Why does everyone overdo the bio?

[oswego]

I did not want to upset him but I also think using Periods at the end of a sentence would stop some confusion when reading his posts.

 

[dwilder]

i dont feel a need for a pissing contest, the post are there to read. some were making it sound like water changes do nothing more than effect nitrates in an aquarium which is false. waste in an aquarium which is removed by water changes effect plenty including bb, ph jumps around which can effect bb ,waste produce ammonia if not taken care of can max out a system .the list goes on this thread has already jumped around alot, i didnt feel like i was going anywhere more than anyone else and as someone stated before newbies that read this could get a false idea about water changes.

Can you please add "puntuation" for clarity? ok i tried to fix some of the punctuation.

 

[OnceLoyal]

I for one have gotten a lot out of this thread. At first it seemed to go all over the place which was nice. Now it seems like the arguments are gettin gmore streamlined and not allowed to take in diffeent circumstances to prove points. I am finished with this thread for now.
IMO the only way to really get things rolling is to do the experinment as I stated before. I know it can be done. Like I said a fish bowl should be a good enough example......Eventually I will run a 20 gal with massive circulation with substarte, even an airstone!!! (I hate airstaones) and another with a bio filter with no substrate. I will do water checks every few days, mark some notes down and see what we come up with...
Thank you all for the interesting knowledge shared and the commical personal attacks on each other...I promise when I get things going I will post results. Might take me a little time though.

 

[Jgray152]

I for one have gotten a lot out of this thread. At first it seemed to go all over the place which was nice. Now it seems like the arguments are gettin gmore streamlined and not allowed to take in diffeent circumstances to prove points. I am finished with this thread for now.
IMO the only way to really get things rolling is to do the experinment as I stated before. I know it can be done. Like I said a fish bowl should be a good enough example......Eventually I will run a 20 gal with massive circulation with substarte, even an airstone!!! (I hate airstaones) and another with a bio filter with no substrate. I will do water checks every few days, mark some notes down and see what we come up with...
Thank you all for the interesting knowledge shared and the commical personal attacks on each other...I promise when I get things going I will post results. Might take me a little time though.

Doesn't matter how specific you test, everyone will think your a liar and will be against every word you say. Thats how 80% of this board is. Its a great thing to hate.

I've been in a bad mood all day today.

 

[brianhellno]

This thread is pretty informative and a little crazy but I'll just answer the original question. Why do people overdue the biofiltration? The answer is simple: Fear. To be more specific its the fear of the unknown. Everyone knows you need this bacteria that you can't see or measure and everyone knows without it everything will die. So out of fear everyone overdoes it to make sure they have enough. Even though they don't fully understand how fast or slow the bacteria forms or how quickly it takes care of ammonia and nitrite. Or they can't even begin to understand how much biomedia is appropriate because there really is no accurate way of measuring. Not to mention how many contradicting statements made back and forth with different facts and beliefs, misinformation and hell even with good information there is no real solid rules.

The only golden rule is the only way to make sure you have enough is to make sure you have too much, and out of fear of not having enough, a lot of people overdue biofiltration. Case closed.

 

[cvermeulen]

Can you please add "puntuation" for clarity? ok i tried to fix some of the punctuation.

HAH! good catch. Sorry I made a typo man, I'll watch for that in the future. BTW, I think you mean Affect, not Effect.

Anyways, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[cvermeulen]

This thread is pretty informative and a little crazy but I'll just answer the original question. Why do people overdue the biofiltration? The answer is simple: Fear. To be more specific its the fear of the unknown. Everyone knows you need this bacteria that you can't see or measure and everyone knows without it everything will die. So out of fear everyone overdoes it to make sure they have enough. Even though they don't fully understand how fast or slow the bacteria forms or how quickly it takes care of ammonia and nitrite. Or they can't even begin to understand how much biomedia is appropriate because there really is no accurate way of measuring. Not to mention how many contradicting statements made back and forth with different facts and beliefs, misinformation and hell even with good information there is no real solid rules.

The only golden rule is the only way to make sure you have enough is to make sure you have too much, and out of fear of not having enough, a lot of people overdue biofiltration. Case closed.

Well said. I guess I really meant to be rhetorical with the thread opener, trying to provoke a bit of interest. It's the same reason people build massive stands for 75gl tanks, or use massive framing for plywood tank builds - it's just easier to make it way too big than it is to spend a lot of time figuring out what is 'enough'. There's a certain human pleasure in overdoing things too. The whole point was really to try to show that while it generally will not hurt to overdo things in the interest of safety, it's also generally not necessary.

We have a culture of doing things big here, and to a certain extent that's healthy, but I think it's gotten to the point where ppl deem it necessary to have a huge bio filter, and necessary to use 4x4 lumber to build a 100gl stand, and so on. It's not... WRONG per se to do it that way, but it's also not the only way.

 

[packer43064]

Were all MONSTER fish keepers, over alf of us half fish that easily top 12 inches or more. Of course were going to go BIG and over do it.

 

[dwilder]

HAH! good catch. Sorry I made a typo man, I'll watch for that in the future. BTW, I think you mean Affect, not Effect.

Anyways, thanks for clearing that up.

sorry wasnt trying to be a jerk ,i know i am not the best speller and i know i dont always use the write word or grammer.i wasnt saying anything specifically about anyone else or the misspellings in this thread so i responded the way i did probably shouldn't have though

 

[tcarswell]

Were all MONSTER fish keepers, over alf of us half fish that easily top 12 inches or more. Of course were going to go BIG and over do it.

I would say more than half.

BTW I agree fear is a big factor in overdoing the bio. So is sales information. Especially when manufacturers recommend replacing some of the bio every 3 or so months
The closest ive come to replacing bio in any tanks has been boiling some substrate pro and making it "clean and ready again"
Looking back all it needed was a swish in de chlorinated water at most.