does anyone still run their bc with bioballs?

[the gzaa]

i was just wondering how many people removed the bioballs from their biocube...do they make a lot of nitrates?

[dshnarw]

i was just wondering how many people removed the bioballs from their biocube...do they make a lot of nitrates?

 

 

Yes, they make a lot of nitrates - thats the whole point of bioballs. They were designed specifically to harbor the bacteria which converted ammonia and nitrite into the less toxic nitrate.

[the gzaa]

Yes, they make a lot of nitrates - thats the whole point of bioballs. They were designed specifically to harbor the bacteria which converted ammonia and nitrite into the less toxic nitrate.

no wonder why i always have high nitrates...oh yea and how about puttin liverock and swapping with the bioballs...better?

[dshnarw]

no wonder why i always have high nitrates...oh yea and how about puttin liverock and swapping with the bioballs...better?

 

Rubble? Nope...there's no anaerobic area in the rubble to reduce nitrates, so it'll do the exact same thing (not to mention both bioballs and rubble will trap detritus that could otherwise be picked up by a sponge filter or skimmer).

 

If you want to get rid of nitrates, you need to 1. reduce feedings (almost everyone overfeeds their tank), 2. get a skimmer (although not really worth it IMO on a small tank), 3. do larger water changes (20% is not unrealistic), and 4. (and most efficiently IME), switch to a macroalgae refugium instead of the bioballs, because the macroalgae will use the nitrates produced, and you can physically remove excess macro.

 

If you plan to remove the bioballs, do so slowly - over several weeks - to keep from losing biological filtration.

[mfp1016]

You didn't mention thought that macroalgae has special pruning needs! Research each macroalgae and find out which one best suits you. Ideally, refugium lighting needs to be run 24/7 so that the algae won't "sex" and they need to be pruned quite often otherwise all of the nitrates that it would have removed will be released. On another note, for many people its hard to do 20% w.c. due to the fact that their tanks are full of coral. I can only take out about three gallons from the main tank before I start exposing coral to the air, and the back I can take like 2 gallons, for a total of 5; or 17%. Lastly, you can overfeed your tank as long as you do the water changes to compensate. I feed my tank lots of cyclopeeze and oyster eggs, and my corals have some of the brightest colors I've ever seen. But on the other hand, I do a water change every three days. I would swap out the bioballs for LR rubble, and put chaeto on top of that. Creating anaerobic areas for bacteria cultivation is kind of an old school way to biologically filter, that is unless you're looking into a plenum, DSB, or monaco style tank. The new Berlin method (lots of LR) has been very popular over the last ten years, and seems to work the easiest for the most amount of people. Personally, when I start designing my 800 gallon system, I will be using a plenum system for filtration.

[diggman08]

i am still running the bioballs at 5 months... havent touched emm.... Nitrates 0000000 ppm

[dshnarw]

You didn't mention thought that macroalgae has special pruning needs! Research each macroalgae and find out which one best suits you. Ideally, refugium lighting needs to be run 24/7 so that the algae won't "sex" and they need to be pruned quite often otherwise all of the nitrates that it would have removed will be released. On another note, for many people its hard to do 20% w.c. due to the fact that their tanks are full of coral. I can only take out about three gallons from the main tank before I start exposing coral to the air, and the back I can take like 2 gallons, for a total of 5; or 17%. Lastly, you can overfeed your tank as long as you do the water changes to compensate. I feed my tank lots of cyclopeeze and oyster eggs, and my corals have some of the brightest colors I've ever seen. But on the other hand, I do a water change every three days. I would swap out the bioballs for LR rubble, and put chaeto on top of that. Creating anaerobic areas for bacteria cultivation is kind of an old school way to biologically filter, that is unless you're looking into a plenum, DSB, or monaco style tank. The new Berlin method (lots of LR) has been very popular over the last ten years, and seems to work the easiest for the most amount of people. Personally, when I start designing my 800 gallon system, I will be using a plenum system for filtration.

 

Nitrates won't be effectively released by macroalgae unless it begins to die or go sexual. If that happens, you have bigger problems than pruning. And since chaeto is not exactly known for going sexual, 24/7 photoperiods are not necessary with it - and it is generally more beneficial to use reverse photoperiods (refugium light on when tank lights off) to prevent pH swings. Therefore, just use chaeto, and skip the issues. Why make things complicated?

 

There's nothing wrong with exposing most coral to air - this includes LPS. If you poke at them for a couple seconds, they'll recede enough that it's not an issue. Trust me - my tank is quite filled (literally to the top) with corals. I have a huge monti colony that is only below the waterline because of surface agitation. Every time I turn off the pumps, it's exposed. Many times for an hour or more while I do a water change, take pics, adjust things. A water change in a nano tank should take 10 minutes or less from the time water starts coming out of the aquarium to the time it goes back in. You'd be hard pressed to find any corals that couldn't last 10 minutes of air exposure.

[the gzaa]

i get it...but heres the problem everytime i do a wc the nitrates will lower only a teeny bit...and because of this i would do a wc like every 2 days for a week...any suggestions?

[dshnarw]

i get it...but heres the problem everytime i do a wc the nitrates will lower only a teeny bit...and because of this i would do a wc like every 2 days for a week...any suggestions?

 

 

Have you tested your source water before adding to the tank? If it has nitrates, you're looking at an uphill battle to begin with.

 

Clean out the detritus in the back chambers, under rocks, etc. during the next water change. Stop feeding the tank for a week or so, and see if that helps (if it does, you feed too much). If you use a sponge filter, clean it at least once a week very thoroughly - right after scraping algae and stirring up debris. Add more flow to the tank, or adjust the flow you have to prevent/limit detritus buildup under rocks, in the back of the tank, etc.

[the gzaa]

okay okay i get it... ive tested the water before being added and it comes out with 0ppm but the tank has a lot! would it be more beneficial if i just took out a bioball or two once a week and aftere theyre all gone leave it emptyz?...oh yea and i saw a saphire protein skimmer for the 14bc...should i use this to help?

[MitchReef]

Just as an aside, if anybody looks through Veron they will see numerous phenomenal natural reefs totally exposed, dry and deeply sunbaked at low tide.....for hours at a time....EVERY DAY.....don't try this with any sort of sponge (instant death for sponges) your corals could really care less.....I have "air-logged" corals every time I do a wc.....

 

Just my .02.

 

Mitch

[the gzaa]

anyone?

[the gzaa]

bump

[the gzaa]

come on people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[diggman08]

did you read my above response!!

[dshnarw]

did you read my above response!!

 

 

According to your sig, you're using purigen. Take out the purigen for a couple weeks and see what happens to your nitrates. Your "above response" means squat

 

 

 

gzaa - empty would be better because less detritus would buildup in that chamber without the bioballs. The skimmer would be a great way to remove detritus from suspension in the water column, which would also lower nitrates.

[Nick's Reef]

I have a 24 gallon aquapod that is just over 2 months old and still have the bio-balls and have had no problems. Everything teats perfect.

[the gzaa]

According to your sig, you're using purigen. Take out the purigen for a couple weeks and see what happens to your nitrates. Your "above response" means squat

gzaa - empty would be better because less detritus would buildup in that chamber without the bioballs. The skimmer would be a great way to remove detritus from suspension in the water column, which would also lower nitrates.

okay so ill take out the bioballs one by one twice a week good?...i also have purigen in my tank but still =(...other than that i have the chemipure elite in the thrid chamber where the blue spinge used to be...the only problem is that whenver i leave it 15 minutes later it unplugs from the little square hole and the tank becomes dirty again.

[polyppetey]

Could you take out the bio balls and rinse them in the water you did your WC with?

I often wondered why people say LR rubble is better than the ceramic media or other media when the same LR rubble would trap detrius equally? Am I tripping here or what.

[dshnarw]

okay so ill take out the bioballs one by one twice a week good?...i also have purigen in my tank but still =(...other than that i have the chemipure elite in the thrid chamber where the blue spinge used to be...the only problem is that whenver i leave it 15 minutes later it unplugs from the little square hole and the tank becomes dirty again.

 

yep, should be good to take them out that way.

how often do you change the purigen? Supposedly it lasts for a month I think, but I wouldn't leave it for more than a couple weeks before changing it out.

 

Could you take out the bio balls and rinse them in the water you did your WC with?

I often wondered why people say LR rubble is better than the ceramic media or other media when the same LR rubble would trap detrius equally? Am I tripping here or what.

 

You could do that, but its realistically not necessary to even have them with the current filtration methods - live rock/live sand in the display. They'll handle all your filtration needs.

 

The reasons people say LR rubble is better are 1. its a natural product, so how could it harm the tank? <----completely wrong, it still traps detritus and 2. they (falsely) think that it can provide nitrate-to-nitrogen converting bacteria <---not possible in the small size of LR rubble.

 

You're exactly right - no better than the other filtration media.

[Scucci]

I have a little BC8, I removed the bioballs and put in LR, but only because I like the idea of rubble back there instead of plastic. It serves no real purpose other than just the fact that I like the rubble back there instead. As stated several times above, that's still not going to help with removing nitrates because of the small size of the rubble. I do have some grape caulerpa in the tank, which I trim every 2 days because of how ridiculously fast it grows. But I am running at 0 nitrates, weather it's because of the macroalgae, or the fact that I only feed every couple of days or so... I don't know... but even when I was running the bioballs I still had 0 nitrates, that was before the macroalgae... but I still had a really small bioload in the tank as well. So I guess I'm just running in circles here and not really helping you answer the question. For a definitive answer, I'd say the best thing to do would be to send me another BioCube so I can set it up and then we can compare water params.

[the gzaa]

yep, should be good to take them out that way.

how often do you change the purigen? Supposedly it lasts for a month I think, but I wouldn't leave it for more than a couple weeks before changing it out.

You could do that, but its realistically not necessary to even have them with the current filtration methods - live rock/live sand in the display. They'll handle all your filtration needs.

 

The reasons people say LR rubble is better are 1. its a natural product, so how could it harm the tank? <----completely wrong, it still traps detritus and 2. they (falsely) think that it can provide nitrate-to-nitrogen converting bacteria <---not possible in the small size of LR rubble.

 

You're exactly right - no better than the other filtration media.

thats the same thing the guy at the big al's supercenter told me about live rock having to be really big in order to make a difference becasue the bacteria would live in the center of the rock.

 

i just did a water change, purigen in chamber one, took out all of the bioballs and cleaned all of the gunk off the back walls and then put the chemipure elite right on top of the false floor of chamber two, then put all of the bioballs back and filter floss on top of drip tray...now to wait and see what happens...oh yea and i cleaned all of the powerheads.

[dshnarw]

thats the same thing the guy at the big al's supercenter told me about live rock having to be really big in order to make a difference becasue the bacteria would live in the center of the rock.

 

i just did a water change, purigen in chamber one, took out all of the bioballs and cleaned all of the gunk off the back walls and then put the chemipure elite right on top of the false floor of chamber two, then put all of the bioballs back and filter floss on top of drip tray...now to wait and see what happens...oh yea and i cleaned all of the powerheads.

 

Wow...guy at the LFS know actually knows something I'm impressed.

 

 

Sounds good! Good luck!

[the gzaa]

Wow...guy at the LFS know actually knows something I'm impressed.

Sounds good! Good luck!

haha yea thanks...i was really surprised he sounded like he was apart of the forum

[diggman08]

dshnarw, actually my above post does mean squat considering the title of the tread is asking if anybody is stilll using the Bioballs and if it causes nitrates.. and i answered both question exactly that... Yes i do have bioballs in and NO, i have 0 nitrates.. and yes i have Purigen in chamber 1.... works very well