I recently read that bio balls should be removed from sumps that are used for reef tanks. I use a emperor 400 for extra filtration. Should I remove the bio wheels from the unit or do they serve a different purpose than the bio balls. Thanks for any help.

most people will say to remove the wheels and the cartridges. if you are concern about lack of filtration, consider putting liverock rubble into that filter.

the carbon cartridge?

yes. the carbon cartrige. in a reef tank you want to avoid mechanical filtration on a full time basis. however i do think i might be nice to use it sometimes to help polish the water, and cut down the yellowing of the water.

Get the bioballs out of there. They are a nitrate factory. However, you should do it slowly...maybe 1/4 of the balls every week or so.
Do you have a sandbed in the display tank? A deep sand bed will help you to keep nitrate levels low and keep your tank more stable. Same thing with live rock as well.

You can still carbon filter...it will keep your water clearer and help to remove any residual toxins.

thanks for the info

since we are talking bio wheel, not bio balls.. ;) you can remove it, since it cant be slowly removed..

as for the carbon, here is the brief story
carbon is chemical filter
its main purpose is not as a mechanical filter, but in its form, it will catch debris and act as a mechanical filter. if not replaces/cleaned regularly this will create big issues.
as a chemical filter many people have a concern that it will strip out important major and minor trace elements. this has been shown to be true to an extent, but many peopel feel that regular water changes counter act this, making it an acceptable side effect.
so most people that use carbon (not all) will use it on a semi regular basis. something like a couple days a month, or 1 day a week.. something like that.
hope that helps clear things up.. ;)

since we are talking bio wheel, not bio balls.. you can remove it, since it cant be slowly removed.. woops...I misread that one! Thanks Rob for catching that! :-)

I would keep the carbon.
I do use carbon on a regular bases, actually 24/7 for over 3 years, replaced on every water change 2 or 3 weeks a part, up to this point I haven't see any problems at all.

the carbon cartridges from the emperor 400 actually also serves as a mechanical cartridge. if you want to use carbon only, the filter comes with 2 empty slotted boxes for people who want to use ONLY chemical media

oh, if you are concerned over trace and major elements, there are always supplements you can add. i don't think there is anything benificial that can be stripped out by carbon that is not already being skimmed out by today's efficient protein skimmers. Dr. Dick Boyd's claim to fame is his synthetic carbon that enabled hobbyist to be far more successful at a time when equipment was much more primitive.

i was plagued with a nitrate problem a few years back, found out that my bio wheel filter and undergravel filter was to blame. nitrate factories..... i removed them and guess what.. nitrates slowly slowly went down.

Check out show #21 where Rob fussed at me even though I had no intentions of using the bio-wheel! he he :mrgreen:

it is one thing to intentionally buy inferor equipment in the first place, but very often a hobbyist is forced to get extra life out their equipment that they have purchased for another application. if we all had unlimited budgets, we would never have these discussions.

i use carbon that i run in an external canister filter.
i run it for 24hours a day period,couple days a month.
i dont go to the extreme of changing it every water change, im not saying this is wrong, im just of the option that high grade carbons absorbtion rate is more that 3 weeks even with constant use. but it makes sence to replace it often depending on where in the system it is factored in. if your using it to filter raw water coming into the sump, then logic dictates detritus build ups are more likely, and this warrents a change more often that if it was towards the last baffles.

i let the look of the water be the judge on when to use it or recharge the carbon.

ive tinkered with my own bio designs before, but never seen a store bought item, so as to what your bio wheel looks like youv'e got me stumped!
but if u were to place coral peices collected from rubble zones, they are generally pretty hardy bacteria that survives on them, they are constantly buried, unburied, moved around all over the place by storms & currents.
im just getting this mental picture in my head of this bio wheel set up u have uses splash trays, instead of submerged trays. if they are just splash trays to place your media on then there would be no difference in having coral rubble or bio balls,.not what u are trying to achieve. i would only use it if it were submerged.

the only thing i have seen splash trays with coral media was in a new protein skimmer design where the water was dropped from a large height over the coral media smashing the water into bubbles before it entered the skimmer itself.

let us know how u go, will see u on the other side:cool: