Biodiversity in water

[X-37B]

So I recently started thinking that I want to increase the bio diversity of my tank. Which certainly can not hurt. Obviously there is a chance of introducing some bad bacteria and other things but I am thinking positive!! My idea was to purchase some bio balls and spread them around to people in my local reef club who I know have established mostly pest free successful tanks. Let them sit in these peoples systems for a few months, then take them all back and put them in my system.

I reached out to one person who I had in mind, he actually runs a small coral farm, and has a scientific background. He actually told me that the bacteria that would colonize the bio balls would be mostly denitrifying bacteria, which I already have in my system. And if I wanted to diversify I would be better suited to take some tank water from his and other people’s systems.

I guess this makes sense to me? What do you guys think? Are the other types of beneficial bacteria in reef tanks mostly free floating in the water column? Wouldn’t some of this bacteria also colonize the bio balls? I am definitely not opposed to taking some water. Would this be more likely to import bad things into my system than bio balls or live rock rubble? Thoughts?

I think you answered your own question with the live rock comment.
I started my old 120 with 50/50 and only fought gha and the uglies on the dead rock. New 170 has all live rock and is 3 months old. I only had the brown uglies on the glass surface. Corraline is now on powerheads and the back wall with more each week.
I did the same with my 50, which has sand also and one piece of dead rock. The dead rock is turning brown and will be easy to control the uglies on one piece instead of the whole system.

So many systems would be ahead of the game if they used a 50/50 blend. Adding premium live rock will increase the bio diversity of any system, imo, without the need to add anything else.

You can see the dead rock in my 50.