Biological filter media is back – here’s how to use it

[Reef Builders]

The reintroduction of biological filter media has been one of the most significant changes in reefkeeping in the last 10 years. For decades, the Berlin Method taught us to ditch “traditional” aquarium filtration methods and instead rely on the microbial populations on live rock to take care of all our tank’s nitrogen cycling requirements. Conventional…
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[livinlifeinBKK]

Live rock (real live rock) is fully colonized with thousands of bacterial strains, many of which can't even be cultured in a lab...you simply can't replicate that with bioballs and biobricks that begin sterile.

 

[liddojunior]

Live rock (real live rock) is fully colonized with thousands of bacterial strains, many of which can't even be cultured in a lab...you simply can't replicate that with bioballs and biobricks that begin sterile.

I don’t think real live rock is commonly available. And doesn’t most of what is on live rock die away during setting up the tank?
Wouldn’t Biomedia also be colonized by the same things if you add to a tank with live rock? So sterility of new biomedia is a non factor?

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

I don’t think real live rock is commonly available. And doesn’t most of what is on live rock die away during setting up the tank?
Wouldn’t Biomedia also be colonized by the same things if you add to a tank with live rock? So sterility of new biomedia is a non factor?

Depends on where you are how available it is... maricultured live rock counts as real and is widely available in America...no, i wouldn't say most of it dies away, in particular the bacterial diversity that i was talking about. Plus why would it die? You wouldn't be dosing ammonia?...Not necessarily, it would be colonized by what you add to the sterile media only. How many bacterial diversity do you actually think are in bottled bac? Not much...

 

[liddojunior]

Depends on where you are how available it is... maricultured live rock counts as real and is widely available in America...no, i wouldn't say most of it dies away, in particular the bacterial diversity that i was talking about. Plus why would it die? You wouldn't be dosing ammonia?...Not necessarily, it would be colonized by what you add to the sterile media only. How many bacterial diversity do you actually think are in bottled bac? Not much...

The entire thing with live rock is that lots will die off but regrow. Curing process right?

I meant that using biomedia with a tank with real live rock, will mean the biomedia will get the same diversity so doesn’t biomedia add benefit even when you have live rock?

 

[livinlifeinBKK]

The entire thing with live rock is that lots will die off but regrow. Curing process right?

I meant that using biomedia with a tank with real live rock, will mean the biomedia will get the same diversity so doesn’t biomedia add benefit even when you have live rock?

It depends on where you get your live rock from...it doesn't necessarily need to be cured.

Yes, if you put live rock in a tank and biomedia in the same tank the bacteria would slowly spread...but if you had live rock in the tank why would you need biomedia? How would the biomedia benefit you? It doesn't come out of the ocean or out of a tank with live rock. It's comes sterile.