bio balls

[dmr2000]

I have a 60 gallon tank running wet dry filter. The tank has been up and runnig for a year with 130 pounds of live rock. I just removed the bio balls am I asking for trouble ????

 

[KathyC]

If you took them all out at one time...yes.
Usually suggested to remove a few at a time to let the biological filter in the rest of the tank catch up.

You're going to want to be testing your water very frequently!

 

[D1J8Z]

I dont think so but hes got a good amount of rock and if hes got a DSB he should be fine

 

[masterswimmer]

Depends how many bioballs you're talking about. If you have a very large amount, what you just did was remove a huge amount of biofiltration. Normally the recommendation is to remove 25% this week, allow the biological colonies to naturally 'catch up' on your LR. Remove 25% next week. And so on for the next few weeks until they're all removed in about a month.

If you didn't have a huge amount of bioballs in there in the first place, I wouldn't worry about it. Removing them is a good thing in the long run. The process in which you do it is the critical manuever.

swimmer

 

[jck16]

It's good that you've removed them, but doing it all at once was a bit risky. I think the more than 2lbs/gallon of live rock though will take up the slack. Just in case, keep monitoring your water parameters, like ammonia, and do appropriate water changes.

 

[dmr2000]

Thanks guys I put them back for now. I think it was 3 gallon of bio balls I'll wait and swap out with lr rubble when the funds are there :givebeer:

 

[meschaefer]

Thanks guys I put them back for now. I think it was 3 gallon of bio balls I'll wait and swap out with lr rubble when the funds are there :givebeer:

If you took them out for an appreciable length of time (where they had time to dry out) putting them back really didn't do much as the bacteria will have died off.

You want to take them out and the sooner the better, you just want to do it slowly. No need to wait on live rock rubble.

If you put the live rock into the bioball area of a wet dry, the rubble is really not any better than bio balls.

(as an aside, your supposed to offer us beer for the help not demand it from us. :tongue1

 

[dmr2000]

they were out about 1/2 hour I'll leave it as is for now:tongue1: