Bio Balls, is this really why???

[Snelly40]

and guys lets remember, KEEP UR BALLS CLEAN!!!!

[rDr4g0n]

Originally Posted by Snelly40

and guys lets remember, KEEP UR BALLS CLEAN!!!!

oooo missed my chance!

ok my wife is an aquarist at the gladys porter zoo in brownsville texas. shes been there a few years and knows quite a bit about how they run their systems. the zoo is kinda broke (what zoo isnt) but is in an even worse position due to horrible business guidance.

the people who donated money to fund the aquatic building stipulated that all the fish be native fish only. we live about 20 minutes from south padre island on the gulf of mexico. native fish = ugly game fish basically. so they have these huge tanks filled with stupid ugly game fish. they DO have a few sea turtles that i love, and rock fish that are cool looking.

point is, its not too hard to keep a stupid sea bass or whatever brown fish they keep.

ok soooo they arent exactly on the forefront of technology of modern cutting edge reefkeeping. they do what they need to do with as little money as possible. theyve got a variety of very good pumps (eheims i think) a crapload of 50 gallon containers of saltwater, and a few homemade sumps utilizing bioballs and some other stuff.

im not with my wife during her daily routine, but it involves feeding fish, doing water changes (i dont think they do huge water changes either), and pythoning poop. i think they do the canister filter thing, and use their homemade 10 gallon bucket sumps (which appear to work well enough).

she says they rarely has trate issues, but it does happen. i think since they use mechanical filtration, siphon poo, and keep only fish, the trates never really get out of hand. i dunno... maybe she'll chime in on this.

[Woodstock]

Great article. Thanks Boozeman!

[prow]

i admit i did not read the articles. just glanced at them. i agree not keeping your balls clean is a bad thing. hehehe. and adds to nitrates coming from the bio ball sec. but also the nitrates that are produced by bio balls have to travel in the water colum before they reach any anaoxic zones or anything that directly absorbs them. so you can measure them while they travel. if no bio balls your main aerobic zones are on the surface of the rock and in close proximity of the anaerobic zones. so it does not have to travel before it gets broken down in the denitrification process and never enters the water colum to be measured.

and no bio balls are not nitrate factories. high nitrates are more of a result of a high level of organics and or a deficiency in nirtate reducing things. not because organics are being processed too fast. its just the cycle is not complete. i think we should refer to the nitrification and denitrification cycles as stages or phases of bio filtration and leave the word "cycle" for the complete process. just nitrification is not a cycle. JMO. sorry venting a little on the word cycle for no real reason.

[sasquatch]

Vent away, good for the spleen, Ok eg. tank. ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 2. everything remains the same but you add bioballs and now the nitrates will elevate?? what is fueling this increase, there are no trites showing, please help the thick, cause it aint clear yet. Thanks Linkman, Im off to read now.Steve

[KodiakBear]

Still a bit new to the reef aquarium hobby, and I am currently (with some rather loud protests from other hobbiests) using 1/2 gal of bioballs in my sump (20 gal sump, 45 gal tank). Tell me if I'm wrong here, but isn't the fact that bioballs take ammonia to convert to nitrite, then to nitrate better than leaving the ammonia in? Is it possible to have enough LR and sand to neutralize the effect of the "nitrate factory?"
What is the proper way to clean the balls so as not to remove the helpful bacteria? I currently use RO water to rinse them each time I do a water change, yet my nitrates seem to hold steady around 7ppm.
I was on my way to remove the bioballs when I stumbled upon this thread, so now I'm wondering if it's really that great of an idea.

[Woodstock]

Kodiak, cleaning your balls in ro/di will negate the nitrifying properties (it will kill the bacteria). So in essence, you have no balls. Or at least they are not 'operating' as they should.

Try rinsing your balls in a bucket of tank water instead. This should remove any trapped ditritus but yet leave the bacteria slime in tact. Allow the bacteria to colonize for at least 8 weeks and then begin testing your nitrAtes.

I look forward to seeing the results.

[Woodstock]

Okay.. that would sound completely kinky to a non-reefer!

[boozeman]

I have had to bite my tongue on quite a few posts in this thread already

[cheeks69]

This is a response to the article that was written by Ron Shimek in which he questioned the use of LR as a bio-filter IMHO it's a bunch of hogwash:

I can accept your argument that diffusion through a rock is probably low and water will not really travel an appreciable distance, however, in terms of bacteria, it doesnt really have to. One of the things to consider is the formation of biofolms, and mixed layer biofilms. I think that the surface of all inert structures are coated with a two layer biofilm, the inner is comprised of anaerobes, breaking nitrates to N2 and O2 while the outer is aerobes. The aerobes protect the anaerobes and provide the nitrates. Such proximity of growth leads to a remarkably efficient system. This system is negated when we add a wet-dry type filter. In this case the aerobes predominantly grow on the filter. Since the oxygen is extremely high at the filter they are unable to mask the anaerobes and we get a an uncoupled nitrogen cycle. The nitrates build up.

My point with this is it may not be the porosity of the rock but more the extremely large surface structure of an organically derived material. Microscopically, the surface of coral skeletons and live rock dereived from them is incredibly ridged and provides the massive surface area to permit such growth of large bacterial populations.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...pagen umber=1

My question is why is there no aerobic denitrification going on in our tanks ? Is it because the bacteria need large amounts of ammonia which cannot be provided by our systems ? Oh Boomer hurry on back from your trip

[saltwaterfarm]

[sasquatch]

My head hurts and I want a nap, everything I read just convinces me maybe I should just watch tv, slowly realizing that YES! a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Steve

[rDr4g0n]

this is the best discussion ive seen since my stay at RS

[BrothaWolf]

Originally Posted by Woodstock

Kodiak, cleaning your balls in ro/di will negate the nitrifying properties (it will kill the bacteria). So in essence, you have no balls. Or at least they are not 'operating' as they should.

Try rinsing your balls in a bucket of tank water instead. This should remove any trapped ditritus but yet leave the bacteria slime in tact. Allow the bacteria to colonize for at least 8 weeks and then begin testing your nitrAtes.

I look forward to seeing the results.

Woodstock is right you must always wash your balls gently otherwise they wont work properly. You will have to start a whole new cycle and rebuild all that bacteria. My g/f took my balls. Her cat plays with them. BUT if I had balls I wouldnt wash them at all. Better to have dirty balls than no balls. You could cause your system to crash!

[cheeks69]

Originally Posted by sasquatch

My head hurts and I want a nap, everything I read just convinces me maybe I should just watch tv, slowly realizing that YES! a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Steve

Maybe this article can be of some help:

Nitrate in the Reef Aquarium