Category Prep Week

Getting ready for our new tank

Jul 1 2012

Bio-B-A-L-L-S

About to head back up to World Wide Coral to see if they have anything new.  They get new stuff in every other day so it’s always fun to go and see the new arrivals.  We are getting very close to tank day! I have Wednesday and Thursday off work 🙂  We will be going to purchase the tank in the morning (Thursday), bringing it home, getting every thing set up and then we will have to go back to pick up the live rock and salt water.  We are going to get the tank and live rock at Sea in the City since they will give me a 10% if we write a positive review of them on google which I have no problem with since I love that place.  Decided to get the salt water at World Wide Coral since I am going to have to make multiple trips and its right down the street.

Have learned lots of stuff since my last post.  I joined Reef2Reef.com which is a forum for coral reef keepers.  Learned about dipping (which is dipping corals/fish/inverts in a solution to make sure they are free of disease before adding them to the tank) and also learned a lot about Bioballs.

Here is the run down.  The Biocube has 3 compartments in the back.  The first compartment is a water holding area (I will also modify this area to keep my water heater in), the second compartment has the filter floss and 2 other biological filters, and the third compartment has the water pump and Bioballs.  The purpose of the Bioballs is to grow beneficial bacterial.  The water trickles down them and is exposed to air, during this process bacterial builds up on the balls.  When the water gets to the bottom its pump back out by the water pump.  Without bacterial build up, you cannot have a successful Reef Aquarium.  Some people take these balls out and replace them with some other type of media because they say that if water were to stop flowing over the balls the bacteria could die and as it decays raise the nitrate level in the tank which could kill everything off.  I am looking into replacing them with ceramic balls, these balls have a much larger surface area (cause they have a porous surface).  Also, the ceramic stays moist even if water stops tickling which is the main benefit as a posed to the Bioballs.

Anyway, more to come as we get closer! until next time, just keep swimming!