Janice
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I have Coraline synthetic bio balls, as well as a Coraline filter in my son's 32G LED Coraline Biocube. Should I be rinsing and or cleaning the bio balls regularly, or at all? Thank you,Janice
Should You Ever Clean Your Bio Balls?
- Thread starter Janice
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- bio balls clean?
dale
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- Jan 24, 2012
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- Sarnia, Ontario
i would just swish them around in saltwater to get all the big chunks off..
Janice
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Thank you. No big chunks yet. They look pretty clean. I was just not sure what the maintenance for them should be on an ongoing basis.
It will be a judgement call on your part, based on your feeding habits and equipment.
If you run floss or a sock in front of the balls all the time, then you could maybe go a month or more.
If you don't run floss or a sock 24/7, you should wash them every week or two, whenever you do your water change.
In time you may find that they only cause work, because you say hey the tank looks best when they are cleanest, then why not remove them all together?
They really aren't that much different then filter floss in the sense they will also mechanically filter detritus almost immediately, if the detritus is not removed in a reasonable time then it will obviously contribute to nuisance algae etc.
In an ideal world, you would rinse them every day or two, but who wants to do that.
If you run floss or a sock in front of the balls all the time, then you could maybe go a month or more.
If you don't run floss or a sock 24/7, you should wash them every week or two, whenever you do your water change.
In time you may find that they only cause work, because you say hey the tank looks best when they are cleanest, then why not remove them all together?
They really aren't that much different then filter floss in the sense they will also mechanically filter detritus almost immediately, if the detritus is not removed in a reasonable time then it will obviously contribute to nuisance algae etc.
In an ideal world, you would rinse them every day or two, but who wants to do that.
Janice
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OK, so that is a very different opinion than Dale's. Now I am confused.
Also, I just learned about floss by doing some reading today, and I was thinking of trying it.
Also, I just learned about floss by doing some reading today, and I was thinking of trying it.
I think I just elaborated on what Dale said, sorry for the confusion.
As far as floss and filter socks, same thing after 24-48 hours they can be somewhat detrimental as they trap food and whatever that may otherwise have been consumed by animals or skimmed out.
I usually just use a bit of floss (or filter sock) after a water change to clear up the water a bit, only if its needed. I take it out after a few days, but I'll admit I have left it as long as 5 or 6 days. After that it is not so much a mechanical filter as it is a dinner plate for algae lol.
Anyhow if you have liverock, that and the surfaces on the sand and equipment is enough for the bacteria to grow on.
It's not that the bio-balls are bad per-se, just that they may (will) trap stuff that doesn't make it to the skimmer etc. (Although having a few on hand or a sponge is good if you want to seed a QT tank etc.)
Even though they are biological, you kinda have to maintain them like a mechanical filter.
As far as floss and filter socks, same thing after 24-48 hours they can be somewhat detrimental as they trap food and whatever that may otherwise have been consumed by animals or skimmed out.
I usually just use a bit of floss (or filter sock) after a water change to clear up the water a bit, only if its needed. I take it out after a few days, but I'll admit I have left it as long as 5 or 6 days. After that it is not so much a mechanical filter as it is a dinner plate for algae lol.
Anyhow if you have liverock, that and the surfaces on the sand and equipment is enough for the bacteria to grow on.
It's not that the bio-balls are bad per-se, just that they may (will) trap stuff that doesn't make it to the skimmer etc. (Although having a few on hand or a sponge is good if you want to seed a QT tank etc.)
Even though they are biological, you kinda have to maintain them like a mechanical filter.
Janice
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- Oct 15, 2016
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- Mississauga
OK, thanks very much.
yveterinarian
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- Jun 7, 2012
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- Innerkip, Ontario
I clean my bioballs approximately every month. I have filter floss in the sump as well which helps catch detritus. To clean the bioballs I rinse them in some of the saltwater I am removing from the tank when I do the water change. Since I am removing several buckets of saltwater at a time, the bioballs get rinsed with each bucket that I remove. Even though they may look clean, it is amazing how much detritus accumulates in and around them. They are a fabulous way of providing a good surface area for the beneficial bacteria to grow on. I have them in my seahorse system with no rock whatsoever and have kept my seahorses very well. I chose them initially for my seahorse fry system because they are much easier to clean and sterilize than rock if my tank ever crashed or developed an unknown bacteria pathogen which killed off my fry. Luckily, I never had to sterilize my tank and start over.
Yveterinarian points out a great application for them, their strong point is being a physically large bio-filter that can be removed or isolated from the display, a display that is for the most part devoid of permanent growing surfaces. (Lack of rocks,substrate leaving only surfaces that are periodically cleaned)
dale
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- Sarnia, Ontario
sorry for the short answer.. i agree with everything above.. i would add that if cleaned improperly , like with tapwater or detergents.. it will kill all the bacteria that has built up on the media and could cause a new cycle or a quick ammonia spike...
Im by no means a biocube expert however when i was doing my months of research on my bc29 ALOT of people removed the bioballs because they become a detritus trap (place for waste to gather and become a problem)
That being said most people that used them just washed them gently in their "expelled water" during a water change. I always wash all my filter media and anything i want to wash in the water i take out during water changes, not sure if this is a huge deal or not.
That being said most people that used them just washed them gently in their "expelled water" during a water change. I always wash all my filter media and anything i want to wash in the water i take out during water changes, not sure if this is a huge deal or not.
This is a point of concern for me. in the old days 20 yrs or so ago. People that had SW tanks used Bio balls they were all the rage. But so were canister filters. But then after several years the school of thought was to never ever use any kind of filtering media because it would cause more issues than benefits. The reasoning was detritus trap issues, raising phosphates.
Then everyone was going simple and using skimmers and water changes as the main filtration and biological filtration was the function of the live rock.
The thing that concerns me is that live rock is a detritus trap, right? It would be no different than putting a pile of bio media in the tank to replace the live rock, right? would it not be he same as rinsing your live rock every month?
so depending on how you rinse the bio media that you have then you could be causing more harm than good by killing a large quantity of beneficial bacteria ever time you rinse the media or causing higher phosphates if you don't clean the media frequently enough.
Then everyone was going simple and using skimmers and water changes as the main filtration and biological filtration was the function of the live rock.
The thing that concerns me is that live rock is a detritus trap, right? It would be no different than putting a pile of bio media in the tank to replace the live rock, right? would it not be he same as rinsing your live rock every month?
so depending on how you rinse the bio media that you have then you could be causing more harm than good by killing a large quantity of beneficial bacteria ever time you rinse the media or causing higher phosphates if you don't clean the media frequently enough.