Bioballs or biocubes? The cubes will lower phosphates
Bio Cubes and Chaeto
- Thread starter viper357
- Start date
Bioballs do not remove phosphate as such, rather the bacteria which colonize it yes, as any biomass will take up PO4 for biological processes.
However, the way in which bioballs are used and colonised by aerobic bacteria is nowhere near enough to balance the PO4 input of a typical system. With nitrate being a bi-product of bioballs, and their surface area being far inferior to most other biological filtration media, I really dont know why they still exist in the hobby....
But I assume your reference is to biocubes and not bio balls
Yes biocubes do remove phosphate, or rather, the biomass which colonises them. A lot more effective than bac on bioballs will.
Its a function of carbon limitation, surface area, and balanced input.
There are quite a few write ups on here about it, I did an article on them and their PO4 removal some time ago... perhaps the mods can pop a link in here.
There are also ways to increase the PO4 uptake by the biomass which colonise biocubes, it gets quite technical but it works...
