bioballs and live rock

[mnewby]

it was sugjested to me to get ride of my bio balls and place live rock in the place of them in my wetdry filter can i do this with out any issues on the cahnge of them and how is it that bioballs make nitrates?

 

[NaH2O]

mnewby - let me first ask what size tank you have and how many pounds of live rock you currently have in the tank. There is a chance you have a sufficient amount of live rock without the need to put anything in the wet/dry filter. Is this a reef tank or a fish only? Any removal of bioballs should be done slowly, so you don't put an overload on your bacterial populations.

With regards to bioballs creating nitrates....here is a thread for you, followed by a quote from another thread on the board:

Bio Balls

It is not that bioballs are bad, if you know what you are doing. We used them for 2 decades and you DO NOT always get high nitrates. They are more of a pain in the A_ss. The real reason is that they compete with nitrifying bacteria, which reduces the population density of nitrifying bacteria in the SB or LR. It is here where the Nitrate can be fed right to Facultative Anaerobic Bacteria, which convert it to N2 gas. Nitrification----->Denitrification is best achieved by proximity (bacteria right next to each other, which is not the case with bioballs.)

Hope this helps!