I am going to pull the bio bale from my Bak Pak 2 skimmer & wondering if anyone has done this without using the bubble trap. Also can you really put your heater in the return chamber & would this help eliviate the bubbles.
I removied my bio-bale a year ago without any ill affects. It just seemed to be a trap everything, so I yanked it out. I did take it out gradually over a months time. I'd pull a little, cut it, and stuff the rest down, doing this every week for a month. I just didn't want to have any type of ammonia spike in case it was actually doing some good being in there. I do not have the bubble trap either on mine and very rarely get bubbles coming into the main tank. It only happens when I feed and it usually stops with 15 minutes or so. The only thing I have in the return chamber is my grounding probe. I thought about putting my heater in there, but never got around to doing it. I may do it now that you reminded me.
Mines a CPR Bakpak 2r, but pretty similar. I had the heater in there, until I shut down the skimmer once for some odd reason, and forgot to turn it on. There went the heater as well. Fortunately, it was all okay, but you have to remember your heat is in there.
I am going to pull the bio bale from my Bak Pak 2 skimmer & wondering if anyone has done this without using the bubble trap. Also can you really put your heater in the return chamber & would this help eliviate the bubbles.
Yup, been running my BakPak for 3 years without the biobale and there's been no problems with bubbles. I don't use the bubble trap either. You can also put the heater in the return side of the skimmer if you want. I did it for a while on my 38 gal tank but ended up putting the skimmer back into the tank as the heater wasn't heating the tank as well as I liked with it in the skimmer.
