Removed bioballs

[tony_caliente]

My tank is 7 months old and all inhabitants (with spines and without) look great and are doing well. Over the last 10 days, I removed my bioballs in two steps. I used to have very low nitate levels. I just tested my parameters ( I was warned about a nitrate spike) and my tested water didn't even turn anything close to pink (Seachem) for nitites or nitrates. I doubt if the removal of the balls had anythind to do with. Is it possible that I may have an ammonia level - in other words, is the tank is recycling?

I did test twice. I guess I shoudl also use the referece sample to see if teh kit is still effective.

I gave away my ammonia kit. I guess I will visit my local LFS and have it tested.

Thanks!

 

[ricksconnected]

tony

get ya a bottle of prime while your there.
you should always have some on hand anyways.

 

[tony_caliente]

Will do. Thanks!

 

[jennm]

Since you did it gradually there's no reason to "expect" ammonia.

If you did it right - and it sounds like you did, the transition should be seamless.

Jenn

 

[dakota9]

Personally, I think you're fine.

What did you replace the bio-balls with?

A nitrite spike could be possible (in a perfect storm of "wrong conditions"), but not probable. Is your tank Bare-Bottom?

In a well set-up system, there's plenty of bio-filtration going on in the display to keep everything in check.

Bio-Balls give a surface for bacteria to grow on, no different than the live rock and substrate in your system. The sump (where bio-balls are generally located) gets more flow and oxygen, which will lead to higher concentrations of bacteria, but typically we have a much smaller volume of bio-balls than we have live rock, which means your main bio-filtration (via bacteria) is still being carried out in the display.

The Perfect Storm......

Removing Bio-Balls would be a problem if you had a bare-bottom system, with limited live rock and flow in the display, and used a large amount of Bio-Balls as a main source of filtration. Removing all the balls at once would likely cause a crash, while removing them in the manor Tony did would cause a significant spike.

No one would set up a system like that described above for obvious reasons, but a properly functioning system can handle small changes like Tony made without any nasty spike.

I change out all my sump media every two weeks, all at once in fact. Currently I'm running 1 Tunze 6045, with close to the recommended amount of live rock (30lbs/ 30gal tank, rock stacked in the center which gets lots of flow through the rock) and a DSB. My stock list is two fish, inverts and corals. If my tank were bare bottom with half that much live rock, I could very easily crash my tank with the first complete media change in my sump.

 

[tony_caliente]

Thank you. My tank is not bare bottom, but only has a 1/4 in layer of crushed coral which I have strated to remove to replace it with sand. I did not replace the bioballs with anything. I have about 20lbs of LR in a 55G. And anther 10 or so inverts with softies and SPS sittting on 15 additional lbs of the rock that they are attache to.

I am buying some dead rock on Monday from another member.

I have 2 small marroon clowns (about 1.5 inches in length each)
1 fire fish
1 6 line - standard size
1 cleaner shrimp
A a comibation of emerald crabs, small red crabs, and turbo snails comprosing my clean-up crew - about 10 althogether.

 

[tony_caliente]

Well my test kit works fine. Going to get my Am tested. If there's no Am, I must have 0 Na (I just tested it again). I wouldn't think removing the bioballs could "remove" 3 mg/l of Na.

 

[hackman72]

Don't be shocked. You might actually just have a healthy tank!!! Great job!

 

[tony_caliente]

Thank you. Actually I had water tested and no Am. Hey, it's nice to do something right for a change thanks to the sage advice from the members and sponsors.