ammount of bioballs needed

[damer]

hi guys,

i know a few people use bioballs but was just wopndering how do you work out the quantity you need.

my broodstock system will be roughly 1200 litres (roughly 315 U.S gallons) and will have about 20 fish in total.

i have purchased a box of about 1300 second hand bioballs which meassure about 42 cm X 32 cm X 55 cm. i dont think it will be enough but have never used bioballs before.

any help would be much appreciated

regards

damien

 

[David M]

42 cm X 32 cm X 55 cm.

Is this correct? I never saw a "bio-ball" like that Or is that the total volume? Must be, in which case you have roughly 23 gallons of bb's which is probably reasonable for a 315 gallon system with 20 clowns. So many variables though. Will they be floating in the sump where most will be submerged? I believe you get a lot more filtration if you set up a drip tower as a "wet/dry". Obviously you are not going to just dump 20 fish into the new system, so if you build up the population slowly you can monitor the water and add more filtration if you feel you need it. JMHO

 

[David M]

If you want to get all technical about it look through the AES catalog in the bio media section. There are all kinds of charts that tell you the surface area of different medias and fish loads handled. There IS a science to it but at my level I just assume more is better

 

[psimitry]

Forgive the newb question, but what is the usage of bio-balls in a breeding tank?

I would assume they're not just for filtration, but that's just an assumption...

 

[damer]

thanks david,

much appreciate the imput. yes that measurement was the size of the box full that i have. there is roughly 1300. they will be in a drip tower type arrangement, and i have some very porous dried out rock that i was going to put in the sump as well. and no i wont be dumping all the fish in at once.

i dont know who AES, (i guess its a supply company in the US) but ill search for them.

i am of the same assumption as you that more would be better.

psimitry: the bioballs are not in the tanks but are in a wet/dry filtration system.

regards

damien

 

[David M]

My gut feeling is that it will be plenty

AES: Aquatic Eco-Systems... aquaticeco.com