Bio balls part of problem?

[George771177]

Came across a dilemma today. I have little experience with wet dry filters. Question is friend has a 90 gallon tank with lots of live rock and a wet dry filter with bio balls. Does he even need the bio balls with over 100 lbs of live rock?


Lots of hair algae we will call it an infestation I believe par of it could be from high nitrates coming from the bio balls.

What do you think would happen if I just scrapped bio balls?

 

[lbiminiblue]

Well, bio balls can help...the rocks should be enough, but supplementary bioballs could help...nitrates are produced by the nitrogen cycle, all the time. It doesn't matter what carries out the cycle, it WILL produce nitrates. You could grow algae and toss it every now and then. this totally removes the nitrates from the water as the algae uses them...don't scrap the bioballs...you may want to take them out for some time, then test your water later...but I don't think the bio balls are the culprit. What is his clean up crew like?

 

[George771177]

Ok. I wasn't sure how the bio balls were going to effect a spike in nitrates that may be causing the algae take over.
Clean up crew is weak not nearly enough snails, hermit crabs, or blennies. Has two tangs but it is so out of control it is going to need a lot of work.
Point of attack
Take rock out scrub it down best I can to remove algae
Do a 50 or 60 percent water change
Hopefully get him to get a better clean up crew.
Add chetamorpheom to the refugium and keep it on a 24 hr cycle
Add active carbon

 

[lbiminiblue]

Sounds good.

 

[BigAl07]

Here's my 2 cents (you get what you pay for LOL)..


Bioballs are not ideal for a Reef Tank. The reason being is they are GREAT at what they are designed to do but that is the problem... They are unable to colonize with Anaerobic (oxygen low/free zone) bacteria which is what completed the Nitrogen cycle. The Bioballs (biorings, biowhatever) are SUPER efficient at Aerobic Bacteria (Oxygen rich area) which break organics down into Ammonia and then Nitrite. They also have a lot of nooks and crannies which will catch and hold organics that would otherwise be removed from the system by mechanical filtration means. This is why bioballs have a tendency to cause a gradual increase in Nitrates usually to the point of causing a reef to start declining.

I had some water issues when I was running Bioballs in the back of my work tank. I finally took some advice and started removing them over the course of several water changes. The reason for the slow removal is to allow the rest of the tank to compensate for the loss of Aerobic bacteria. This reduces any "Cycle" that would happen otherwise.

 

[George771177]

Thanks for the advise big al.
I'am going to go ahead and ween the tank off of the bio balls. In the chamber that the balls are in did you replace that area with anything else for the water to flow over?

 

[BigAl07]

In my tank (remember it's an All-In-One) I left that chamber completely clean/clear. It's been at least3 years now and I never looked back

 

[steved13]

+1 to BigAl

If the bio balls are in a sump type area, if possible I would add a filter sock to help remove the "stuff" that goes through there. Make sure you change the sock out often to remove the "stuff" from the system.

 

[theplantman]

All great advice, on the chaeto in the fuge. 24 hours of light is actually not a good thing for growth. You should give it a minimum of 4 hours dark to get maximum growth. One good thing to do is runn the light in the fuge on the opposite cycle of the lights in the tank and this will help reduce nightly PH swings as plants/algaes switch over from using CO2 and expelling oxygen to using oxygen and expelling CO2.