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View Full Version : Bio Balls ratio


kaiser
Tue, 7th Oct 2003, 08:43 PM
I am in the process of building myself a homebrew wet/dry filter w/refugium. Now I am wondering is there a ratio of bioballs to gallon of water. Right now I have 4 gallons of bioballs and a 6gal refugium to my 55gallon tank.
Richard
Tue, 7th Oct 2003, 08:49 PM
If your doing a reef system with liverock and such...I would not use any bioballs.
Tim Marvin
Tue, 7th Oct 2003, 08:59 PM
I agree, just run the refugium.
kaiser
Tue, 7th Oct 2003, 10:19 PM
I've got approx. 25lbs live rock , 20 lbs base rock and approx. 3"sand in the Tank. My Tank is a 55 gal, which is only 13" deep so there is not a lot of room to stack live rock and have swiming room for the fish. So I am going to mix things up a bit. Live Rock, bioballs and refugium. Call it a compromise.
Richard
Tue, 7th Oct 2003, 10:24 PM
That's not a bad plan. If you start having nitrate problems down the road you can always pull them out.
robertpower3
Tue, 7th Oct 2003, 11:02 PM
If you are going to compromise less live rock and not having a dsb then I would suggest a good skimmer along with your current set-up but no bio-balls.
kaiser
Tue, 7th Oct 2003, 11:15 PM
I do have a skimmer, it's a Red Sea Prizm. What do You mean with "no DSB". I've got 120lbs of sand in there.
Tim Marvin
Wed, 8th Oct 2003, 11:13 PM
From what I understand, if you pull out half of the bio-balls every couple months and wash them with tap water you can keep from getting the nitrate problem. I guess you would need mesh bags or panty hose to hold them in 1/2 and 1/2. That way you can wash half out.
Tim Marvin
Wed, 8th Oct 2003, 11:20 PM
I don't know. I don't use them, but I have heard if you clean them often you don't have a problem. They are too much work for me. I prefer refugiums.
kaiser
Wed, 8th Oct 2003, 11:30 PM
Ok now I am confused. I was under the impression for a refugium is to lower nitrate and phosphate. That is why I decided to build this what-shall-we-call-it filter. Basically water out of the tank per siphon, and into the bioball tower. From there into the refugium, where the nitrate gets reduced by macroalgae and then the water gets returned via mag 7 pump.
I will post some pics as soon as I can.
Tim Marvin
Thu, 9th Oct 2003, 12:19 AM
It grew extremely fast with the bio balls, but I'm not sure that is a good thing.