bio balls or coral chip safer

[gerald28]

hi i have an overflow compartment in my tank before going tru the canister ,i have fill that up with bio balls but seen in this forum that it build up no3 ,thought of changing it to coral chip is it better ?

or bio balls is still more advisable .

pse advice tks

[ryz]

same... just make sure that u use filter wool(that is not in the water if not it will be the same) to trap the waste before it can reach the bioballs and/or coral chips.

[sps_dude]

erm.. IMO.... if canisters...... use with rowas......i believe bro lightningstrike used it that way... check it up with him....

[jellyfish]

use none of above.... they are both nitrate factory. Let the nitrification proccess done in your DSB instead....

[ryz]

DSB more for nitrate reduction... need Liverocks or otehr biological filtration media such as bioballs or coralchips to culture bacteria that will convert organic waste into ammonia then to nitrite and finally to nitrate.

rowaphosto reduce phosphate.. not biological filtration media.

[Ekia]

DSB more for nitrate reduction... need Liverocks or otehr biological filtration media such as bioballs or coralchips to culture bacteria that will convert organic waste into ammonia then to nitrite and finally to nitrate.

rowaphosto reduce phosphate.. not biological filtration media.

yup agreed.... what about Bio-home?

[gerald28]

newbie here what rowas and how much they cost?

[ryz]

Rowaphos is phosphate removing media... qquite expensive... not sure abt the exact cost... maybe someone else can tell u...

Ekia, biohome is a rather efficient and effective brand of biological filtration media... very potent. u using?

[marcvelous]

The trick is NOT to get any waste or detritus trapped in any filter media that is submerged or in contact with water for prolonged periods.

Even the filter wool will become the overly touted "nitrate factory" if not removed and changed on regular basis. In fact, your tank can be the nitrate factory if waste or detritus is not removed by mechnical filtration with good water circulation.

If you have an overflow, you can add pre-filter media to trap the waste/detritus before allowing the media in your canister to handle the biological filtration.

You can read this thread for a little more insight

To answer your question directly, bio-balls are not really effective (comparatively) if placed in a canister due to their large volume but comparatively lesser surface area. What you want to do is to increase the surface area for denitrifying bacteria's colonisation within the limited confines of your canister. In this aspect, BioHome is a good product to consider but beware as it is very expensive. YOu can start with small quantity and change gradually.

Again, the discussion in the thread recommended above may help. You should read it.

One question for you. How big is your tank? If you have a 2ft, it is impractical to have a DSB (usually 4~6 inches and half of your tank would be covered by sand) or alot of LR due to space constraint in your tank. Thus you'd have to concentrate your bacteria/biological filtration within the media in your canister. You have to maximise the surface area available.

Bio-balls are good for trickle-filtration if you have the space for a good-sized sump and pre-filters are in place. They are NOT so called nitrate factories as often misunderstood by "echo-valleys" else LFS would not use them for their own filtration!

Hope this helps

[gerald28]

hi bros tks a lot for your time and advice ,my tank is 2 ft cube and ht of sand bed is 2 inch ,my bio ball is in my overflow before the canister suck in the water in the bottom . on top of the bio ball is the cotton that hekp to trap dirt so should be ok cause i thought coral chip and maintain the ph and prove to be better then bio balls

[Ekia]

Rowaphos is phosphate removing media... qquite expensive... not sure abt the exact cost... maybe someone else can tell u...

Ekia, biohome is a rather efficient and effective brand of biological filtration media... very potent. u using?

Using bio-balls now.. thinking of slowly getting them out and changing to Bio-homes.. but i got a huge biological filtration compartment... holding over 400 bio-balls.. if change to bio-home, might cost me quite a lot of money...

One question: Is bio-home the same as bio-balls? Which means they convert ammonia till nitrates and stop there? Just that they have more surface area for beneficial bacteria to reside? Or can they convert the nitrates to nitrogen as well? If they can do that.. i sure slowl change to bioballs to bio-home..

[terryansimon]

I don't know about Bio-home...but they sure can convert your wallet from thick to paper thin.

or help move the decimal point in your bank balance to the right. 1000.00 to 1.00 (=

[ryz]

biohome more potent than bio balls so u dun need as much... go read the instructions.. they give u a guideline on how much to use...

[linkiat]

got a suggestion. you can fill up with bioballs inside the overflow, and then put two layers of filter media with rowaphos in the middle (costly but if you dont overfeed your fish, should last quite long ~ 2 months for me). then weekly just need to wash the top layer of filter or to change it out.

main tank put more live rocks. should do the trick. this is what i'm doing and it works out fine so far. not much algae growth and also water is kept clean with frequent filter cleaning (just need to clean the top piece)

[Dispar_Anthias]

Both coral chips and bio balls are quite useless.... nitrate factory after sometime

[kareen]

Both coral chips and bio balls are quite useless.... nitrate factory after sometime

First u must know why it become a nitrate factory.... The reason : lot of decaying stuffs trap in between them -> months of waste -> never been 'cleaned'.....

Solution : maintain it !!!! Simply rinse the bio balls with your aged tank water to get the trap material out when you perform your water change.

[marcvelous]

I don't know about Bio-home...but they sure can convert your wallet from thick to paper thin.

or help move the decimal point in your bank balance to the right. 1000.00 to 1.00 (=

One way of getting over this is to use BioHome with common ceramic rings or coral chips and convert them gradually.

ALso, BioHome is more potent/effective so you probably won't need as much and have more room for other stuff.

IMHO, there's nothing wrong with having more denitrifying bacteria. Allows to over-stock your tank somewhat.

[marcvelous]

First u must know why it become a nitrate factory.... The reason : lot of decaying stuffs trap in between them -> months of waste -> never been 'cleaned'.....

Solution : maintain it !!!! Simply rinse the bio balls with your aged tank water to get the trap material out when you perform your water change.

I cannot agree more with this post.

I have tried many times in the past to NOT just blindly echo partial judgements, everything can be nitrate factory is not well maintained and/or well circulated.

So long as there's nothing trapped anywhere in your system (includes your main tank) which is left to rot and produce mini ANN cycles (which doesn't kill your fish but will give you a cumulative NO3 problem), you will not get nitrate problem.

Many LFS use bioballs for filtration and I am referring to the filtration of the NSW that they collected from the sea.

If bio-balls are so useless, then everyone who buys NSW (for water changes) from the LFS are also buying NO3-laden water.

It's unfair to say that bio-balls and coral chips are nitrate factories when the user does not practice regular maintenance just as it would be for anyone to call the SMRT trains killing machines simply because of the recent spate of accidents?

--------------------------------------

Unofficial Anti-Echo Vigilante

[Ekia]

First u must know why it become a nitrate factory.... The reason : lot of decaying stuffs trap in between them -> months of waste -> never been 'cleaned'.....

Solution : maintain it !!!! Simply rinse the bio balls with your aged tank water to get the trap material out when you perform your water change.

Hmm... I thought the main reason for for bio-balls and coral chips being called nitrate factories is because they do not have anaerobic region whereby de-nitrification bacteria can thrive? Without these anaerobic bacteria, the other bacteria can only convert ammonia to nitrite and then to nitrate and stop there. The denitrification process in the main tank by the LR and sandbed cannot match the speed of the amount of nitrates produced by the bioballs etc, hence the term nitrate factories. Correct me if I'm wrong.. this is what I have found out from readings.... and of course those detritus plays a part as well

[terryansimon]

I second Ekia. I thought bio-balls and coral chips are super porous, meaning to say that there is no safe haven for the anaerobic bacteria that converts NO3 to N2 via reduction.