How to clean Bio Balls

[Palmer]

I am a newb still so take what I say with a grain of salt... I know in fish farming applications where there are lots of fish in a small area (even saltwater) the wet dry (bio balls/screens etc) principles are still considered a useful and practical form of biological filtration.

As a new reefer my take on it is that a small reef tank has significantly different requirements and often is "smaller" so less tolerance for waste buildup if your filter media gets gooey.

I still use bio balls for my fresh water cichlid setup and if I ever do a fowler I will probably still use them in addition to live rock. Even in my Cichlid tank I rinse the media on occasion to take out detridice that the floss doesnt catch.

FWIW

Palmer

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Palmer

I am a newb still so take what I say with a grain of salt... I know in fish farming applications where there are lots of fish in a small area (even saltwater) the wet dry (bio balls/screens etc) principles are still considered a useful and practical form of biological filtration.


Palmer

This is absolutely true for fish farming, or even a heavily stock fish tank. But a reef is less tolerant to the nitrate produced by these, where fish basically don't care (within reason).
They'll also do nothing (good) for any algae issues you might have.

[Palmer]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

This is absolutely true for fish farming, or even a heavily stock fish tank. But a reef is less tolerant to the nitrate produced by these, where fish basically don't care (within reason).
They'll also do nothing (good) for any algae issues you might have.

"As a new reefer my take on it is that a small reef tank has significantly different requirements and often is "smaller" so less tolerance for waste buildup if your filter media gets gooey."

Right thats why I also dont use them in my reef tank either. Theoretically speaking if you could keep the crap out of the media with mechanical filtration I do not think it would be an issue but for the hobbyist its just not practical.

Palmer

[Midway]

Thanks very much for all the advices guys!!! Well those bio-balls are going in my garage now...lol

Manny