bio balls vs. lr rubble

[rudyr03]

i have a half wet/dry and half fuge ..in my wet/dry if i were to take out the bioballs and add lr rubble what would happen...im trying to reduce my nitrates there at almost 20

 

[sherm71tank]

bioballs take care of ammonia and nitrite, not nitrate. Live rock will help with the nitrates as well. Just ditch the bioballs (probably a little at a time) and use live rock. More important than that is what bioload you have, how much you feed, your make up water, substrate choice etc...

 

[drummereef]

You need to make sure the live rock rubble is completely submerged underwater to get full nitrification.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

How much live rock do you have in the tank? A lot of people who start out with wet/dry filters dont have live rock, so just for the sake of this, assume you dont have any (or at least much). This would make your bioballs be doing most/all filtration...taking them out with little to no live rock would be very bad. And simply adding rubble in place of them will not cut it. There is simply not enough rubble that you could put in there that could filter the whole tank.

So just in case you already dont have, you need to get live rock in the tank before taking out all those other bioballs and whatnot

 

[reefnetworth]

dont forget about chaeto. if you are mainly looking to lower your NO3 from 20 to hopefully zero.
remove the bioballs and relpace with cured rubble rock and chaetomorphia. www.premiumaquatics.com sells it (RR) by the pound! and in different varieties I.E. Fiji, Kaelini, etc. the chaetomorphia will help alot in combination with the rock to acheive the lower NO3 in your system.
JDM

 

[rudyr03]

i have cualerpa now in my fuge should i switch it out and get
cheato or can i just put both in there... if i do go for the cheato how would i do it take out the cualerpa a little at a time right

 

[rudyr03]

i have cualerpa now in my fuge should i switch it out and get
cheato or can i just put both in there... if i do go for the cheato how would i do it take out the cualerpa a little at a time right

 

[ledford1]

Just pull the caulerpa out and throw it in the trash. Then put in the cheato. There's no reason to pull out just a little at a time. It's not like LR.

On replacing the bioballs, that may very well help you reduce your nitrates. Like Sir said, how slowly you replace the bioballs with LR depends on how much LR is in the main tank.

 

[six.line]

Yes, as was said before the problem isn't so much the media you're using, as it is the exposure to air. That's bad. Rock is a better choice than bioballs because of total surface area. Rock is good, go with it. Just make sure that the rock is completely submerged in water or you'll have problems.