I thinking about switching from a wet/dry to a sump with a refugium with live sand and live plants. Would there be a problem since I would be eliminateting the bioballs as I 'm running a bare bottom setup.I'm also going from a 30gal setup to a75.The pumps and filter are all capable of running the 75.
You can remove the bio-balls...It won't be a problem. Just remove about 1/4 of them at a time (every few days) until they are all gone rather than all one shot. The reason why is you don't want to shock your system by removing alot of the bacteria at once, but allow the rock time to build up the necessary bacteria your tank requires as the bio-balls are removed. Good luck!.
I thought the bacteria in the live sand would take the place of the bio balls since this is a new filter setup that doesn't have a place for the boi media.
The live sand and the live rock will support the bacteria, but with the sump having been setup with the bio-balls already, it contains many of the beneficial bacteria (the bio-balls) that your system relies on. So if you were to remove all the bio-balls one shot, you will be removing quite a bit of the bacteria your system has been relying on one shot which could affect your biological system. That is why it is required for you to remove them slowly. That way, as some of the balls are removed, the live rock and/or sand can catch up and start supporting the additional bacteria that was once found on the bio-balls, but were removed. However, from reading your second post, it sounds like you are changing sumps entirely (which I didn't realize was the case from your first post) and if that is so, I would still continue to use the wet/dry and remove the bio-balls slowly over time until they are all gone and once that is done, then I'd do the swap. Just a thought on how I'd go about it. Hopefully others will chime in with their advice and opinions on it as well as we all have our own methods on how we like to go about things. Good luck and I hope the swap goes well
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