Removed 2nd biowheel today

[Scoot]

I removed the first biowheel from my HOB yesterday. No spikes in params. I removed the filter media from it last week.

I was going to give it a few days, but I was checking the filter today, and the spraybar that shoots water over my second biowheel was completely plugged, except for one hole which was partially blocked. So at least for awhile its only been getting a trickle of water running over it.

I've removed it, since it was essentially doing nothing for the system.

I'll be watching params all day, but I'm confident everything will stay stable.

I'm going to leave the filter itself running for another few days, as I'm sure there is beneficial bacteria growing inside the housing, and I don't want to remove too much too fast.

Wheeee, I'm almost filterless!

I'm down to one sponge, in the overflow box. I clean it regularly (daily, if not more), and its great to catch any bigger items the get in there, like mysis, flakes, etc.

I've ordered a PO4 testkit, to see how that's going, cause I still have a good amount of cyano growing in my fuge.

 

[roka64]

Cool deal! Keep us posted!

 

[melosu58]

Your on your way

 

[Scoot]

Almost 5 hours passed, no change in water params.

No filter running at all - only the sump/fuge, and protein skimmer.

I don't think I've got enough water movement now though, without the HOB filter, which added quite a bit.

I've got a PH in one corner, where the overflow box is, and the return in the other corner. Judging by how the parrotfish poop just dropped and settled in a corner, I need to move more water around.

With the new rock I keep adding (up to 75 to 80 pounds plus about 10 pounds of rubble), its getting trickly to get good water flow everywhere.

Luckily, I've got 2 powerheads sitting around for just this purpose.

Here's a pic of the tank - I've got several of the medium rocks in my fuge right now, trying to get my mushrooms attached.

 

[roka64]

i would keep the filter running for added movement, at least that's what I'm doing. Congrats on the sucess!

 

[Scoot]

Going to throw on the 2 spare PH's for that. The filter captures every bit of crud floating in the water column and holds on to it, in the bottom of the enclosure. Its VERY hard to clean, cause its tall and deep, and vacuuming doesn't work very well.

I can't touch it without it spewing crud out, that's my biggest reason for eliminating it.

 

[melosu58]

Scoot , nice tank.

 

[Scoot]

Thanks. The rocks aren't arranged very well, every time I add new ones, I have to re-arrange them smaller ones, and I still have everything out of order from when I was looking for my arrow crab.

I also just scraped off all the coralline from the front glass. Whew. The water's a mess now from stirred up sand, but the glass looks soooo much better.

 

[reefbound]

Hey Scoot is your info up to date? Its says you have 75 lbs pounds of live rock in your 75 is that correct? Man if your going filter less with that I can do it with 125 lbs pounds in my 75 unless you have a secret your keeping.I think thats where my cyano problem is coming from. for weeks now I have been heavy skimming and changed to RO/DI it has let up a bit except for the area around the emperor 400 outlets.
Have you ever heard of the maxi-jet mod? I have one on my 75 and let me tell you it moves some serious water, I did a mj 900 and Im thinking of adding one more.


edit:typo

 

[Scoot]

No secrets. Maybe I'm just lucky. Or daring. Or stupid.

75 pounds, yes. Give or take. The stores use these stupid bathroom scales, that can't be accurage for small 3-5 pound weights. I'm guessing because of that I probably have more than that, I've seen them set a 3 pound rock on there, and the scale barely moves off 0. Most of my rocks are under 3 or 4 pounds, and I've got quite a few of them.

I have quite a bit of LS too - 2 to 3 inches.

I have a pretty big fish load too, 11 fishies altogether.

Been going almost 24 hours now with the HOB unplugged, 2 days without biowheels.

Nitrates have DROPPED! W000T! I've seen nitrates stablize at between 10 and 20 over the last month, but now they've actually taken a significant drop, to what looks like the 5-10ppm range (without a PWC).

I think my HOB collected so much crud in it (its shape lets things collect in the bottom), I think it was seriously contributing to nitrate production.

I'm going to continue testing ammonia and nitrite today, but things look great right now.

I don't have any maxi-jets, all my pH's are penguins.

 

[reefbound]

Well this one maxi-jet 900 powerhead will push 230 gallons before the mod and they claim 2000 gph after the mod, Now Im not sure if it does 2000 but it has to be quadrupled after...it makes some serious water flow.

Lucky or not Im keeping an eye on this topic, Ive been wanting to go without a filter for some time now but just didnt have the you know whats to do it.

 

[Squado]

I'm in the same boat. For quite a while I wanted to get rid of my hob filter, but just never had the guts to do it. I too am having some what of a nitrate problem and am thinking its comming from the filter. Ive got around 40-45 pounds in my 29 and have been skeptical, so I like to know if those results stay consistant. I was also worried about the surface getting enough movement as well.

 

[Scoot]

I did it over a pretty long period actually, although it seems like it was all done in the last few days.

I've been running on one filter cartridge for about a month (was time to replace them). Pulled the other one last week.

Then Wedneday I took out a biowheel. The spray bar going over the biowheels was really plugged, so it wasn't doing much anyway. Then I took out the other yesterday, and turned off the filter.

I'd also been running the filter on its lowest setting for about a week, to reduce its impact.

 

[Squado]

So what your basically saying is that you have your filter completly turned off or are you just running it without a pad. I got rid of my bio wheels and was thinking bout doing the filter as well, and just keep the water movement going.

 

[Scoot]

Its gone - disconnected - out of the tank.

I started by turning down the flow, then removing one filter cartridge, then another, then one biowheel, then the second. Over about 2 weeks.

I added another PH, so I've got 2 PH's and the return line creating water flow. Might need a 3rd PH, but the one I bought at Petco was missing a part (apparently it was used and returned).

 

[roka64]

Lucky or not Im keeping an eye on this topic, Ive been wanting to go without a filter for some time now but just didnt have the you know whats to do it.

I have done this as well. I did it VERY slowly. My canister had 4 sponges (fluvial 304). I had a feeling the sponges were producing nitrates. I noticed this, when I washed the sponges in FW. I noticed the algae didn't come back as quick. I then, had a HUGH cyano outbreak. I took out two sponges. Waited about 5 hours to see if there was a spike. No spike. I waited about a week (noticed the cyano quit spreading, but was still there). Then I removed the other two sponges, waited, tested and with in 4.5 days, the cyano was gone. I probably have about 50-60LBs (maybe a little more or less) in my 55G.