Set-up Technology Advances

[Scouse]

As I understand it Bio Balls in a trickle tower are old hat and the more modern way of doing things is to fluidise rowaphos and carbon?

Am I talking rubbish here?


Can you please explain the advantages of going away from Bio Balls other than the statement that they are nitrate factories?


Also then if you can consider a tank that will produce lots of ammonia requiring converting (through large live feeding), is there a sufficent alternative to create mass ammonia conversion without the use of Bio Balls?

Cheers

[jez]

HI
Hate to say it you are talking rubbish well at worse mixing your medias :-)

Bioballs are usually used as a media in trickle filters a type of filtration that was stolen from sewage farms by aquarists looking for a more efficient methods of removing ammonia from water. The high oxygen level in the filter from water trickling over a bacteria covered media allows more effective processing of waste.

The drawback is that nitrate is the final product something in Marine terms we are trying to keep to a minimum.

As for rowaphos and carbon these are forms of chemical filters that absorb wastes from the water. These wastes are not removed by a biological filter so build up.

So that you are clear these chemical filters will not soak up ammonia or nitrite.

Hope that helps

regards Jez

[simon garratt]

Jez hit the nail basically. chemical filters and bio filters are completely differing entities. One locks cirtain organic wastes such as Po4 in the case of Rowaphos, or dies and ciirtain organics in the case of carbons. Bio filters (aka Bioballs, Live Rock, Sand beds, ) break down organic waste to its lowest common denominator depending on the environment they are placed in and are entirely dependant on ambiant 02 levels in relation to how far they go with this process. ie full cycling to free N2 in the case of LR and sand beds, but rather more limited to N03 in the case of bioballs which are inherantly held in higher 02 areas and have less pourosity dispite having a large surface area for size ratio.


In the case of High demand systems with heavy amm loadings, it may well be worth considering the use of a more efficient 'fluidised' sand filter backed up by good quality LR and a sand bed / Refugium.

Even then, if the tank still suffers high N03 readings, its basicaly a case of admitting the tank is overstocked for its filtration capacity/volume ratio. IME its allways better to stock to the filtration capacity and stop there, rather than trying to filter to an ever increasing bio load.

regards

Si.