Bio balls

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shannon m

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Dec 17, 2004
Messages
22
Location
ohio
our lfs told us to get these bio balls. So we have 5 in our 29gal tank. They stay over where the water comes out of the filter. Does anyone else have these things? I have lots of algae and trying to eliminate possible problems to this. I have only saw and heard of these at pet land.
 
The bio balls I have seen are designed to be put in filters to provide a media for bacteria to grow. They are plastic and designed to aid in biological filtration. I do have moss balls that are green balls of algae that can be used to suppress nitrates and prevent algae blooms. Here is a link to a picture of one of my dwarf loaches on top of a moss ball.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=5870&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

I have two or three of these in several of my tanks. Are these what you are talking about?
 
they aren't the moss. They are black round plastic balls that are to do what u said but these are suppose to float freely around the top of your tank.
 
The plastic bio balls should aid in filtering your tank although I have never heard of just letting them float free. I'm not sure they would be effective in controlling algae. What kind of algae do you have and do you have any live plants in your tank? What kinds and numbers of fish, etc. do you have in your tank? An algae outbreak can be caused by any number of things that are usually related to some kind of nutrient imbalance. This can be caused by anything from the amount of light to too many fish or feeding too much to your fish. Here's a link to an article on algae that you may find useful.

http://www.aquaticscape.com/articles/algae.htm
 
Shannon - I agree with Gene regarding the bio-balls. What media were you running prior to installing the balls? If you were already running a three stage filter including bio, you really didn't need the balls.
 
Yeah, bio balls are designed to promote growth of nitrifying bacteria on the multi surfaces and are usually used in a wet dry system. What is your tank set up and what kind of filtration?

Usually these are placed inside the filter if there is room. Five really is not much to impact anything and they need to be somewhere where the water continually flows over them to be any use.
 
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