Ammonia control

[Sharkey18]

I recently removed all my bioballs and cleaned out a lot of detritus etc. My question is this. If the wet dry trickle over the bio balls was housing the bacterial colonies that convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate, what will do it now? I have a DSB and LR. What else should i be doing?

 

Ammonia is .25 but it was at .25 before i removed bioballs as well.

 

Laura

[jason the filter freak]

give it some time, increase macro algaes, step up skimmer, add more live rock... the list goes on. the first is probably the best suggestion

[Buucca]

I recently removed all my bioballs and cleaned out a lot of detritus etc. My question is this. If the wet dry trickle over the bio balls was housing the bacterial colonies that convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate, what will do it now? I have a DSB and LR. What else should i be doing?

 

Ammonia is .25 but it was at .25 before i removed bioballs as well.

 

Laura

 

If you are removing the bio balls permanently, I suggest removing 1/2 then wait a little over a week to remove the rest. I feel you''ll be removing too much bac control at once and cause an algae bloom.

[lanman]

I recently removed all my bioballs and cleaned out a lot of detritus etc. My question is this. If the wet dry trickle over the bio balls was housing the bacterial colonies that convert ammonia to nitrite to nitrate, what will do it now? I have a DSB and LR. What else should i be doing?

 

Ammonia is .25 but it was at .25 before i removed bioballs as well.

 

Laura

 

Hi, Laura!

 

How many gallons of water? How many pounds of live rock? Is your live rock nice and porous??

 

When you have ammonia in the tank, nitrosomas bacteria in the live rock starts to increase. Once you have a nice population of this aerobic bactria, it is able to turn all of your ammonia into (just as deadly) nitrates. Fortunately, in that same live rock, there are nitrobacter bacteria, which convert nitrites into nitrates in the same manner. Well, then you are stuck with nitrates, which, while not nearly as poisonous to sea-life - are readily eaten by micro and macro-algaes. The most common cure for the nitrates is to have a 4" or deeper sand bed in the bottom of your tank. Sitting quietly, another type of bacteria - anaerobic bacteria - will convert nitrates into free nitrogen. The free nitrogen will quietly escape into the air above the tank.

 

bob