Bye bye bio balls!

Think about this before making any major changes ;-)

 

not 1/3 daily for 3 days----1/3 per week

 

Yes very noisy and lots of micro-bubbles--That is why you ditch the tray and go to a filter sock

 

I was thinking of doing this also.But went with removing the polishing sponge at the bottom of the wet/dry made a little plastic wall to bock off pumps and added chaeto in between skimmer and return pump(didnt see the need to remove an already established WD system).stuck small HD clip on light w/65k day light bulb and there ya go best of both worlds..I change out my filter pad every 3 days,trim the chaeto when needed(it grows nicely)....nitrates no more...not that they were bad to begin with...just wanted extra security...

Its a little neater in there now I moved things around a bi since this pic,but you get the idea..

 

So it appears we have a similar setup...

I just removed the sponge and tossed it... I never cleaned or replaced so it was nasty...

Now, you're saying all I need is a wall to separate the pumps and I can just toss chaeto in there and a light? I thought it needed sand too?

Also how long do you leave the light on in this makeshift fuge?



Thanks again!

Ryan in Texas

 

The bioballs themselves don't collect nitrates. What they do is provide an oxygen rich environment for the bacteria that converts ammonia to nitrates. What they don't do is provide the oxygen depleted/free areas for the bacteria that convert nitrate back to free nitrogen and thus complete the nitrogen cycle.

Adding live rock rubble to the sump to replace the bioballs and having it out of the water isn't doing anything other than replacing one media for another, both will become nitrate factories.

Remove them, don't put anything back in its place.

To combat the noise you will have to redo a little plumbing. If your drain pipe comes in through a lid on top of the bioball chamber, remove the lid and simply let the flex tubing sit down to the water. If it comes in through the side with a bulkhead type fitting then you simply turn the elbow down and use a piece of solid pipe to run the water down to the water level. I have both styles where the drains come in the lid or come in the side of the box.

Once you have the lid removed and the water running in, leave it empty. Makes it easy to get in there and siphon stuff out during water changes.

As far as cleaning a sump, yes, you should clean it. For the same reasons that you want your DT clean. That first chamber is where the detritus is going to settle at. If you don't keep it clean, then its just going to sit there and rot and turn into ammonia and then nitrates. Siphon it out when you do your water changes.
As far as breaking down the sump to clean it. No. When you do your water changes you simply siphon the sump out to keep it clean. If the walls get dirty, you can take a rag and wash the inside walls with tank water to get it cleaned off. And, keep the salt creep cleaned off.

Good luck with it.

 

How do you siphon a sump that is on the ground??????

 

I use a wet/dry vacuum but any "assisted" siphon setup (pythons) will siphon out of a sump for you.

 

cool thanks for the idea

 

I just cleaned the sump for the first time in one year...
Let us never speak again of the crap I pulled out from under that tank!
siphoned out the water into a bucket until the gravity thing gave out then turned to cups and paper towels (where's the wet dry vac when you need one)
I then scrubbed the sump... rearranged the pumps after cleaning and found existing acrylic to use for my makeshift chaeto area as pictured by jkat21. The home depot light was 20 bucks with a 65K daylight bulb. It's now affixed to the piping with a tight alligator grip and pointing down in the small area will the chaeto is going later this morning when it arrives from vividaquariums.com
Once it's in I will take pictures...
Decided to leave the wet/dry bioballs as is... I'm hoping by cleaning the sump and adding chaeto... my 10-20ppm nitrates... will turn into 5-10ppm or even lower.
I will do another test two weeks from today.

ryan