Cleaning a Wet Dry

[marxsman]

I have been doing this hobby for years. My question is.. Does a Wet/ Dry filter need to be cleaned often. My tank does not show any nitrates/ phosphates or appear to have any problems. The 55 gal has a 10 gal refuge and this wet dry filter and I have never taken the w/d aprt to clean it. SHOULD I?
The w/d also has peices of live rock and the bio balls in it
I have NO algae problems
Advise please.

[Steven Pro]

I routinely siphon out detritus from the bottom of sumps and wet/dry's, but as long as there is an effective prefilter before the bioballs, they should not need cleaned.

[Holyreefer]

In my opinion its all really about personal preference and what you will believe will work for your system

Just my 2cents though

[showfish]

I also siphon my sump every month or so, just to get any detritus that may have settled on the bottom. I took out all bio-balls, and just went with live rock frags. Bio-balls can sometimes lead to future nitrate problems depending on the bio-load in tank.

[reefrules]

Okay I found a post that maybe can answer a new question and answered an old 1 for me also. Since I've had my 120 gal going I have noticed at diff. LFS that some use live rock and some use bio balls in their wet drys. Are these 2 things also a preference or is 1 actually better than the other ?

[BubbaWPB]

You see both since they both work. I prefer to go the more natural style - since I've never seen bioballs in the ocean, I do the live rock thing. But bioballs do work if you keep them crap buildup cleaned out (like they are saying above). Of course, one should blast the crap buildup off live rock from time to time, too....

Bioballs often come with wet-dry filters, so the cost factor may also weigh in favor of the bioballs.

[Steven Pro]

I would use bioballs in heavy bioload fish-only situations, i.e. predator tanks and such. Otherwise, I would use nothing or some liverock.