Cause a recycle?

scoop · 04-11-2005, 05:26 PM

I'm pretty new at this reef stuff, I had sw fish for 11 years, but only went to the reef a little over 3 months ago. I have a 30gal w/ 27 lbs live rock, 20 lbs live sand, frogspawn, colt leather, blue mushrooms, (sometimes pulsing) Xenia, toadstool, star polyps, cleaner crew = ~ 20 snails, 2 emerald crabs, ~6 blue leg hermit crabs., 2 fish, a 6 line wrasse and a dragon goby (sand sifter). Anyway, I have been reading a few of these posts, along with some books and I decided to take the bio media out of my trickle filter. I only have a small filter integrated with the tank, so I only had a small amt of bio media.

Finally to the question, is taking this media out going to cause the tank to recycle?

skeety · 04-11-2005, 06:42 PM

If you're referring to Bio-Balls (or something similar), the best approach is to take out a little at a time.

Week 1, take out a handfull. Week 2, another handfull...etc, until it's empty.

As you take them out, new bacteria will form on your LR/Sand/etc to catch up with the loss. If you make it gradual, you shouldn't see any affects.

rachyl756 · 04-11-2005, 07:51 PM

If your xenia is only pulsing sometimes, it can indicate low iodine. The best iodine test kit I've found is the one from Salifert.

Got to agree on the going slow thing

tims · 04-11-2005, 09:42 PM

Rachly i dis agree with you on that one. some Xenia donot pulse at all, some very slow. here is a good write up on them.
they rely on light, so not direct feeding is needed for them. you might want to test your iodine levels in your tank. too high is very bad.

i do agree with everyone taking the bio media out of the trickle slowly would be best. now once that is done you can drop in a nylon bag of carbon. makes it real easy . i converted an old trickle filter too. plus you will be able to syphon out the larger empty space in the trickle. ( it will collect gunk there)..

scoop · 04-12-2005, 08:48 AM

Thanks for the information, I will remove the bio load slowly. Also, thanks for the Xenia article. My iodine is towards the high side already, so I wondered if the ph was the issue, and this article seemed to confirm that. I have been using Seachem buffer, but it seems to drop quickly down to 8.1 or 8.2 within less than 24 hrs. I add the buffer every time I top off with fresh water (from the lfs), but it won't seem to stay up, any ideas here?

rachyl756 · 04-12-2005, 11:16 AM

[quote=tims]Rachly i dis agree with you on that one. some Xenia donot pulse at all, some very slow. here is a good write up on them.
they rely on light, so not direct feeding is needed for them. you might want to test your iodine levels in your tank. too high is very bad.

[quote]

Most xenia are consistant though. They either pulse, don't pulse, pulse on a pattern, like in the first 4 hours of light, or something. I've never seen a healthy specimin randomly pulse.

If the xenia is randomly acting in a manner, its a good barometer that SOMETHING is wrong. salinity, kH, iodine, there are alot of possibilities. And yeah supplementing anything without testing it is dangerous business. I have alot of xenidds, so I supplemnt my iodine, and they take alot, but I test iodine and iodate weekly and have very consistant levels.