switching Bio-balls to LRubble in my wet/dry???

[Jonathan G.]

k heres the deal... first question is why does every forum preach to switch bio-balls with LRubble? also what is the process of doing so? like with the bio-balls they aren't submerged do you need to have the live rock submerged? should i take out my little grate that holds up my bioballs above the water and place the live rock under the water and have some submerged and some above the water line? do i need to have a clean up crew for it or just let it run wild? i have the url for my wet/dry so you get a better understanding of it http://www.proclearaquatics.com/pro_wetdry.htm i have the pro clear 150 with a mag7 for my return on my 75g tank and have about 40# live rock and plan on getting about 60 more. also have to MJ 900's and run a penguin 330 with no bio wheels and just some poly fiber in the back

 

[wrightme43]

Your live rock rubble needs to be submerged to do its job. rubble is not as good a denitrafier as bigger pieces. If it is exposed like a bioball it will act like a bio ball. The reason everyone says remove bio balls is nitrate is the final product of bio balls, nitrogen gas is the final product of live rock. The rubble is great for growing pods though. If you really wanna get crazy put some rubble, chaeto, and a light down there and let it go nuts. Pod central, with a lot of waste removal capacity as well. Which what I think you are looking for. HTH Steve

 

[Jonathan G.]

how about this if i take the baskets out of my penguin 330 and put a bunch of little rubble in it would this help at all? right now all i have is some poly fiber to help give current and remove some surface scum

 

[Jonathan G.]

also how about this if i leave my bio balls in but below the grate add as much LRubble as i can, and i do plan on adding either a 10g or 20g refugium when i have the time and money so i kinda want to steer away from turning my wet/dry into a refuge.

 

[wrightme43]

Bio balls make great cat toys. They also seem to interest birds. They are fun to throw at people. When melted you can make a nice pile of slag. If you have a fish only tank they are just wonderful. If you dont have enough live rock in your fish only tank. If You are like me and spent hella money on live rock, its best for me to let it do its job and let the people who keep fish only keep the bioballs. They are also nice for a quarentine tank. Just really dont need them in your reef, As a matter of fact they are detrimental to your reef. As in helping to keep nitrate levels up high, and kill the corals, anemone, and the neat things you paid lots of money for. You of course know you can do whatever you think is best. It is your tank. Since you asked I thought I would share my experince with you. Steve

 

[Jonathan G.]

sorry guys but im having a hard time gripping what your are saying.... obviously live rock is better then bioballs. however if i have say around 100lbs of live rock in my 75g tank would it be necessary for me to take the bioballs out? and if so how much live rock would i have to replace it with? if live rock does indeed have to be submerged then couldn't i leave the bioballs in and place as much LRubble as i can below the grate that holds the bioballs above water? and also what kind of filters do you use? do all of you run your reef tanks with just a skimmer and fuge? and sorry for the last question but as i stated earlier do you think i could make my penguin 330 into a mini fuge by taking the baskets out and putting LRubble in it and maybe a little bit of cheato? or would it be more beneficial to just keep in carbon and poly fiber pads?

 

[Scooterman]

however if i have say around 100lbs of live rock in my 75g tank would it be necessary for me to take the bioballs out? and if so how much live rock would i have to replace it with? if live rock does indeed have to be submerged then couldn't i leave the bioballs in and place as much LRubble as i can below the grate that holds the bioballs above water? and also what kind of filters do you use? do all of you run your reef tanks with just a skimmer and fuge? and sorry for the last question but as i stated earlier do you think i could make my penguin 330 into a mini fuge by taking the baskets out and putting LRubble in it and maybe a little bit of cheato? or would it be more beneficial to just keep in carbon and poly fiber pads?

If you already have that much LR established, yank the bio-balls, all of them. Remember this, if waste can't be removed easily & builds up in places, these places will become nitrate factories. I'd use the carbon & floss but would clean them every week also, otherwise you will start getting that build-up again, at least rinse them thoroughly. Determining what you require for filtration will rely on what type of system you plan on keeping, like DSB (Deep Sand Bed), plenum, thin sb, BB (Bare Bottom) types of coral you plan on keeping etc. Most of these can easily be maintained with regular house keeping. I know lots of people here use high skimming, & LR with good husbandry to keep their system running clean. There is so many different ways it requires time, reading and posting questions to develop a system that will suit your needs/lifestyle etc.

 

[Jonathan G.]

my basic setup will include in time mushrooms, anenome, zoo's, a clam or two, and maybe some pulsating xenia's. right now i only have 40# of live rock but i plan on getting 60 more. also what happens if you rinse your bioballs off, usually after a water change i take the sponges out and wash them could i do this with the bioballs also? and for live rock to work it has to be submerged??? so if i were to yank my bioballs i could only stack the rubble to high right? i could always add more water to m wet dry but also run the possibility of over flowing it if i get too high. but back to the main question that i am having trouble with.... what does adding LRubble do that bio-balls fail to do? and would it be possible to get the same benefits if i keep in the bio-balls but stack the water below the grate that suspends the bio-balls with LRubble? know what i mean? also i hear of people that have tanks running for years and never have to change water what makes them so much better then me =(

 

[Scooterman]

Ahh, I read that wrong, thought you already had 100lbs of LR. I actually have rubble in my sump, right where the water falls from the main overflow. If you use the bio-ball you can clean them as you said, it will do some processing but LR rubble will process better, actually the more surface area for bacteria to grow the better, you won't get the same verity of life in a bioball, eventually the balls will build up (without cleaning that is), in order to keel Live Rock alive with microorganisms, you need to keep them under water. Seems what your saying is that you want to keep what you have, & yes you can, the point I may of failed to get through is the amount of work required to keep your bio-balls thoroughly cleaned, removing them so you can get in the grate & whatever areas that detritus can build up. This won't be obvious at first, but in time you will see the difference. I'd say stick to your husbandry and make this work, from there, read & learn more, as you do you can tune your system into an easier way of housekeeping. I hope this is helping, I'll see if I can dig up some more helpful information to read on this subject.

 

[Scooterman]

http://web.archive.org/web/20030510131423/http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish/library/articleview2.asp?Section=Aquarium+Frontiers+--+Biochemistry+of+Aquaria&RecordNo=3090

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/august2003/chem.htm

It wouldnt even have to be bioballs in thier to create the nitrate problem. The concept is that th highly oxygenated water passing over the multi-surfaced bioball allows for the creation of nitrifing bacteria (as mentioned above) this type of system works well for a FO system as fish can handle Nitrates. Corals on the other hand cannot. It wouldnt matter what you put in thier in its place it would have the same effect as the same enviroment is being created (highly airated water over a surface) bioballs are just used becuase they have so much exposed surface area..

 

[wrightme43]

Sorry man, I was trying to be funny and when I re read I sound like a wrassehole. LOL How to explain this. Your bioballs are a quicker de ammonia filter, they are a quicker de nitrite filter. They are absolutley miserable at de nitrafication. The reason you are using live rock is it is effective at converting ammonia into nitrite into nitrate into harmless nitrogen gas. I in my tanks want to get rid of nitrate, not create it. Bioballs make lots but cant convert it any further. Live rock makes nitrate and then goes one step further and converts it to a inert gas that bubbles out of your tank. Bio balls in a reef tank are like flooding the engine on your car. Sure it has gas, it has a spark, its got compression but it still wont run. The live rock will do the job better. On the penguin question, its up to you. Might make a good pod and chaeto spot with some live rock rubble. I am trying to explain this as best I can. I am not very good at it. For a reef tank think of it like this. You have three poisons, All three will kill you. The last one (NITRATE) will kill you slower, and it takes more, but dead none the less if your a coral. Thats bioballs. Now live rock, You still have the three poisons, but now you can covert NITRATE into harmless, inert, nitrogen gas. Thats why most people say remove the bioballs. I hope this made some sense, and I didnt sound like I did earlier. I was wrong and I apoligize. I honestly thought you would laugh, but now that I read it again, I sound mean and hurtful. That was not my intention. Steve

 

[Jonathan G.]

i guess it was good that i was so lost in what you said i didnt pay too much attention to anything else lol... so basically im pretty much SOL on getting any shrimp, shrooms, clams, an anenome or zoos? man that is a bumber. what if i have plans on adding a fuge? say a 10-20g would this make a difference? also i dont want to sound like im doubting what your saying but my lfs runs all of his frag tanks with the same wet/dry that i have and same skimmer and he uses same tap water that i do and same salt, im saying this because this is the reason i go this filter and i thought i was gonna be able to keep whatever i can under my 4x96w PC's

 

[Jonathan G.]

also would washing the bio-balls be bad in the fact that it removes the good bacteria or good as in it will remove the built-up trates? like what im afraid of is washing them off then having all of my parameters go outta whack.

 

[NaH2O]

Jonathan - regardless of the similarities in your tank compared to the LFS, there are going to be differences. Even if they have the same equipment and are the same exact size, there will be husbandry differences, livestock and bioload differences, even environmental differences. So, essentially, they are different. You could probably get away with rinsing portions of the bioballs at a time, and slowly replace them with live rock. I would clean them up or have them in a portion rotation with clean bioballs, because you don't want to lose all your beneficial bacteria at one time. You would have to come up with a way to know which bioballs need cleaning and which would stay until next rotation. Does this make sense? That is one idea I had. I stress good quality skimmers, enough live rock for biological filtration, and research (not necessarily in that order ). Testing your water parameters will be especially important if you are keeping more delicate livestock such as anemones. Water quality and water stability are also instrumental in keeping livestock thriving long term and not just surviving short term.

 

[wrightme43]

OK, You are not sunk at all. You can keep whatever you want. All you really need to do is remove the bioballs. What I are saying is that your tank will need less maintence, less water changes, less work, to have a cleaner system. You havent done anything wrong. Everything is ok. You can keep all of that stuff with the bioballs, if you are willing to do frequent water changes to remove nitrate that you do not have to have in your system if dont use the bioballs. Yes a fuge will help even more. The plants in it will use the nitrate as well. Think about it like this. You will recieve more from you live rock for less work and less money on water changes if you take out the bioballs and let the live rock do its job. Washing the bioballs will remove the junk on them if you wash them in tank water the bacteria will still be there. If you were to wash them in tap water the bacteria would die of course but I dont think you meant that. The system just works better with out them. I promise. Since you want corals and anemone, the best solution with the system you have is to remove the bioballs and add the other 60 #s of live rock. Let the tank cycle in real good and you will be good to go. Maybe think about it like this. Instead of setting up a refugium seperate, use the area where the bioballs were to set one up. Then you will have very effective use of the resource you already paid for and it will be a maximum use of limited space, and funds. I mean you will have 100#s of the absolute best filter medium in the world, a skimmer, and a fuge. You will be hooked up. Check it out man. My tank, no bioballs just 77 lbs of tonga branch and a sand bed and a chintzy skimmer I am starting to hate.

 

[mojoreef]

Here is the problem. With LR the bacteria in the upper layer and surface are nitirifiers, reducing ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate. Directly below them live the denitrifiers, the Nitrate is passed to the denitrifiers through bacterial movement and diffusion (think of it as "at hand length")
Now with the bioballs they have nitrifiers, so ammonia to nitrite and nitrite to nitrate once again but they cant house the dentrifiers, the the nitrate is released at that point. Now in running them and LR what you are asking is if that nitrate being exposed to the water to travel through the system and for the nitrifiers in the LR (surface bacteria) to take thier own waste and pss it on to the dentirifiers below them. They WONT do this as it is thier waste/biproduct...you would either

side note your sponges will do the same thing as the bioballs and should be removed also, or cleaned every second day.


Mike

 

[Jonathan G.]

wow thats a nice tank... and tanks for all the advice. so if i take out my bioballs and replace them with LRubble would i need a sand bed on the bottom, and if so will this harm my pump at all if it rest on the sand? i have a mag drive7 for the return. also if i were to create this into a fuge do i take out my block sponge? and one last question if you dont mind. how does this filter the water better if its nothing more then must live rock with some plants, what differenciates the fuge type filtration with a canister or a wet/dry?

 

[wrightme43]

Ok the fuge turns waste products, any extra nitrate, and phosphate that it can scavenge into plant matter. You take the plant matter and dry it and throw it away. Removing junk from you system and growing more plant matter. No you do not need a sand bed. I like sand beds but I am a sandjunkie (and proud of it) LOL Actually I am considering removing my sand bed after Mojo and Boomer spent considerable amounts of time explaining how phosphate can crystalize and be released from the sand beds. I had to read and reread the posts but I finally think I sorta maybe understand it. There is no way I could explain it. If you have a block sponge you can do like I do if you want. Get a extra one and take one out and wash it in the washing machine with pure arm n hammer washing soda (no perfume kind) and put the new one in. Swap it out every couple of days. I also have filter socks that I run and I do the same to them and the same to the block sponge I cut up to fit in my cpr overflow. They Seem to slowly wear out and cost very little money. If you have a pump that sucks up little bits of sand it will wear out. So I would try to keep the intake away from the sand if you decide to go with sand. HTH Steve

 

[Maxx]

Jonathan,
A good book for you to buy/beg/borrow/check out from the library is "The Concientious Aquarist", by Robert Fenner. This book and others like it will answer the questions you have on this and many other things going on in your tank. I really reccomend getting it. Something else you can do is read up on the articles in the Resource Library. Using that and doing a search on a specific topic will find you quick and easy answers.

Nick