bioball

[pandagold]

I've heard bioball will leach NO2 or NO3 back into the tank ??

I have bioball in my tank , and my NO3 is above 50 , while my PO3 and No2 is both zero .

Will Sulphur generator help in reducing my NO3 .

All my soft, LPS and SPS does not show sign of stress , yet my SPS's are growing ?

Should I remove them or let it be since my corals are fine with them .

[teebs]

I've heard bioball will leach NO2 or NO3 back into the tank ??

I have bioball in my tank , and my NO3 is above 50 , while my PO3 and No2 is both zero .

Will Sulphur generator help in reducing my NO3 .

All my soft, LPS and SPS does not show sign of stress , yet my SPS's are growing ?

Should I remove them or let it be since my corals are fine with them .

1) Bioballs will only leach NO3 back into the tank if detritus is trapped in them and when the detritus decomposes, then No2 and No3 may be leached into your tank.

2) Sulphur denitrator will help in reducing the NO3 but this will be a long process. Do not expect miracles and hope that the sulphur denitrator will being your NO3 levels down immediately. If you want a faster effect, do a 50% water change and then use AZ NO3/Prodibio Bio Clean to reduce the NO3 levels.

3) If your corals do not show signs of stress, then you may want to monitor them. High NO3 levels do not affect the corals immediately. For SPS, iit is recommended that the NO3 levels be kept within 5ppm.

[pandagold]

thanks for advice.

Will remove all the bio balls and gradual water change .

[Gouldian]

I've heard bioball will leach NO2 or NO3 back into the tank ??

I have bioball in my tank , and my NO3 is above 50 , while my PO3 and No2 is both zero .

Will Sulphur generator help in reducing my NO3 .

All my soft, LPS and SPS does not show sign of stress , yet my SPS's are growing ?

Should I remove them or let it be since my corals are fine with them .

Bioballs are mediums for nitrifying bacterias to host thus you are experiencing good NO2 reading. However, the by-products of nitrifications is NO3 that's why you are getting high NO3. It got nothing to do with your bioballs but rather the lacking in de-nitrication, that is you need to address your NO3 by having de-nitrification.

De-nitrification happens in anaerobic condition. There are existing some anaerobic activities going on in your tank however, it may not be sufficient as seen in your current readings. You can reduce your NO3 with the following:

• Deep Sand Bed
  
• Carbon Base De-Nitrator
  
• Sulphur Base De-Nitrator
  
• NP Pellets
  
• Algae Filtration (Absorption)
  
• Chemical Precipitation (AZNO3 etc)
  
• Live Rocks (Large Pieces with anaerobic zones)
  

Removing Bioballs will reduce NO3 but will also reduce the nitrification abilities of your tank thus you may experience a slow climb of NO2 after the removal. Our tank need nitrification and de-nitrification process in order to complete nitrogen cycle (Ammonia > Nitrite > Nitrate > Nitrogen).

Hope that helps.

[comycus]

thanks for advice.

Will remove all the bio balls and gradual water change .

if you remove all your bioballs at once and it is your main source of bio filtration, your tank will crash.

What are you going to replace your bioballs with? Your system still needs place for bacteria to colonize. If you are intending to use other media, I recommend you change them over the course of 4 weeks, 1/4 every week and to dose bacteria every week. (just to be kiasu)

Don't assume that your high nitrates are caused by bioballs. What's your tank's bioload? Do you have alot of fishes? What's your feeding regime?

Advice: Don't try to fix something that's working. But if you're trying to improve your system, find the root cause first, and treat it gradually.

[pandagold]

At this moment, I have both Bio Ball and coral chip in my slump to support my Bio load.

I'll likely gradually remove my bio balls through a period of 1 month .

[teebs]

At this moment, I have both Bio Ball and coral chip in my slump to support my Bio load.

I'll likely gradually remove my bio balls through a period of 1 month .

Coral chips are for bringing up the PH of the tank and also acts as a buffer for the PH. So coral chips do not support your bio load. What I would suggest is to replace the bio balls with live rocks.

[pandagold]

Does Live rocks means the live stones where we stack our corals ?

As for fish, I only have small damsel , cardinals, yellow tang

[comycus]

If you look at any of our tank threads, the stones/rocks that you see in the tanks are live rocks. Just trying to troubleshoot for you, hope you don't mind.

1. How much and how often do you feed? I am assuming you keep them in a 3ft tank, having less than 5 fishes in the tank should be low bio-load.

2. Has your tank consistently been having high NO3? Or it NO3 built up gradually over time?

3. Did you conduct massive water changes after your cycling period long long time ago?

4. Coral chips are also detritus trappers and can contribute to NO3 levels. You will be surprised how dirty your coral chips are.

5. Have your test kits expired or are you testing your NO3 correctly? SPS thriving and growing in NO3 >50ppm environment sounds too good to be true.

Anyway, if you really want to reduce NO3, Gouldian's advice on de-nitrification is excellent.

[Gouldian]

Hi Pandagold,

Liverocks are the same ones in you use in your main tank. However, since right now you are lacking in anaerobic bacteria housing, one of the solution is to have large piece of liverocks. The reason why you need large pieces (approx 5-6inches) is that smaller pieces will not have anaerobic zones.

If I were you, I will remove coral chips vs bioballs if I suspect that its is the detritus accumulations that causes of my high NO3. This is because bioballs have smooth inert surfaces that do not trap as much detritus as compared to coral chips. Also, corals chip does not really act as buffer in marines set-up, this is due to 2 basic reasons:

1) Organic films (Bacteria colonization) and detritus build-up on the surface of the coral chips preventing direct contact between coral chip surface and the water.

2) Coral chip will start buffering at pH 7 or lower (Marine Tank optimum pH - 8.1 - 8.4). Thus, by the time your pH reaches the coral chip melting point, your tank could already have crashed. Reefers who uses Calcium Reactors will know, calcium media will not melt if you do not introduce CO2 into the CR chamber to lower the pH to 7 or lower.

Coming back to bioballs and corals chips, sintered glass or even liverocks in sump to increase the anaerobic zones. All of the above will work well if you have a good pre-filter (mechanical filtration), this is why you find reefers placing polyester wool to trap particulates prior to the bio-filtration chamber of your sump. If you do not have or maintain a effective mechanical pre-filter, you will still not get effective bio-filtration regardless of which media (bioballs, corals chips, liverocks etc) you changed to.

Now that you mention the fishes you are keeping, can you give us more info? The number and sizes of the fishes and your feeding regime will help provide more clues to your high NO3. Also, do you have a skimmer and whether you are getting sufficient skimmate may be another reason.

Like some of the bros here have advised, try to be prudent and do not jump into any conclusion without exhaustive investigating your actual reason for the high NO3. Do drastic changes will do more harm than good.

HTH

[pandagold]

If you look at any of our tank threads, the stones/rocks that you see in the tanks are live rocks. Just trying to troubleshoot for you, hope you don't mind.

1. How much and how often do you feed? I am assuming you keep them in a 3ft tank, having less than 5 fishes in the tank should be low bio-load.

( only feed them twicw a day on dry food )

( corals, only 2 times a week )

2. Has your tank consistently been having high NO3? Or it NO3 built up gradually over time?

( base on my test kit, its been some time now. Not built up . Even with 20% water change, still same NO3 levels )

3. Did you conduct massive water changes after your cycling period long long time ago?.

( Change over a period small water change )

4. Coral chips are also detritus trappers and can contribute to NO3 levels. You will be surprised how dirty your coral chips are.

( yap, very dirty. Thought of also changing to those bio-tubes ( similar to coral material )

5. Have your test kits expired or are you testing your NO3 correctly? SPS thriving and growing in NO3 >50ppm environment sounds too good to be true.

( Have also been adviced by several reef to buy another set and brand to retest )

Anyway, if you really want to reduce NO3, Gouldian's advice on de-nitrification is excellent.

[comycus]

I would suggest you buy a new set of test kit to test again. Remember to check the expiry date!

If you do indeed have high NO3, I would suggest 10-20% weekly water changes, and clear your coral chips/bioballs gradually and add live rocks or biohome in the process. Remember to dose bacteria after every water change.

Like what Gouldian has mentioned, you should have proper mechanical filtration first to filter out detritus so they don't clog up your LR/biohome.

If you realise it's a test kit problem and u actually have good parameters, might still wanna consider the above. I personally don't think highly of bioballs or coral chips. But remember to be patient and hardworking and do all changes gradually. You don't want your tank to crash due to drastic changes.

[yooyoo99]

Why not diy an algae scrubber yourself? Just need a light source, plastic tray, a small pump, and use a filter net for the algae to grow on.

You can also concurrently run a FR containing np pellet (carbon source for bacteria).

The above 2 should be more than sufficient to remove (or keep to minimum) your byproducts for the tank.

After which, remove part by part of the bioballs from your sump.

When i had my 3 ft tank, i also faced the same high NO3 problem. It was only after numerous water change every week, and removal of the bioball then i started to get low traces of NO3.