Arggggggggg

I finally got my water changed last night. now its time to get some clowns and cleanup crew this weekend. I actually bumped my sality up to 1.023 right where I need to be now for corals correct? I have another question. somone told me to take a handfull of my bio balls out of my wet dry every other day since I have live rock and I want a coral tank. he said everyother day take a handfull out ans when you get them all out convert it into a sump. I guess its a cloth like material I need to place in my drip plate by cutting a hole into it for it to sit down in it. is this true cause I took a handfull of my bio balls last nigt
 
if you werent so sure it was true why did you get impatient and do it anyways. waiting to do it will not ruin your plans for a reef tank. and as far as im concerned its all personal preference. people will tell you bio balls will be nitrate magnets. Well i have them in my sump on my 180. you can come test my nitrates any day. they are perfect.im not telling you to keep them. just saying that as long as you dont have high nitrate levels with them you CAN keep them if you would like
 
I only took about 5 balls out about a handfull. I could very easily place them back into my sump or just not take anymore out. the guy who told me was at my local salt aquarium store. he has an amazing store and dosent use them in his reefs tanks. like you stated it sounds like a personal thing. from what I got was bio bals take the place of live rock if you don't have any. I am running about 60 lbs of live rock in a 55 gallon so I should be just fine right?
 
only about 1lb/gal of water. its ok... but not great. if you bump your rock up to 2lb/gal you could take them out, but i wouldnt right now. main reason why i have them is for that very reason. my rock probably about at the same ratio you have right now. so i would leave them in unless you have serious nitrate issues (you shouldnt) untill you get more rock
 
I though a sump was without bio balls and a cloth insert in place of te bio balls in my filter. well I don't plan on getting anymore live rock. wanna leave the rest for fish and corals. would it be safe to just throw them back in when I get home today?
 
i would just do your research instead of talking to one person about how they do things and decide what will be right for you. If you took them out and ran carbon in your filtration you will be fine, though you could keep them and be fine too. it just depends on what you want to do. so if i were you i would just do some more research
 
I agree with what Redline AND your LFS guy has said (!!!).

Bioballs work well in a tank that doesn't have a lot of live rock. You have around 1 lb/gallon, which isn't a lot of live rock. If you aren't planning on adding any more rock, leave the bioballs in. But watch your nitrates, when you use bioballs, you tend to have nitrate problems eventually.
 
Heres the deal with the bio-balls.Like any thing else they have to be maintained.As long as you take the time to rinse them out every couple of weeks you wont have any trouble with em.
Its when people DONT maintain them that they become nitrate factories.
 
I somewhat disagree with the rest of my colleagues.In a fish only then bioballs are okay.In a reef the live rock will be your main biological filter.I believe that you have enough rocks so removing 1/3 or 1/4 a week will be fine.For me,cleaning the BB are to much of a hassle especially when they aren't really needed.
 
To late. Already took my second handful out before i went to work this morning. Came home checked my levels everything is fine. I would have to agree with reeffreak. I think 60lbs liverock and 60lbs live sand is just fine to handle my load. Considering I going to run carbon through my wet\dry and have a really good skimmer. Worse comes to worse I will just add some more cured live rock. I am pretty sure i should be fine and all the research i did backs me up. tank has no fish in it at the molment but i am gettin 2 clowns and a few clean up crews tomorrow. Would it hurt to buy 20lbs more of cured live rock and add it with my clean up crew and clowns tomorrow?
 
I would only add one rock at a time with livestock already in the DT.Yes,I agree with Biff,add rocks first and check if it starts a small cycle before adding livestock.
 
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