Bioballs

[arriel69]

Hello everyone. I have my tank set up for 3 months now and I still have .5 Nitrate and 10 Phosphate. Been doing WC on a weekly basis. I have 110gl with sump (dont know the GPH) with bioball, 3 power head (2-Korilla: 450GPH, MP40Wby ecotech), skimmer. With these, no luck on opening any of my hardy corals (star polyps, mushrooms, leathers). I'm dosing my tank with microbacter7 and reef biofuel, im on 2 days now. Just read an article that bioball should not be used on a reef tank for this contribute BO3 and PO, instead they recommend to use seachem matrix or volcanic rock pieces. Just want to confirm in the room on what is your recommendation base on your experience.

Million thanks,

 

[wontonflip]

Yep....bioballs are nitrate factories. Some people have luck with them, but they clean them out regularly. Personally, it's just unecessary extra work; the live rock and live sand serve as your bio filter. No need for bioballs. At this point, you'd have to take them out a cup at a time with every water change. If you take it all out now, you will have another cycle because you'll essentially be removing the bacteria that have colonized there.

 

[little_fish]

+1 wonton

But dont use lava rock, that will leach nasty stuff back into your tank which will fuel algae or kill your sensitive inverts.

 

[arriel69]

do you guys recommend to remove the bioball and not replace anything, not even SEACHEM MATRIX? I do have live racks and live suffice as my biofiler?

 

[arriel69]

Please advise also if there's any hope on my leather.

 

[Northstar24]

You want live or base rock, they are aragonite based (dead coral) not volcanic based. Volcanic rocks will leach all sorts of crap into your water that you do not need.

Also, with a new tank and soft corals, there really is no need for you to be dosing your tank with anything. Are you currently testing what you are dosing for? If you are not monitoring levels of what you're dosing, you have no business dosing in the first place

You can slowly remove the bio balls, and it will likely help your nitrate issues. I would not replace them with some other chemical additive, that is just more money you don't need to spend

If i read your post right, you said your phosphates are reading at 10. If that is correct, it would explain your corals being upset, and this is the primary cause for concern. What are you feeding the tank, and how often? Are there any fish in the tank? Are you using RO/DI water, or tap water?

Until you figure out the underlying nitrate / phosphate issue, I would stop dosing any and all chemicals, many of them contain phosphates

It looks like Reef BioFuel and MB7 are both bacterial additives, is there a reason you are dosing two products that do the same thing?

 

[arriel69]

Million thanks for your reply: I do monitor dosing the tank. I'm using MB7 and RBF because LFS recommended. They told to help speed up the nitrafying process. I have some fish (1-yellow tang, 1-damsel, 2-tomato clown, 2-tangs, 2 hermits, 3-peppershrimp) I had 3 turbo snails, died after few days. I'm suing RO/DI water. Feed my fish 2x day. Dry food in the morning and frozen at night. So you don't recommend using SEACHEM MATIX?

 

[Northstar24]

You have all those fish in a tank that has been up and running for only 3 days? (looking at your profile)

I guess its not suprising that you're seeing water quality issues. You shouldn't need to dose anything when a tank is set up and cycled properly

 

[kbuser92]

Well, one thing is that you have WAY too many fish WAYY to fast. You should let the tank sit empty for a month or so with just sand and rock, then I would add a CUC over 2-4 weeks. After that, you should wait another month and then start SLOWLY adding fish, and by slowly I mean one fish every 2-4 weeks (depending on size), the only exception being fish added in pairs such as clownfish. Fish should also be added in an order being most peaceful first, progressing to the most agressive ones last. And for the record, your damsel will probably become a terror at some point in time.

I also don't recommend using dry foods at all, except Nori or Seaweed sheets for your tangs because they contain lots of phosphates. Most here also use a combination of frozen mysis, lifeline, emerald entree, formula one/two, etc... Make sure to rinse them in RO/DI water before you use them and only feed what your fish can completely consume in 3-5 minutes, taking out what is uneaten.