bioballs vs. rock rubble

[jesse]

i have been hearing a lot that the bioballs on a biocube are bad to keep and i should take them out fast. so i decided to take a 3lb rock i had in my tank (live) and smashed the hell out of it into pieces about the size or bigger than the bio balls and put them in there to replace it. was this good or did i mess up bad?

 

[hoopsdaddy]

Good.
Bioballs cause more problems than they are worth in reef tanks. Liverock rubble is what most people use either in a canister or a sump.

 

[Bifferwine]

Hoops is right. Live rock rubble is a better substitute.

 

[jesse]

So if I take a rock and put it in freshwater for about 30 mins would it kill the things inside it

 

[Bifferwine]

Yes, that's basically doing a freshwater dip which would kill the stuff living in/on the rock.

 

[jesse]

so if i left it in for like a day or two. im sure that everything would die right? im asking this because i left a small rock in freshwater because i saw a lot of bristle worms and other weird crawly things in it. good or bad i want to be sure they are dead

 

[bigford]

i thought you wanted the live stuff? if your going kill off everything
why spend the money for live????

 

[sps]

Those bristle worms are going to be hard to get rid of with out a dip though. Unless you suck them out with a shop vac.

 

[Cheeser]

i thought bristle worms were good guys?

 

[sps]

Nope, maybe you were thinking brittle stars. Bristle worms are a destructive force and are hard to kill.

 

[Bifferwine]

Incorrect. Bristleworms are good guys and are great cleaners. They are one of the most important members of the clean up crew you can have. If you put live rock in freshwater, you have made it dead rock. There is no point in spending money on live rock if you are going to freshwater dip it. The point of live rock is to get LIVING things on it, and freshwater dips kill them, including the beneficial bacteria on it.

 

[sps]

IMO bristle worms are too destructive to consider. There are much better additions for a clean up crew. I have lost a clam and tube anemone to one. I tried to catch it, accidentally cut it in half then had 2 of them immediately, they multiplied and grew so huge, I had to dismantle and eradicate.

 

[Cheeser]

yeah man i would try to keep as much of that stuff as possible really....
live rock is good .....most hitchhikers are beneficial...
u might get a bad hitchhiker now and then but its just part of the hobby...
but yeah man bristleworms are good cleaners, they might not look too pretty but theyll do u some good, and ive never experienced anything bad with those guys

 

[Bifferwine]

Bristleworms, 99.9% of the time, will only eat something if it's dead or dying already. I would guess that there was something wrong with the livestock you say the bristleworms killed. It was on its way out. They normally do not take an interest in healthy corals.

 

[Cheeser]

one thing u could do is buy mostly dry rock and seed it with a couple pieces of good live rock.
this way ull get less hitchhikers if any.

 

[sps]

I don't want to steer him wrong, I just tread lightly with possible destructive creatures.

 

[ErinCahir]

+1 Biff. Bristleworms are good guys for sure.

 

[jesse]

Well it is just a tiny piece maybe smaller than a golf ball. Well I heard that bristle worms are really bad and I found soooo many of them and took them out. Guess I messed up bad here. I took out maybe like 6 or 7 already.

 

[snyderju]

Incorrect. Bristleworms are good guys and are great cleaners. They are one of the most important members of the clean up crew you can have. If you put live rock in freshwater, you have made it dead rock. There is no point in spending money on live rock if you are going to freshwater dip it. The point of live rock is to get LIVING things on it, and freshwater dips kill them, including the beneficial bacteria on it.

+1 They may be ugly but they have a place and a job in the tank. Extremely large numbers of them can get annoying but they are a good thing.