Removing HOB media

[fireman26m]

I've got a Emperor 400 HOB with the bio-wheels. I now have 45lbs of LR and 40lbs of Tufa Base that has coralline really starting to grow on it. I have a CPR Bak Pak 2R skimmer. Here's the question: Is it now ok to start removing the wheels and media from the filter? Reason I'm asking is my nitrates started to rise from 2ppm to 17ppm. When I changed the filter media they dropped back to 3ppm. I think they are holding detrius and just breaking down causing my nitrate rise. Should I remove them slowly (ie. one media/wheel a week) to give the bacteria a chance to compensate or just take it all out at once?

Thanks y'all!

 

[luntiz]

Depends on your bioload. How many fish do you have in there and how big are they? I took my HOB filter off after I figured It was just too loud. Ammonia/Nitrite never spiked. After about a week, I put a Internal Filter in, Fluval 4+, after a few days, figured it was wayyyy too large (there goes 50 bucks). I took that out too. Both filters I had have two sponge and some carbon in it and I never went through a spike, if I did then it must have been a short one because I test every other day (doing hypo and want to make sure everything is goody goody). I think if you have enough LR and don't have too much of a bioload then you should be able to take off the whole unit.

 

[fireman26m]

2 small Firefish Gobies, 2 Sebae Clowns, 1 Yel. Tail Damsel and 1 Small Yel. Tang. That's all the fish and don't plan to get anymore even though I still want a Yellow Watchman Goby but I'm pretty loaded up now.

I'm gonna leave the HOB on the tank and just use it for water flow and to run carbon.

 

[luntiz]

85 lbs of LR should be suffice, tank size?

 

[fireman26m]

55gal. reef

 

[luntiz]

Yea, just take the whole unit off.

I take it w/ the update that you're not going to remove the unit? The media usually collects detritus which leads to the jump in nitrates. The bag holding the carbon also does the same thing. Change the carbon out once a month or so, they usually get extremely dirty after a couple of days.

 

[fireman26m]

I was just going to run carbon about once a month or when needed.