ceramic rings and bio balls

[TAGS]

I have set up my 24 gallon nano cube, on the paper that came with the tank it said to remove the ceramic rings and bio balls if you are setting up a reef system, what do you think? Is there any pluses by keeping them in. Thnx

[aquawolf]

How are you planning to set the tank up?

 

Most of the people here, myself included, removed those little nitrate factories and put LR rubble back there instead.

 

I also know of people who left them in there and report no problems at all even after running it over a year.

 

Hmmmm decisions, decisions, decisions.

[TAGS]

thnx aquawolf. i set it up as a reef system, so i started the tank with the rings and bio balls in. My daughter hid the paper and we just found it and read what it had said about the rings and balls. Everything tests fine, so i was just curious.

[snehls]

You can probably get away with leaving them in if you do weekly water changes. But the rings and bioballs will do a reef tank no good. They will just store and release nitrates into your system. A lot of people don't even use the sponges for the same reason.

 

I run just one sponge on top of a bag of chemipure with phosban in the other chamber and I will be dropping in LR rubble, maybe, although at this point it is probably too late.

 

One other question, I assume you have Live Rock which will nitrify your bacteria and consume some amount of your Nitrates. Just wanted to make sure before we have you throw out your biological filtration.

[aquawolf]

I posted a thread on here a while back telling a story about my LFS. They have a 12g Nano Cube and left the ceramic rings and bio balls in it and were telling all of their customers to do the same thing. It has been up and running for over a year with no reported problems.

 

I asked if anybody else out here had heard about this or left those items in themselves and were brave enough to admit it.

 

I received 2 replies from members who said they knew of someone who left them in and one was also an LFS. But most of what I read everybody had removed them.

 

THE FOLLOWING IS MY OPINION:

 

If you have LS and LR in your set up, they are your natural filtration system. They contain the good bacteria to process your ammonia, nitrate, nitrite cycle. The natural ocean does not contain ceramic rings and plactic bio balls, which most people say harbor bacteria that raise your nitrate levels.

 

Following this logic, I removed the ceramic rings and bio balls (also according to the manufacturers instructions) and used my hammer on 5 lbs of live rock to create rubble to put into the back compartments.

 

If I were you I would take them out and put live rock back there. The only issue is going to be that (according to your what's next thread) your tank has been set up for three weeks and removing them may cause some interesting things to happen with your tank cycle. I would keep a very close eye on your levels and give it a good 3 to 4 weeks before even thinking about adding anything else to the tank to make sure the cycle has truly finished.

 

HTH,

 

Michael