LR and filters
 

Has anyone ever put live rock in their Fluval filters (or any other canister filter) instead of the ceramic pieces that it comes with? Would this increase the bio filtration? The ceramic peices are suppose to support lots of bacteria. Would this be more or less than LR. Soooo many questions in this hobbie. :confused:

Marty

No Light, no life, no filtration.

JMHO


Wendell

Never thought about the light :redface: Thanks Wendell

the bacteria doesent need light so you will still get nitrate reduction properties from it althought it might be to small of a amount to rely on.

Steve

i've got lr rubble in my covered aquaclear150 for 2 months now. have no clue whether it's working though. found a hitchhiker crab living in there. well living until i accidentally emptied it into warm freshwater and tried to pick it up and it fell to pieces because of my clumsy fingers.

Dont the nitrosomonas bacteria need ammonia to produce the nitrite.

After the initial die off, does the excess ammonia from your system end up in the filter ??

A little confused, please help.


Wendell

Are you saying that you have 0 amonia in a tank with fish and such in it? that would be statisticaly impossable. you will always have some amonia from fish waist ect. the backteria will stabalize themselves at a population which can effectivly use the amonia up as it is introduced to the system. then the "other" bacteria that breaks down nitrates will take care of them.. these bacteria need no light and the de-nitrifaction actualy takes place in the dark O2 depleated pours of the rock ect where there is no light.

even if the fist stage needs some sort of light they will still be in the tank water whare they do get light and will release nitrates into the water colume. the filter willsuck this water in and expose the bacteria that are living in the dark O2 depleted areas of the LR to it.

Steve

The breakdown of NH3/NH4 by (aerobic) bacteria happens independantly of light. This is also true of the next step from NO2 to NO3. Anaerobic bacteria then further metabolize the NO3 into N2, free nitrogen gas. Again, light is not a factor.
The original question of adding LR rubble to a canister is a good question. The difference will only depend on the surface area of the substrate, whether it be LR or ceramic rings. I don't know which is greater. They will both filter in the same manner as the other.

I can't imagine any amount of live rock to have the surface area for bacteria that you can get from some dedicated media. Most of the ceramic media available is small sized and very porous. I guess there could be an argument for using small pieces of LR rubble, but due to its inconsistency I'd imagine that this rubble could restrict flow and catch too much detritus.

Don't most people just ditch the biological filtration process in their filters and just let the LR in their tanks do all the work? I thought that's where the term "nitrate factory" came from.

I am not familiar with anyone that runs a cannister on a reef, but maybe this is FO tank? But, yes, using these tends to promote nitirates.