Air Bubbles

[Webos]

My tank has been up for a little over a year running about 20lbs of LR, T8 lighting, and a bio-wheel. Last week I removed the hood to remove the T8 lights and bio-wheel, to install new Sun Tek T5 HO lights and a Rena HOB filter system. I've noticed that my parms have went up since i've removed the bio-wheel and lights:

Date W/C PH ALK RITE RATE AMN PO4 CA
1/4/2011 NO 8.6 LOW 0.1 5 0.25 0 5
1/5/2011 NO 8.4 NORM 0.1 5 0.25 0 5
1/6/2011 YES
1/9/2011 NO 8.4 NORM 0.1 2.5 0.25 0 5

The thing that worries me now is that i'm seeing little air bubbles on my sand bed. I haven't seen any kind of post on many of the forums I read and didn't know if it would be a problem or just live with them.

Thanks

Dan

 

[Krish]

Not sure about the air bubbles on the sand, but removing the bio-wheel probably shocked your system as it was probably a primary source of aerobic bacteria. The tank will need to balance out again a bit so give the rock a bit of time to catch up. You will probably experience a bit of a cycle during this time.

 

[mojoreef]

The air bubbles that are coming out of the sand are nitrogen gas. What it is that has probibly happened is that with the biowheel you were promoting/creating it to be the main point for bacterial growth and thus the reduction they do. When you removed it now the bacterial focal point is the sand, so you are starting to see more production their now. As I mentioned above the bubbles is basically their byproduct and a good thing. It will soon disappear as the presence of ammonia or ammoniium will stop that fuction. That is not a good thing but it is the natural coarse that sand beds take as the mature.

Hope it helps

Mojo

 

[Webos]

Krish and mojoreef thanks for the input. So I could of started another cycle by removing the bio-wheel. I've been keeping up with the testing to make sure nothing goes way out of hand and doing about 3-5 gallon wc every other day just to keep the levels down. Thanks again for the input.

 

[Krish]

Krish and mojoreef thanks for the input. So I could of started another cycle by removing the bio-wheel. I've been keeping up with the testing to make sure nothing goes way out of hand and doing about 3-5 gallon wc every other day just to keep the levels down. Thanks again for the input.

No problem. And yes, you could have/probably did start another cycle removing the bio-wheel. A bio-wheel works just like a wet/dry filter, but just on a smaller scale. The bio-wheel continuously spins which allows it to be exposed to both water and air which is the perfect combo for aerobic bacteria to grow. So when you removed that bio-wheel, you removed alot of that nice aerobic bacteria that your tank depended on leaving you with a gap to fill. So your liverock will now have to increase it's aerobic bacterial colonies to take up the slack/fill the gap which could take some time.

 

[Webos]

Ok i'll keep checking it daily and keep up on the wc to keep the lvls down.