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Hello again. I have a twenty gallon saltwater tank with about 16 lbs of rock and 20lbs of live sand. I've been hearing some stuff about not using the bio-wheel that comes with my filtration set-up. Is that true?

Ed

It is up to you. The thing is, it does that same thing as your LR and live sand do. But, using it will not stop or deplete anything either. I have some on a couple of my SW tanks. They do not harm, it is just that you do not need them. However, they can help with the biological bennificial bacteria growth in SW, just like in FW. IMO, use them.


HTH....

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There is always a bigger fish...

Thanks.
Yeah...It was kind freaking me out...All this talk about the bio wheel making the nitrate situation worse...I guess in a way that could be right - If the wheel helps with the production of the bacteria that converts amm. to nitrite etc....Hmm....More nitrates?!

There has been a lot of talk agenst them. I have on in my 125 with over 125 pounds of LR. I have no problems with it.



Dan

The original idea that brought this up, was the use of the wet/dry filter with the bio balls and such. Within the bio balls, detritus was getting trapped, and it was said that it was causing more biological breakdown. So then the idea just got moved on to the biowheels.

The thing is, the bio balls, did not cause the datritus. It may have accumulated there, but it came from the living critters in the tank. When they cleaned the bio balls free of this detritus, it would cause an ammonia spike. But, they did not have to clean them. As for the biowheels though, they do not accumulate any detritus that can be cleaned. So, IMO the biowheels do not have the same problem.

HTH....

_____________________________________________________________

There is always a bigger fish...

OK-Cool. I'll just leave it alone. That's easy enough. Thanks everybody.