PaPeRo
Fish Crazy
The amount of nitrifying bacteria depends as much on surface area for the bacteria to adhere to as how much O2 is available to those bacteria. Your standard wet/dry filters with an overflow & sump work as well as they do not just because of exposure to O2, but because of the much larger surface area from using so much media.
No disagreement there.
The same holds true for canisters, fluidized bed, or a hob with bio media. Canister & fluidized bed filters probably have about the same O2 exposure as a hob with bio media; the reason they work so well is quantity of surface area.
No disagreement there either, however, there is a difference between the wet/dry filters mentioned earlier vs the submerged biomedia filters above. You cannot directly compare the surface area of the two. That's analogous to comparing displacements of a turbo inline 4 vs a naturally aspirated V8.
More O2 doesnt mean a larger bacterial colony, more surface area does.
I didn't say more O2 means a larger bacterial colony..I said more efficiency. With higher efficiency you don't need a very large surface area for a large bacterial colony. Obviously you would need a minimum amount of surface area but that goes without saying.
You pirobably know that most of the O2 transfer to your water occurs through surface agitation, as long as you have the proper O2 level in your water either the biowheel or submerged bio media will have enough O2 to do what it’s designed to do. If more O2 increased the bacteria level by any significant amount, running a stream of O2 from a cylinder over your biowheel, or bio media in a wet/dry should tremendously improve performance. Aquarists run CO2 in planted tanks, why not a little straight O2 over your exposed bio media? You should see a five fold increase in performance.
You cannot get 500hp from a 1cc turbocharged engine, but you can't use a 500hp V12 either if it can't fit inside the car. The difference between the two filters is the fact the bacteria gets it's own O2 from the air and doesn't compete with the fish for O2 which gets it from the water. In other words you don't need to depend on the oxygen content of the water to get great bio filtration.
Yes media gets plugged with debris. The solution? Rinse it in old tank or other dechlorinated water. Efficiency regained. Every manufacturer of every filter wants you to replace media all the time. More fluff. The only media that needs to be replaced on any regular basis is your fine floss, or carbon if you bother with it. Everything else can be rinsed until it actually is falling apart. This takes years, I have several AC sponges that are years old, the oldest is around 7. They will show wear, but still work. I have yet to see any bio media show wear. That’s cost effective. If you have to replace media that often something is wrong with the design or usage.
Well rinsing is another added maintenance step which I personally can do without. The biowheel gets more efficient as it ages unlike biomedia which lose efficiency as it gets clogged.
I think you may have misunderstand what I meant by sponge filters, perhaps I should have been more clear; air driven sponge filters, the internal kind. These will blow away any hob, biowheel or otherwise, as far as bio filtration is concerned. The reason is surface area; breeders with consistently overstocked tanks use them all the time. Racks of 10’s, 20’s and such work well with the old sponge filters, most breeders shy away from a centralized system with one large sump. Cross contamination is a concern, as well as often needing to have different water parameters from tank to tank.
Well that's a niche segment that a sponge filter would be good at. However I was talking about one huge tank full of fish etc say 250gallons. You'd be crazy to use a sponge filter for that.
Comparing a canister to a hob is easier to reason than comparing any filter to Ferraris & groceries. Once again, it’s quantity of media that makes canisters work so well, something ACs have over the biowheel designs.
As I explained ealier quantity does not equal efficiency. A 2.2 Liter turbocharged inline 4 could EASILY output 1000hp. Can you do that with a naturally aspirated 2.2 liter? Maybe with a F-1 V12 sure but how much does it cost? An Emperor 400 with two biowheels 400GPH only costs $40, how much does that 400GPH canister cost?
I dont know what kind of bad experiences youve had with canister filters, I spend less time maintaining them than hobs, it isnt much of a chore, they donât have leakage problems from anything not sealing tightly, and have plenty of benefits. Quantity of media, flexibility of media, longer periods between maintenance, the ability to run a few tanks at once utilizing bridging, and they are probably the quietest filter commonly used. Large marine systems use wet/dry filters because that is the most cost effective for a system that size.
In my experience canister filters are pretty messy to service. HOBs don't need servicing at all, except to replace the filter floss or carbon which you could do in 2 seconds. You don't need to shut it down, open it up, and rinse the biomedia like you do with canisters.
Can an AC beat a bio wheel with just a sponge? Name a couple of comparable biowheel & AC filters. Iâm due for an online order, and can set up a couple of tanks, feed them ammonia, and once they are cycled see which one eats the ammonia first. Iâm not going to break the bank on this one, so donât start naming AC110s & such. I love messing with this sort of thing. But what we can also do is once they are cycled & done with the little ammo experiment is to toss in a few ounces of cheap flake, a handful of topsoil, and other nasties, and see which one fares better. If you are going to test, test it good. Check out the mechanical aspect as well. Xoedusk has posted a nice example of someone doing something similar.
I don't think testing a "just cycled" tank as a good test of true performance. I'd say at least 4 months with ZERO maintenance. I don't care if the filter is great when it's new. I care about how great it is after many months of use. Frequency of maintenance to sustain efficiency is an important factor too. If I have to do maintenance every couple of months to regain efficiency, it's not something I care for. Also testing mechanical filtering ability by throwing soil into the tank is pretty illogical. I don't keep fish in a tank filled with mud so I don't need that kind of mechanical filtering performance. I care more about biological performance. When buying a Ferrari I don't think the buyer cares about its offroad performance.
I have pulled the little tray out, and used various foam, floss, and bio media in a variety of filters, including Penguin & Marineland. They choke. Tetra is no better; the closest thing I found so far was a used Hartz/Mountain. You can get them to run with half the media of a comparable AC, they dont continue running during 50% water changes like an AC. I wouldnt bother trying peat in them. An AC 70 sponge fits on end in an AC 20, fills the entire media case, and the filter still runs. I constantly mess with filters & such; I have more sponge, floss, hoses and pvc in various sizes lying around than you want to think about. I dont hesitate to build my own gear, or modify existing designs.
How can they choke? They are just empty baskets with water flowing in then out. BTW I don't ever do 50% water changes, unless I've been really lazy. If you need to do 50% water changes often then you need to be more organized.
Yes you pull out the carbon, and you have a slim little pad that is thinner than anything I would dare even wash my dishes with. My wife & daughter have makeup pads that are thicker than that, and appear more durable. Your link is to a sales ad from Marine land’s site, sales departments in any situation will promise the moon. This link is actually a better one but raises a few questions.
Yes it's thin, that's the way it was designed. It's designed for a high rate of waterflow as well as quick removal unlike the stacked compartments of the AC. Why in the world would you want to pack a bunch of media/carbon into a small filter? You'd just slow down the waterflow losing efficiency.
9.39 miles of fiber tells you nothing about surface area.
Of course it does. Calculate the surface area of 1 inch of fiber then do the conversions. It's basic geometry.
Your second link is a nice examination of bio filtration that does include other parameters besides O2, and their effect on bio filtration. Problem is its still off of Marineland’s site, written by a Marineland employee. It might be a little biased.
It may or may not be biased but it makes a lot of sense nonetheless.
If you really want to get the best of both worlds, you can modify the AC design to run a biowheel. I had a link to a site where someone modified a 110 to fit a wheel from a Penguin. A little drilling, gluing, and a biowheel with a shaft gives you the media capabilities along with the biological capabilities. You are not going to get a biowheel filter to run properly with the amount of media in a comparable AC. Ive tried.
Well see that's the problem. With a biowheel you don't need to use the same amount of media as the AC. It's a different kind of filter. it's a wet/dry filter.
Also the Emperor 400 and Biowheel 350 has plenty of bio filtration capacity. It has two biowheels, variable speed spraybar, and 4 slots for media baskets and trays. Why go through the trouble of modifying an AC to work with a biowheel when you can have the real thing? There are also biowheels that can be purchased separately and made to work with powerheads. There's also the Magnum 350 canister/biowheel deluxe system.
I dont need or trust sales catchphrases such as â superior oxygen/oxygen exchange or â highly effective wet/dry repeated to sell me a product. If I hear good things about it, Ill try it out, work with it a little. If it doesnt work out, it goes away. If it does work out, Ill try more of that product. `scientific fact' with a couple of links to the manufacturers site doesnât cut it as far as Im concerned.
Well you've yet to prove it doesn't work as well as it says it does. The only evidence you have is your opinion which boils down to it being a gimmick. That doesn't really strengthen your position.
If you want to do this little filter experiment PaPeRo let me know, Ill probably be ordering gear on Saturday. Lets try to figure something that will run reasonably well on a 10 gallon, I have a few lying around. You really dont know for sure unless you play with different products, this is something I really enjoy. This also gets us back to our original question: AquaClear vs. Penguin.
AC 30 vs Penguin Biowheel150
I probably won't get a chance to set this up until the weekend, it's starting to pick up at work. Gotta make the money to pay for the toys! 
