Removing BioBalls

[Pandomime]

I have a 29BC witch im planning on removing the bioballs from. Has anyone ever removed all the bio balls all at once? I know people have told me to do it little by little but just wondering if its really that bad if im adding live rock rubble thats already been cured? Also some cheatto will be thrown in there possibly but not sure yet a skimmer. Oh the tank is about 5-6 months old

[JC_UF_ITK]

I've been removing mine slowly and the tanks seems fine. If you have the patience, remove them slowly to avoid any problems.

[Pandomime]

Ok thanks for the advice ( i knew it was coming anyway lol )

[dreboogie]

I have had my 12 gal JBJ running for almost 3 years, I was wondering what are the benefits to removing the bioballs, and what are you putting in its place?

[seapug]

I know it goes against everything you hear, but my 90 gal. developed an awful hair algae problem when I started removing my bioballs after 1 year, so I put them back in. It may be a coincidence with everything else I've been doing in my battle against it, but since I put them back in the hair algae has been on the decline. Who knows....

On the other hand, my first 12 Gal. NC was set up without bioballs and it did great. I also set up my new 28 gal JBJ HQI without them.

The benefit that comes from not using them is a reduction in nitrate that is the end product of the aerobic bio filtration process that they are designed to provide (nitrification of ammonia). When the bioballs are removed, the nitrification process occurs on the top layers of sand and live rock, but the nitrate that is produced is balanced by the denitrification that occurs deep inside live rock and other anaerobic zones of the tank. There, the nitrate is converted into nitrogen gas and released into the water then atmosphere creating a complete "digestion" of the toxins.

With bioballs you can end up with more nitrate than can be processed by the denitrifying zones of the tank, so in theory, there is a constant excess of nitrate that can build to toxic levels unless it is removed by water changes or utilized as fertilizer by macroalgae growing in a refugium.

If you are using bio balls and are having nitrate or hair algae problems, remove them and see if it helps. If not, I'd say just leave them in.

[dreboogie]

Thanks for the expanation, now it makes sense

[AJO]

I removed all my bio ball at once. I only had one in the tank, I was not about to cut it up in to little pieces to remove slowly.
I did not have any problems.

[ddrueckh]

Here is a question for everyone. Isn't Amonia and Nitrite more toxic than Nitrate?

Seapug wrote that when using bioballs, you can end up with more nitrate than can be processed by the denitrifying zones of he tank. If there is an excess of nitrate, it can build to toxic levels. So he recommends removing bioballs from a tank.

I would think that "something" is going to build up in the tank. If ammonia is not converted to nitrite than ammonia will build up. If the nitrite does not get converted to nitrate than the nitrite builds up. Since Nitrate is the less toxic than ammonia or nitrite, wouldn't you want a build up of nitrate rather than a build up of the other 2 (an efficiant way to convert "bioballs")? I do not see how bioballs/trickle system hurts a system...it quickly converts ammonia to nitrite to nitrate and then the denitrifying zones of the tank can do their job of eliminating the nitrate.

In conclusion, I would think having enough denitrifying zones in the tank so that you could quickly reduce the nitrate is important, but why slow down the process of ammonia-nitrite-nitrate? I would think this would be harmfull to the system...the quicker this is done, the better. Having bioballs to do this combined with a good quantity of denitrifying zones would be ideal.

The only argument I see is that the live rock and other things does the same conversion (ammonia-nitrite-nitrate) as bioballs do so there is no need for them. If that is true then bioballs are not harmfull, they are just not needed.

Thanks for your opinions.

Dave.