Bio Balls

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tonymofo

tonymofo

Piranha
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May 23, 2007
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Okay lets say you had a 100 gallon tank with a 100 gallon sump, and you filled the sump with about 75 gallons a bio balls, would you still need to do weekly water changes or could you just do monthly water changes???
 
Your bio balls grow bacteria. The bacteria break down ammonia into nitrite, and then nitrite into nitrates. Nitrates are not broken down further by (aerobic) bacteria, so they build up in the water. Without water changes, the nitrates will build up to toxic levels and may kill your fish.

Ways besides water changes to reduce nitrates are:
1) live plants (they still like water changes to replace trace elements)
2) anaerobic bacteria (something like a 15-20' long thin tube with a slow water flow, but there are dangers in this approach)
3) magic, and you don't have it.

P.S. The reason why some people are able to go long periods without water changes are because a small fish population will cause nitrates to rise slowly, and the fish can adapt to higher nitrate levels. It is still bad for them, stressful like living in constant bad air pollution is to us, so please, don't do it. Water changes are fun and good for you and the fish. Do them, live them, love them!
 
You could stretch the WC's a bit longer,but with the large bio-load you wouldn't want your nitrates killing your fish.My suggestion is if you have the money for these things and the knowledge of how a sump works,then hook up a drip system to automatically change your water.
 
Merbeast;1219899; said:
Your bio balls grow bacteria. The bacteria break down ammonia into nitrite, and then nitrite into nitrates. Nitrates are not broken down further by (aerobic) bacteria, so they build up in the water. Without water changes, the nitrates will build up to toxic levels and may kill your fish.

Ways besides water changes to reduce nitrates are:
1) live plants (they still like water changes to replace trace elements)
2) anaerobic bacteria (something like a 15-20' long thin tube with a slow water flow, but there are dangers in this approach)
3) magic, and you don't have it.

P.S. The reason why some people are able to go long periods without water changes are because a small fish population will cause nitrates to rise slowly, and the fish can adapt to higher nitrate levels. It is still bad for them, stressful like living in constant bad air pollution is to us, so please, don't do it. Water changes are fun and good for you and the fish. Do them, live them, love them!
Click to expand...

what are the dangers in "2)"?
how can i set this up in my 100 gallon wet/dry and mangroves sump?
 
It's called a 'denitrator', yourokit. You can buy them for $$$ or there are a few DIY plans out there in Interwebcyberspace, the tube has to be several times longer than Merbeast mentions I believe. They work by slowly flowing a portion of your tank water through the long tube coil until anaerobic bacteria colonies in the last 1/3 of the tube consume nitrates before the water is returned to the tank. The flow has to be drip-drip slow.

The dangers I have read, are not limited to, but include that they introduce toxic gases to your tank. I also believe they strip dissolved oxygen at the same time, hence why I won't use 'em.

If you would go through the trouble of setting one of these up, why not just DIY a constant flow water-change system?

Oh, and on-topic, I agree with Merbeast, increasing the surface area available for nitrifying bacteria could [if there was sufficient bioload to feed them] increase the size of the colony resulting in faster creation of Nitrates, necessitating MORE frequent water changes...
 
Sorry... Just read the original question again... "with a 100 gallon sump, and you filled the sump with about 75 gallons a bio balls, would you still need to do weekly water changes or could you just do monthly water changes???"

This part in particular... "about 75 gallons a bio balls" ...do you mean 75 gallons of water AND some bioballs... or 75 gallons of bioballs... 'cause 75 gallons of bioballs would cost a buttload...

Almost doubling the amount of available water [75 gallons in sump] would increase the time between when you absolutely HAD to change water... But why waste a good 100 gal tank using as a sump?
 
in theory, you would be able to do LESS water changes with a 100 gallon sump for a 100 gallon tank, because you would be spreading the bioload form your 100 gallon tank over 200 gallons of water (minus what your filter media takes up). But you'd still have to do water changes. I know there are people on this thread that have hooked up diy drip/water change systems, and to me, that seems like the easier way to go, but you're still going to have to get in there every once in awhile (and if this is the piranha tank, more often than you'd think) to get the waste off the bottom of your tank. Not what you want to hear, but fish-waterchanges and the more you do, the happier your fish will be, sorry. However, there is a guy on here, tychevelle, that has a water change system hooked up and his nitrates stay under 10ppm all the time, and those aren't quite as messy as your fish, but o's are still messy fish. I also think wolf3101 has one of these in place, that's what you should be looking into, as I have seen people that have tried 100 ways to get the nitrates lower in your tank, and even plants don't make that much on an impact. Don't know if this is allowed, but here is a link to another forum that proves there is no hope, imo, if anyone could do it, it would be kmuda, and he hasn't been able to make it work yet. http://www.oscarfish.com/discussion...filter-vt69759.html?highlight=denitrification
 
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