So I'm about to set up my 29 Biocube after finally breaking down and buying a 96W T5HO fixture that will arrive this week along with a K1. Everything else is standard, except there's no top of course. Unfortunately I don't think the tank will be ready to stock in time for the contest, but there's not a whole bunch of free time and the holidays are upon us and I don't want to 'hurry up' anything.
I've only been doing this for a few years, but I've learned my lessons and will wait until the tank tells me it's ready.
Here's my issue: With my Aquapod I trashed the bioballs and filled the chamber with rock rubble, but I have a friend (my boss as a matter of fact) who swears by them and used them with his Biocube and his 90G reef. I was wondering what nano owners here did. BTW - I have already extracted the bioballs and put them in a plastic Kroger bag.
Bio balls/rock rubble will do basically the same thing, and give you the same issues down the road, unless they are maintained properly. Both will help in the denitrification process. Both will also become nitrate factories in the long run unless you maintain them.
To maintain the bioballs/rock rubble, you will have to periodically remove the media and rinse, then replace them. This will help with not getting elevated nitrates in your tank. When you just leave them in your setup with no maintanance is where the bioballs got their bad rep. It also seems that the beleife that rubble rock is better has taken hold, but in my experiance, unless the rocks are large enough to break down nitrates, they are the same and need to be maintained the same.
As long as you have enough live rock in your tank, neither is needed. Your live rock will serve the same purpose, without the maintanance.
There are many ways to go about setting up a tank, and this one is tried and true, but unless I am running a FO with no live rock I prefer other uses of space. On a tank you are describing I would recomend good live rock in the tank and carbon and po4 reducer in the chambers. If you can, use some space to get a skimmer on line also.
But- just as your boss says- bioballs dont desearve their bad rep as long as they are maintained. I swear by them too, but just dont see the need in a reef tank or in a tank that has established live rock.
+1 I totally removed both bioballs and LR rubble~I persoanlly didn't want the extra chore of having to clean em~chamber #1 houses some Kent phos sponge~#2 has a bag of chemipure elite.
i use LR rubble in my 2 chambers of my nano.. but i make sure to keep the chambers clean. i stick a vacuum hose in both chambers everytime i do a water change, and i have cheato in chamber 1 and carbon in chamber 2. As far as nitrate factories..yes both can be but bio balls are harder to keep clean without actually taking them out of the system to clean.
I pulled the bioballs out, and filled the chamber with a fan folded filter pad (mostly to stop the noise of the water falling into the chamber) and the tank seems to be pretty happy. I've left the pad in there for now without pulling it to clean it, but will clean and/or replace it on a regular basis once the tank's cycled.
Bioballs??????
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