Another bio-ball question.

I have had quite the algae bloom for a very very long time and the only place I have been able to track the nutrients that can be feeding down to is the bio-balls. I have been rincing a quarter at a time every week to tey to improve them but I notice a yellow film on a bunch of them. I know its from poor quality mechanical filteration on the filter and have fixed that. This stuff is on there good and dont know what you guys have for imput on if this is normal look to bio-balls or if this is my source of food for my algae? I took fresh water from my ro/di and filled a bucket and filled it half way and then put a mag drive 5 in it to get the water moving and have been rincing the balls with that pressure and it still has the yellow gunk on some of them. I also wiped down some yellow sline from the sides of the part of the filter that houses the bio-balls. I have since noticed this problem a few weeks ago put filter socks on the return line where the water comes into the filter and bought a few new filters for the top of the trickle tray. I also take and place felt trickle filter material and put that in the trickle tray when performing any tank maintaince. I still struggle with allot of algae and have had enough pulling my hair out. Any thought would be great. I dont know if I can slowelly replace the balls? I am nervous to just take them out completlly.

 

Bump.

 

Hi, you never want to take them all out at once. Your avatar here doesn't match the one in your profile, either way, I for one would use a little more live rock. If you don't want to though, let's look at some other things. Is the tank in the vicinity of a window where strong direct or indirect light is getting to it? The bio balls are a mystery as far as the "crud" you describe. Never heard of that or encountered it myself and there is no guarantee that if you replace them with rock rubble you won't get the same thing. Not sure if I or anyone else suggested a Phosphate reactor. That cured my GH algae in my 55 gal.
I have also added Halimeda (macro) to the tank on one side, I like the look. It sucks up nitrate, only slight draw back is it sucks up Calcium so you have to stay on top of that.
How about your lighting? Maybe some of this was discussed already. What type and how old are they? Let us know.

 

unclejed I changed the rock work about a month maybe two ago and did rework the rock. I dont know how much lr is in there but its over 200 lbs I also have some in the sump. I have sundial lights and the bulbs are about 7 months old. The tank is not near a window. I put this tank im our bedroom and figured the addition around it keeping in mind things like where to place the windows. Just to give a rundown I had set this tank up and it did the normal signs of a cycle, but never came out of it. I am very frusterated at this point and have looked at feeding which is every other day. I buying new lights I know the t5s last longer I am just doing it as precaution. As for the gunk in the bio balls I made the mistake of scraping the gh algae that was everywhere and figured ill let the filter in the sump get it. Well alot of it blew by and I feel is what started the gunk that is now yellw on the balls. I was wondering if the balls looked like this due to the debris or if bio balls actually build this up from bacteria(the good kind)I have pulled a handfull of the bio balls that were real bad but there are still quite a bit that have some of this yellow gunk. As for the rock I have about 100 lbs in the basement but the algae got so bad and I couldent get the crud out of the crevases. So I am frusterated. The cal,mag,dk and whatnot are all stable. I would like to add more rock but have been plagued so it seems haha.

 

What about the reactor?

 

Are you feeding too much? This IMO is the top reason for algae blooms. How often do you feed? and what do you use as food?

Sounds like you have a good supply of live rock, so your denitrifing bacteria is probably loaded. I have bio balls in my filter I've been meaning to remove, but I just never had any problems with them, so I just never worried about it.

 

? I only have the 2 2 little fishes 150 phosban reactors. I had not run them for about a week while I waited on my last bulk reef order for the media for it.

 

I feed 2 3 in pieces of veggie strips every other day(4 tangs smallest is 4-5 in the rest are 6-8in also 2 coral beauties They dident get into the signature)

I feed also on a every other day schedule live brine shrimp not to much there either, And at the same time I use a small pinch of veggie pelets with garlic.

Ont the bacteria you said sounds like its loaded? good loaded or bad loaded? I am nervous because I dont know the actual ammmount of lr I had well over 200 and took some out and then got about 40-50 lbs given to me by lfs and not I dunno.

 

loaded in a good way

 

So that stuff is yellow and looks like gunk? Just curious. I really know very little about the bio balls. I do know my algae is driving me mad! I did siphon a ton out today and blew out the crud from the rocks with a turkey baster.