Want to change to bio balls.

[nfored]

I have a sump with a 5 gallon mix of cut up straws and body scrubbers for the shower. I want to replace them with bioballs, what's the best way to do so? I just setup a used fluval 403 canister filter as a back up.

Here is what I was thinking about doing.

Buy my bio balls, place them in the sump underwater and let them sit for about 30 days. During this 30 days my canister filter should have a nice BB colony living in it.

Then I was going to remove all the straws and scrubbers, place them in a plastic bags with holes in them and float them in the sump. Then take the BioBalls and Put them in place of the old media, wait another 30 days and then trash the old media that I am floating in the bottom of the sump.

My thoughts on this are:
1. the first 30 days i will get nice big BB colony on the canister that should be enough to support the tank if all heck broke loose.
2. during that same 30 days the bioballs that are under water will grow a very small BB colony
3. After the first 30 days moving the bioballs with the small bb colony to the main filter chamber, in combination with the hopefully large bb colony in the canister; will keep the tank from crashing.
4. If i see a problem I can add some of the old media back, since the old media is floating in the bottom of the sump the bb on it should not die.

 

[FSM]

Thats sounds good, except don't switch all the bioballs at once. The point of the wet/dry chamber is to get more oxygen to the bacteria, so when they are completely submerged they probably won't do as well.

 

[Dr Joe]

I wouldn't remove all of anything at one time.

Put the bio-balls in like you were going to, the after 10 days start removing the old material at a rate of 20% per week.

Run the canister as a bio-filter as you would have.

Dr Joe

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