Balls in sump pump, do you use them?

[underwater]

Question for you guys.

 

I am breaking down my tank and I still have those black balls in my sump tank. I am cleaning them right now, but wondering if it is necessary. I don't even know what these balls are called. Someone at Marine Scene told me that these are not used or recommended anymore. What is the general opinion about these balls?

[underwater]

I think these are called bio balls or filter balls.

[Guest thefishman65]

I still have a few, but I am slowly getting rid of them. They help the nitrate cycle by giving the bacteria a place to live. As I understand they are sill appropriate for fish only tanks, but not so much for reef reef.

[underwater]

I still have a few, but I am slowly getting rid of them. They help the nitrate cycle by giving the bacteria a place to live. As I understand they are sill appropriate for fish only tanks, but not so much for reef reef.

Thanks. I will have to read more before I set my tank back up. Mine was pretty much fish only. There is a lot of goey stuff in the balls.

[Steve175]

I have some in my sump to augment the bubble trap (had a micro bubble problem due to higher flow in the sump), but I have lots of other nitrate export mechanisms. If you decide to keep them, consider removing them if nitrates are a problem. $0.02

[zygote2k]

When protein skimmers first came out on the market, they were one half of a complete filtration system. The other half was a wet dry filter with bioballs/biobale/spiral wound floss. When these 2 parts are used together correctly, you can have a great filter that allows you to grow or keep just about anything. Bioball wet dry filters do require periodic washing of the balls to prevent clogging.

[sen5241b]

IMHO bioballs are not worth the trouble. You are better off just using lick rock. Bil balls can collect a lot of detritus and then they have to be cleaned of ti using used tank water. Do not wash them with tap water. If you remove them, remove them say 25% every week or so.

[benjipang]

One thing I don't seem to understand.... and maybe I will raise the question here. If the purpose of both bioball and LR is to house anaerobic bacteria for nitrate/ammon/nitrite cycle, then what is the different? They are both porous and you run water through it. I know people says that bioball needs to be rinsed because they accumulate film and junk, but what about LR? They should have the same problem right?

[zygote2k]

One thing I don't seem to understand.... and maybe I will raise the question here. If the purpose of both bioball and LR is to house anaerobic bacteria for nitrate/ammon/nitrite cycle, then what is the different? They are both porous and you run water through it. I know people says that bioball needs to be rinsed because they accumulate film and junk, but what about LR? They should have the same problem right?

 

yes- both house bacteria and both are subject to clogging with detritus. If you do a side by side comparison of these 2 systems, and say you let the nitrates accumulate to the 200ppm range, it's way easier to get the nitrates into the desirable range with bioballs rather than liverock.

All you have to do is to rinse the balls until they are clean. With the liverock system, you have to let the nitrate leach out of the rock.

 

If you take care of the bioball system properly- rinsing the filter media once a year or so, it'll work fine for life.

[Coral Hind]

The bio-balls are so good at converting ammonia to nitrite and then into nitrate because the high O2 environment where that type of bacteria lives is created in the trickle filter. It however is not good at the last step of the nitrogen cycle which is turning nitrate into nitrogen gas. That step has to be done in a low O2 environment like the inside of LR or a DSB. That's what I have always read.

 

Bio-balls are great for systems where nitrates do not need to be near zero levels as they process ammonia spikes fast in case of overfeeding or a fish dies and they allow for a greater fish load in the system.

 

 

it's way easier to get the nitrates into the desirable range with bioballs rather than liverock.

 

If the bacteria that processes nitrate into nitrogen requires a low O2 environment then how can rinsed bio-balls in a wet/dry lower nitrate?

[zygote2k]

The bio-balls are so good at converting ammonia to nitrite and then into nitrate because the high O2 environment where that type of bacteria lives is created in the trickle filter. It however is not good at the last step of the nitrogen cycle which is turning nitrate into nitrogen gas. That step has to be done in a low O2 environment like the inside of LR or a DSB. That's what I have always read.

 

Bio-balls are great for systems where nitrates do not need to be near zero levels as they process ammonia spikes fast in case of overfeeding or a fish dies and they allow for a greater fish load in the system.

 

 

 

 

If the bacteria that processes nitrate into nitrogen requires a low O2 environment then how can rinsed bio-balls in a wet/dry lower nitrate?

I'm only reporting what I see in the real world.

[Origami]

One thing I don't seem to understand.... and maybe I will raise the question here. If the purpose of both bioball and LR is to house anaerobic bacteria for nitrate/ammon/nitrite cycle, then what is the different? They are both porous and you run water through it. I know people says that bioball needs to be rinsed because they accumulate film and junk, but what about LR? They should have the same problem right?

Bioballs in a typical wet-dry application provide growing surface for aerobic bacteria, not so much for anaerobes. Live rock provides surface for both. In general, nitrates should not "leach" from live rock because nitrate cannot bind to live rock. Instead, it should be consumed by bacteria living inside where pockets of water move very, very slowly (and hence, become anaerobic). That said, if there's detritus on the rock or even in the rock (in those little pockets), then that detritus might decay giving off more nitrate than the anaerobic bacteria can consume, giving the appearance of leaching.

[sen5241b]

One thing nobody mentioned here is that aragonite based live rock is a gazzilion times more porous than bioballs. The more porous the rock, the more beneficial bacteria it can hold. Even attempts at creating artificial live rock using agrocrete have have failed to duplicate the porosity of live rock.

Edited December 9, 2011 by sen5241b

[zygote2k]

The bio-balls are so good at converting ammonia to nitrite and then into nitrate because the high O2 environment where that type of bacteria lives is created in the trickle filter. It however is not good at the last step of the nitrogen cycle which is turning nitrate into nitrogen gas. That step has to be done in a low O2 environment like the inside of LR or a DSB. That's what I have always read.

 

Bio-balls are great for systems where nitrates do not need to be near zero levels as they process ammonia spikes fast in case of overfeeding or a fish dies and they allow for a greater fish load in the system.

 

 

 

 

If the bacteria that processes nitrate into nitrogen requires a low O2 environment then how can rinsed bio-balls in a wet/dry lower nitrate?

I'm not saying that rinsed bioballs are better at lowering nitrate than live rock. I'm saying that when you compare 2 systems that are at high levels of nitrate- 1 with balls, 1 with rock, that it's easier to quickly lower the nitrate by rinsing the bioballs and cleaning all of the detritus from them. I dropped the nitrates 100ppm on a system like this in one day. On the liverock system, after scrubbing the rock and removing the detritus, the nitrate dropped much slower.

What Tom says about the liverock being clogged with detritus and 'leaching' out makes sense. It's much harder to thoroughly clean rock instead of bioballs...