Bioballs - What is so bad about them?

B

bolis03

[I just back from a LFS, which I have visited almost every week for the past 6 months, the store has a 65g tank set up for sale. I always stare at this tank because it is beautiful and way out of my price league. The more I looked the more I wondered what kind of filtration they used, so I opened bottom door of the stand and to my surprise they had, a sump with BioBalls and a protein skimmer being used as the filtration for this tank. Therefore, if this LFS is using them and apparently this tank is doing great why are so many people against the use of BioBalls. What is it that makes them so bad?]
 
[After some thought on the matter I removed both from my Mag5's. There is a prefilter/sponge thingy on the bottom of my Sen 900 which is also coming out tonight. I have some green algae still growing on the back of glass. Maybe this will kill it.
Checked nitrites and ammonia, Ph, all good.]
 
[Indeed they do! Mine get really funky pretty quickly if I don't hit the feeding cycle buttons on the Tsunamis, depending on where the MJ is in the tank. Dang! Pretty important to have spares to swap out.]
 
[The statement with regard to them being nitrate factories is wrong. A bioball in no way adds nitrates to a system.

The concept is to give more area for denitrifing and other bacteria to produce. The real reason they are not prefered is a grain of sand can keep 100 if not thousands of bacteria on it... another words a handful of sand is 10 or 100 times more capable of being sucessful removing nitrates than a handful of bioball and cheaper.

As far as the refrence of nitrate factories bioballs are meant to be cleaned periodically and allow the bacteria to restart. most people don't clean them and the bacteria can't survive on them forever.

Lastly, have you seen a bioball. I've heard of vinegar scrubs but who really trust their ability to clean a bioball. Also if rinsed with tap water an air bubble could keep locked in potential toxic chemicals like chlorine on the inside of the ball

This mean bioballs are disposable. Marc suggest that a sand bed is like carpet and periodically needs to be replaced. The advantage of bioballs is they are easier to replace.]
 
[Bioballs absolutely do NOT denitrify whatsoever. When used in a wet/dry application, they quickly convert Ammonia to Nitrite to Nitrate, but that is where they stop working. Reef tanks should never have bioballs used in their filtration, unless they are kept completely submerged. At that point, their usefulness is plausible, but it would be easier and more logical to simply put some LR in that spot instead.]
 
[only waste is a cause of nitrates teal cobra I real only corrected your grammer???

Marc I am not sure I understand your definition of denitrifing can you clarify? Because I thought what you said afterward is the denitrifing process?]
 
[In order to "denitrify" you have to have a anaerobic process. Bioballs are only capable of the aerobic part and eventually trape waste that will increase your nitrates. To truely denitrify you have to expose nitrates to an enviroment that completely lacks O2.]
 
[Well I am going to agree with Brian on this one. There is no way bioballs add nitrate to a tank. The only way to do that is to add more ammonia, by the means of food or waste or dead animals to start the process that leads to nitrates. Heck everybody knows you can cycle the tank from ammonia-nitrites-nitrates-nitrogen by just sticking a good pump a tank, with just saltwater and some good starter bacteria from a cup of someone elses sand. How does that setup have any anaerobic area? Yet the tank completely cycles through the process.
I think everyone agrees and Brian already stated the same, they just are not as effective at keeping up wtih the process in a fully stocked tank as a good sandbed or liverock. They have major drawbacks, that already have been stated, so people use more effective ways, i.e. the live sandbed or live rock.
I would add also the argument that they can not be cleaned well and thus waste builds up is a valid one. But could the same be said for sandbeds? The waste builds up over time, under the rock, hidden to the point the sandbed can not handle the waste load. Maybe more effective than the bioballs at first, but at some point also a nitrate factory??]
 
[Well put Rick! Mitch/ Marc I thought the "denitrifing process" is ammonia-nitrites-nitrates-nitrogen. Mitch, in addition you've read a book that says no oxygen and if you look at what breaks up the nitrogen (study chemistry) you would know that to break the molecules up, oxygen must be present. Someone correct me here it is an aerobic layer the 1st 2 inches prevelent with oxygen. anaerobic layer 2 to 4 inches limited oxygen and then anoxic or toxic layer more than 4 inches no oxygen?]
 
[Nitrogen: In a properly setup reef tank, the nitrates can be further processed by special types of bacteria which convert the nitrates into harmless nitrogen gases which escape into the atmosphere. When the process includes this step, the nitrogen cycle is completed and the tank will maintain zero nitrates without significant water changes or the requirement for specialized external equipment to remove it from the system. The key to this final step is to provide oxygen poor areas of sand or rock. The bacteria which perform this last step of the process only live in oxygen poor (anaerobic) areas of the tank.

Do not use a wet/dry filter with biomedia such as bioballs. It has been established that these filters do a good job of converting wastes into nitrate, but their use tends to cause nitrates to accumulate in the system. The reason why is not well understood, but many hobbyist have been able to cure nitrate problems by removing the biomedia from their filters. One school of thought is that when nitrates are created in the sand bed, they are created near the nitrate converting bacteria in the lower regions of the sand bed and therefore get processed more readily. It is recommended that anyone who is running a wet/dry and who has nitrate accumulation problems should consider slowly removing the biomedia over the course of a couple of weeks to give time for the system to adjust.

***These are just soe quotes from reefcorner.com***]



Edited By mmiller40 on 1093289429
 
["The nitrogen cycle, all living things are made up of molecular building blocks called amino acids. These are structures of carbon chains (some with sulfur), oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen that are linked to one another by amino bonds to form proteins. The nitrogen cycle is the sum total processes that convert atmospheric nitrogen(N2) into compounds useful to animals and plants that eventually "cycle" back to atmospheric nitrogen.
In a tank cycle since it is a some what closed sytem, nitrates might build to dangerous levels. Intervention methods by aquarists to successfully limit the "bottleneck" accumulation of nitrates include: frequent partial water changes, chemical filtrants, macroalgae "scrubbers", and abundant live rock and live sand substrate beds, in which nitrate can be converted to harmless gaseous nitrogen." Quoting Robert Fenner]



Edited By Rick on 1093291065
 
[Mitch/ Rick I made a new post can you two delete these things and repost them that is too complicated for most new people... also yes mitch, I don't like bioballs it's just that people are misexplaining their purpose...]
 
[I have a question, based on what was said. When should I rotate/clean/add..? my sand bed in my main tank and sump? Sounds like over time they loose there ability to remove dangerous gases.]
 
[At the last meeting, it was suggested by Marc, that new rule of thumb was that a DSB be changed every 5 years.]



Edited By SALT on 1093292773
 
@misery wrote:
[I have a question said:
[Eric that idea is one of the most debated at this time. You really can not successfully clean it, without disturbing the bottom layers. Those layers beneath the oxygen levels can not be overturned without releasing literally poisons trapped there into the system. That being said, some people believe after several years the sandbed no longer can process nitrates and you would have to pull it all apart and start over using a cup or two of your old sand to start the new one. And also reintroduce some bacteria from other systems that may have been lost in yours over time. But it is a big debate and their are major arguments for both sides, others saying you can properly maintain the sandbed, by it being deep enough and reintroducing bacteria and pods from time to time from fresh out of the ocean.]
Click to expand...
 
[I will give you some info from personal point of view. Last year in July, I took apart a fully stocked 120 full of sps and other corals and transferred them to a 215 with 5-6 inch new sandbed. I used the same liverock, same refugium,(undisturbed), I seeded the new sandbed with sand from the old system. I had problems for almost a year with, cyano, diatoms, and some turf algaes.
This year in July because of the previous tank leaking I had to redo the whole system again. This time however I did not use any sandbed, instead going with the so-called bare bottom method, using the same amount of liverock, same refugium(still undisturbed), same equipment. I siphon out the detrius as I do water changes. I have not seen any sign of above mentioned nuisance algaes that were so prevalent last year after the change. I do have algae that grows on the glass wih abundance, but I guess you always get that,(the 2200 watts of lights aids that growth).
I say this, because I believe if you take a fully stocked system after a few years, remove the sandbed, put in a new sandbed and continue on. The new sand bed will take a year or longer to catch up to the system. It is not like taking a new sandbed and slowly building your bacteria and pod load as your bio load of fish and corals(thus feeding increases). You are instantly adding a full bio load to sand bed that can not handle it.]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top