Bio Balls, Heaven sent or Dealing w/the Devil-Filters, etc..-3reef Forums

Otty · 02-14-2007, 11:24 AM

I just purchased a system that came with a sump full of Bio Balls. I have them soaking in 50/50 bleach solution right now to clean them up while I re-due the sump walls and baffles and was wondering if I should use them in this new system? Don't hear much about them and I have searched on here for some threads but only found a couple that didn't answer very many questions. Are they a chemical trap like a canister filter gets or are they good with filtation??

Any insight on this would be greatly appricated.

glampka · 02-14-2007, 11:44 AM

Talk to 100 people & you'll get 100 different answers. Probably shouldn't have bleached them though. Simply rinse in saltwater & return. You'll have to rinse them real good & it wouldn't be a bad idea to soak them in water that is really overdosed with Chlor-out.

Tangster · 02-14-2007, 11:53 AM

If you have the sump room ? they are good for gas exchange and do give you a bit more room for error. I ran them for yrs and would still if room for the tower was not an issue we run them on the tanks where we grow out coral for sale systems are large and the gas exchange is better. I never in over 25yr plus have ever had a NO3's issue with their usage in any system I had them on. But you don't have to run them though..

inwall75 · 02-14-2007, 12:00 PM

They were a Godsend at one time. They house the bacteria that convert the very dangerous Ammonia into Nitrites and also the bacteria that turn the Nitrites into Nitrates.

Then came along live rock which has plenty of surface area to house your bacteria, gave you some place to put your corals, and also provided a natural environment for your fish to live in. That's when people started removing their bioballs.

Because of their nature, they cannot house denitrifying bacteria like live rock can. This has lead many people to call them Nitrate Factories which is a little unfair. Most people with bioballs and very high nitrates usually have tons of detritus sitting in with the bioballs and rotting. These same people can remove their bioballs and get no improvement on their Nitrates unless they also remove the detritus.

Tangster · 02-14-2007, 12:12 PM

In-Wall thats also what I have found out from people who ever had NO'3 issues with the use of the bio balls is that when they pulled the media the problem still existed plus lower 0'2 levels and more animal stress . The point is I guess is people feed their tanks to death. They always seem to let the fish train them into thinking that we are starving to death in here LOL. And people will feed them accordingly and what goes in stays in to some extent.

I like the gas exchange they offer myself when the water passes over and through them I also like to add some pressurized air into the chamber also . They in my opinion are a great benefit to larger deeper tanks sine the surface area to volume is lower.

inwall75 · 02-14-2007, 12:27 PM

I personally like them for the reasons you outlined. Dissolved Oxygen is more important than people realize.

On one tank, I did something that was a little weird. I had about 5 different sets of bioballs shoved into nylons. Every week, I would take out maybe 2 nylons full and then rinse the nylons and bioballs very well. Then I added a filterbag to my sump and detritus could no longer get down there so the nylons were no longer necessary. Every other day, I just changed out the filterbag.

Otty · 02-14-2007, 12:46 PM

So should they be kept under water or above water so that water trickles over them?

Otty · 02-14-2007, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glampka

Talk to 100 people & you'll get 100 different answers. Probably shouldn't have bleached them though. Simply rinse in saltwater & return. You'll have to rinse them real good & it wouldn't be a bad idea to soak them in water that is really overdosed with Chlor-out.

I soaked them and everything else I got out of this tank because of all the problems with algae the previous owner had. I don't want them kind of problems.

BlackWhiteYellow · 02-14-2007, 10:39 PM

I'm starting off with seachem matrix, they claim that their media has a small pours for denitrafication to take place. when i got them they were so "porous" full of air that some of the rocks floated in the water i was using to wash them. so perhaps their claim could be true.

when i was running my 34 gal, the inbuilt filter had this ugly mud in it after 6months, i washed it all up and gave the ceramics a good rinse, my tank improved heaps. i think that if your going to put bio balls or other media in, then do it in a way that you can easily remove them and clean out the crap.

Blade_Runner · 02-15-2007, 05:15 PM

I still have bio-balls running on 2 tanks. I'm a little mixed, but not to the point of changing filtration at this point. Both tanks tend to have higher NO3 levels and need more water changes. I'm not sure if it is because of the bio-balls or another element of the filtration system.