioballs. I found it to be a pain to clean the bioballs when they needed to be cleaned and you can fit more rubble in there than bioballs. More rubble means more biofiltration to me than bioballs. Either way is acceptable. Keep your pad clean and that should help out a lot.

 

Right now I take my filter out and clean it about every other week. This is not giving me any issues right should i clean it more often?