Does Rinsing Bio-Pellets Remove Good Bacteria?

[NJBillyV]

Hey all,

I'm setting up my sump for a new 34 g reef tank and I plan on putting bio-pellets in the sump because I'm using Real Reef rocks that don't have much surface area. I'm concerned about waste buildup in/on the pellets, so I'd like to keep them in a large media bag in my sump so I can take the bag out and rinse them.

Will this defeat the purpose of having bio-pellets by rinsing away all the good bacteria?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Jon Warner]

Hey all,

I'm setting up my sump for a new 34 g reef tank and I plan on putting bio-pellets in the sump because I'm using Real Reef rocks that don't have much surface area. I'm concerned about waste buildup in/on the pellets, so I'd like to keep them in a large media bag in my sump so I can take the bag out and rinse them.

Will this defeat the purpose of having bio-pellets by rinsing away all the good bacteria?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

You need to look into this more carefully. If you're talking about bio-pellets like EcoBak, they are a biodegradable polymer used to reduce NO3 and PO4 in aquariums with nutrient control problems, like crowded fish tanks.

If you want to add biological media to increase surface area for bacteria... Look at any of the ceramic or glass products like Siporax, MarinePure or Bright well Xport

They're not the same product and I suspect that you're looking for the latter...

 

[NJBillyV]

Correct, I need to increase the surface area for bacteria, so Biological media is what I need, I should have been more specific.

 

[Jon Warner]

Correct, I need to increase the surface area for bacteria, so Biological media is what I need, I should have been more specific.

Excellent. Check out the brands I listed, they make blocks, spheres, gems, lots of shapes. Since you want to put it in a bag, I'd go with something durable like Siporax.

Happy Reefing!

 

[NJBillyV]

Thanks, I'm on it!

But back to my question, does taking them out and rinsing them thoroughly destroy the nitrifying bacteria or is that no problem?

 

[ahiggins]

I use the gems
I have them in a small caddy I use so each week I take them and the filter pads out-pads get tossed and these guys get exposed to air for 5 or so minutes. I wouldn’t “rinse” per se but if your worrying about build up, you can do a swish in the saltwater you just took out of the tank for water change.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Correct, I need to increase the surface area for bacteria, so Biological media is what I need, I should have been more specific.

What makes you think you need more nitrifying bacteria? Few operating reef tanks seem to need nitrifying media.

 

[brandon429]

Rinsing can't make substrate sterile unless its rinsed in bathroom cleaner/similar actual bac killers. we use tap water in all our rinses of sandbeds, filter pads, because its harmless and still leaves bac on the items/tap water alone isn't a sterilizer whatsoever, ive plated out generalized aerobes (same group as our nitrifiers) from tap water onto 3m agar+ 90 degrees F incubator hundreds of times to keep lab water quality reports. Tap is filthy, it delivers bac from pipe slough and some from the treatment plants too, it is not a sterilizer. it suppresses bac growth but our dwell time in rinse is too low to matter.

most old schoolers have been tap rinsing filter media to backflush it for decades and decades/ bacterial sensitivity is something forums started to make up in the early 2000s

 

[NJBillyV]

What makes you think you need more nitrifying bacteria? Few operating reef tanks seem to need nitrifying media.

That's an excellent point. I do plan on putting a few fish (5 maybe tops) in with my coral so I will need some. The reason I'm concerned is that the Reel Reef rock I'm using is not porous at all, in fact the surface is smooth as glass with no openings for bacteria to grow. So I'm relying on my 1-1/2" sand bed to do the heavy lifting.

Sounds like the consensus is to just rinse the biological media from the sump in the tank water during a water change.

Or do you guys think I'll be fine with just the sand?

 

[brandon429]

that arrangement wont need anything past live rock to run the biological filter, whether you add max or min number of fish. we do not ever run low on surface area in reefing, but i have seen one in 20 yrs, recently.

fella had corals that looked like 3 ft antlers on live rock nubs, his tank was literally all corals which still are convoluted highly active filtration surface area, but he truly was that low on live rock we were careful.

no arrangement shy of that in reefing has trouble controlling free ammonia; therefore all of us are grossly, grossly overdone on surface area even if you add none.

live rock=all thats needed in any reef

sand bacteria, not required, doesnt process more fish than rocks alone

extra media in sump, not required, that + sand in the system doesnt handle more fish loading than rocks alone. rocks are enough, always, except for that one fella. the sand rinse thread is us removing sandbeds for 35 pages instantly, presenting the whole fish bioload now to rocks only, no ramp up.


we dont ask what kind of rocks someone has, we has if they have any. one chief reason its ok to rinse biomedia in reefing is that the biomedia isn't required, you can remove it and still have the same nh3 conversions as you had with it. seneye and mindstream devices took some measures for us in the sr thread, we were exacting as possible/todays best gear for hobby for the reads. the act of bringing in orders of extra surface area (detritus catchpoints) is solely a freshwater keeping habit in my opinion. a tiny section of a reef tank Ill firmly bet is much more surface area than flat leaves, some river stones etc its common to make use of the extra surface area in fw, we dont run low.

using media designed to affect nirtrate or phosphates isnt the same thing, people use those for various tuning but we dont run low on ability to convert dangerous ammonia