another wet dry ?

 Ok so I pretty much understand the whole wet dry thing about the excess nitrates. My question is the reason they produce so many nitrates only because the bio balls trap excess debris that cant be removed so they then break down in the filter? 

 I have heard that they are to efficent at breaking down amonia and nitrite. well isnt ammonia and nitrite more harmful then nitrate?

 also you only have x amount of ammonia in the tank anyway correct? So it shouldnt matter how efficent the filter is unless the filter acually creats the ammonia.  I hope someone can see my confusion and help me to understand this a little bit better. The meeting got me thinking about this. I know I had a previous post about wet dry but my questions are a little differant in this post.

Sarnack, Thank you for your input . What you said makes sense however it doesnt explain why people hate wet drys so much.

 I am thinking of running a wet dry along with a dsb in the main tank and a refuguim. I would think that would be a good filtration system but I bet allot of people would tell me to not use the wet dry part of it. I am trying to figure out why. I may just have to see for myself through actual experance.

 Thanks for your help Sarnack. I am going to just try it and see what happens. If nothing else I am sure I will learn from it.

 I also posted this same question on reef central and got some more feedback if anyone is interested. 

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1199964#post1199964

peiji I had an eclipse 3 gallon for about 4 months with the bio wheel setup it came with. I had no problems with the tank. I tore it down for a slightly larger setup.  I would personaly leave the bio wheel. With such a small tank you have to watch it close anyway.

Did you notice a nitrate change before and after you removed the bio wheel?

I think you know my opinion of wet/drys (see that other thread). 

Great for fish only tank, not for reefs.  Again this just my opinion, based on a couple experiences.  My first reef was set up with "mechanical" filtration (a filter mat, sitting on top of the wet/dry drip plate) along with live rock, sand and skimmer.  I tried to be consistent and change the pad every week, but didn't always do it.  It ran like this for about 8 months with nitrates around 5 - 10 ppm.  After doing my own reading and talking to others, I decided to remove the filter mat.  Bingo, my nitrates dropped to undetectable and my slight hair algea problem went away with it.  About a year later a friend of mine did essentially the same thing with the same results.  You might say I just didn't know how to operate my filtration system...could be, but that tank went on to run for years without any real problems.

I think the filter pad traps "junk" and allows it to decompose before the skimmer has a chance to remove it and was a good place for nitrifying bacteria to grow.

After the first month or two (after it's cycled) you should never detect any nitrite or ammonia in your tank with or without bioballs/wheels.  I think I know what Jake was getting at with his 10=10=10,  it's a simple nitrogen balance.  The only thing a little misleading (IMO) is that not all ammonia (or nitrogen) in the aquarium has to go to nitrate before it's exported by algae, corals or denitrifiying bacteria.  A proper functioning skimmer will remove the biowaste before it ever even has a chance to decompose to ammonia.  And algae will uptake ammonia easier then nitrate.  So IMO, in a reef tank a lot (or some?) of the nitrogen (organic and ammonia) are exported before they even get started in the nitrogen cycle.  This in effect reduces the required population of nitrification bacteria needed in the aquarium.  The ammonia that is not incorporated into algea then starts its path on the nitrogen cycle, being oxidized to nitrite then nitrate.  I think the denitrification/nitrification bacteria need to be in close proximity to each other for denitrification to occur at any significant rate.  Therefore I think it's best for the nitrification to occur on the outer surface of the liverock (or sand)  where there's potential for denitrification to occur deeper in the rock (or sand).  If the nitrification occurs physically away from an anerobic spot, the H+ available for denitrification is diluted or consumed in the CO3-HCO3-CO2 balance.

I, personally, would never begin a reef using a wet/dry.  If I ran into ammonia/nitrite problems down the road, I might consider it or more macro algae.  Having said all this, I have two neighbors with reefs operated with biowheels and neither one of them have high nitrates or hair algea so there's obviously more then one way to skin a cat (and I would contend that the biowheel's are not doing much anyway...but not proven :) ).  So if you have a wet/dry go ahead and use it, if you don't like the results you can always stop using it.  If you don't already have one, and money's tight, IMO you're better served spending more on a skimmer or refugium.

WOW that's long... if you've read this far, you're a real reef freak!  Just my thoughts...

 Wow lots of input. Thats good I am learning.  

What jfincht says in the qote below makes allot of sense. It is basically what that other guy said on reef central. I think you guys are being a little hard on the reefcentral people. You are right I shouldnt belive everthing I read however they are just trying to help.

 "I think the denitrification/nitrification bacteria need to be in close proximity to each other for denitrification to occur at any significant rate.  Therefore I think it's best for the nitrification to occur on the outer surface of the liverock (or sand)  where there's potential for denitrification to occur deeper in the rock (or sand).  If the nitrification occurs physically away from an anerobic spot, the H+ available for denitrification is diluted or consumed in the CO3-HCO3-CO2 balance"

 The thing about the skimmer also makes sense however most people dont run them 24/7.  But thats a differant topic. I am not going to have  the live rock to properly fill my tank for a while so I wanted to go with a substitute for it. That would be the wet dry that I already have. Also jfincht You said that you removed the filter pad from the wet dry. Did you remove the whole wet dry or just pad?

 Let me shoot out one more idea. What if you had a wet dry that flowed right into a dsb?  You could build and addition onto the wet dry.  Also you can change the amount of bio balls in the wet dry to slow the conversion of amiona.