Reef Discussion
Bio balls are as bad a sponges in regards to nitrate production. Basically you need to create low oxygen environments for de nitrification which cannot be facilitated on these medias.
As firebird mentioned there are other medias such as marine pure that can do this which would be a better choice.
But taking a step back if you look at how you are setting things up, things work best if they are in a certain order. Skimming physically removes the waste rather than breaking it down and it works best being in water with high dissolved organic contents. By placing the sponge, marine pure or whatever before the skimmer it reduces the skimmers ability and function in the system.
So ideally you want to go skimmer, then either another level of physical removal such as a filter sock if you can regularly manage it, if not then to biological media such as marine pure, live rock or refugium and so on and then finally chemical such as rows phos, carbon ect.
You also have to be mindful of the oxygen content of the water at the various stages and how they interact with the process. Water leaves the skimmer saturated in oxygen, if this is empied straight into a fugue where you are attempting to grow macro it will inhibit the growth because as you know plants take carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen, but by placing an aerobic media before hand you can deplete nearly all of the oxygen and increase the effectiveness of both parts.
Anyways enough ranting
As firebird mentioned there are other medias such as marine pure that can do this which would be a better choice.
But taking a step back if you look at how you are setting things up, things work best if they are in a certain order. Skimming physically removes the waste rather than breaking it down and it works best being in water with high dissolved organic contents. By placing the sponge, marine pure or whatever before the skimmer it reduces the skimmers ability and function in the system.
So ideally you want to go skimmer, then either another level of physical removal such as a filter sock if you can regularly manage it, if not then to biological media such as marine pure, live rock or refugium and so on and then finally chemical such as rows phos, carbon ect.
You also have to be mindful of the oxygen content of the water at the various stages and how they interact with the process. Water leaves the skimmer saturated in oxygen, if this is empied straight into a fugue where you are attempting to grow macro it will inhibit the growth because as you know plants take carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen, but by placing an aerobic media before hand you can deplete nearly all of the oxygen and increase the effectiveness of both parts.
Anyways enough ranting
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