Rational or irrational?

[jehudson]

I've got a 90gal with approx 80 lbs live rock, 2 inches live sand. I'm probably going to add about 30+ more lbs of dry rock. Just can't afford live rock right now (and it will be a long while before I can). Anyway … I’d like to slowly take all the bio-balls out of my sump because I think they’re contributing to nitrates that like to hover at +/- 15. Will I have enough good bacteria (in absence of the bio-balls) to prevent a huge ammonia, nitrite, nitrate ****e?

Eventually I want to replace them with LR rubble, but is this something I can do later, or does the switch to LR Rubble need to happen in conjunction with removal of the Bio-Balls.

[Richard]

I’d like to slowly take all the bio-balls out of my sump because I think they’re contributing to nitrates that like to hover at +/- 15.

Your fine to start doing that now. No worries.

[JimD]

If you remove the bio-balls slowly over the course of a few weeks you should be ok, it doesnt necessarily have to be in conjunction with the addition of the rubble.

[MissT]

also, if the rock is dried out, it wouldn't have anything in it to add to the ammonia and nitrite levels. If you were using uncured liverock, a good rule of thumb is adding no more than 10% of total pounds at one time (in your case, with your 80 pounds, you could add 8 pounds) to avoid a sp ike in your water chemistry. Again, if the rock is dried out, it wont have anything dying in it to pollute your water, so you'd be fine.

[jehudson]

cool ... I've been annoyed by the nitrates for a while now. Thanks for the advice

[devonian]

yes just go ahead and do it, as said above, with dry rock nothing will happen, and you can simply take the bio-balls out without any filtration worry