Should I Keep My Filter Media?

[Reefer37]

So tank is going on 10 months now, it is a JBJ45 which I started with 40lbs of dry rock. I changed out my chemipure in my media basket the other day and noticed a lot of build up of junk in my filter media (they're those simple plastic rings).
Is there really any point for having those in there? I feel like they trap detritus more than help my tank.
I imagine my rock ought to have enough beneficial bacteria where those things aren't of any use, but figured I'd ask before I pull them and cause a mini cycle. I'm already dealing with cyano I'm tired of.

 

[brandon429]

you and I have similar views. this below hits all those key terms above, in agreement:

Bio balls...a thing of the past?

So my 90 gallon tank I bought used came with a. Sump that was running bio balls. Seeing that I was just starting up the tank I used them and then later added maxspect bio blocks and bio spheres. What I’m wondering is can you have too much bio media? And does anyone even use bio balls anymore...

www.reef2reef.com

of those five pages my portion agrees with yours, we are simply trained to overdo surface area, that doesnt mean its helpful to be catching waste vs jetting it out of the tank in whole form/no internal degredation of waste

in my opinion its a combination of two factors that make us stack on massive extra surface area- 1 fear of bacteria being too weak, the more the better rules the training in reefing and 2. holdover from freshwater where we simply always arrange surface area in contact with water, its part of the training.

as soon as people began removing their sandbeds, the truth in how surface area works became readily apparent.

not only can you remove the extra filtration surface area, but you could do that plus your entire sandbed all at once and just the rocks alone will carry the full bioloading. we grossly overdo it in reefing, so removing 80% looks like a magic trick but 10% of what we keep would run the same bioload. one of the best sand removal jobs we did was all the sandbed out at once, plus half the rocks installed in a new tank lol. we literally removed 75% of surface area and still carried all the fish. tracked w seneye.

 

[ReefLab]

your tank probably doesn't need it. only benefit in my opinion is to have some media that you can use to seed an emergency tank if need be.
I personally keep Seachem matrix in a bag in my sump