PaPeRo;
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. 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. More O2 doesn’t mean a larger bacterial colony, more surface area does. You probably 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.
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.
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.
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 AC’s have over the biowheel designs. I don’t know what kind of bad experiences you’ve had with canister filters, I spend less time maintaining them than hob’s, it isn’t much of a chore, they don’t 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.
Can an AC beat a bio wheel with just a sponge? Name a couple of comparable biowheel & AC filters. I’m 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. I’m not going to break the bank on this one, so don’t start naming AC110’s & 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 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 don’t continue running during 50% water changes like an AC. I wouldn’t 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 don’t hesitate to build my own gear, or modify existing designs.
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;
http
/www.marineland.com/science/pdf/BIOwheel_QA.pdf
9.39 miles of fiber tells you nothing about surface area. Their independent consultant can’t be found anywhere on the internet, though there is a Bio-Tox Laboratories, who does drug testing.
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 it’s still off of Marineland’s site, written by a Marineland employee. It might be a little biased.
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. I’ve tried.
I don’t need or trust sales catchphrases such as “ superior oxygen/oxygen exchange†or “ highly effective wet/dry†repeated to sell me a product. If I hear good things about it, I’ll try it out, work with it a little. If it doesn’t work out, it goes away. If it does work out, I’ll try more of that product. “It’s scientific fact†with a couple of links to the manufacturers site doesn’t cut it as far as I’m concerned.
If you want to do this little filter experiment PaPeRo let me know, I’ll probably be ordering gear on Saturday. Let’s try to figure something that will run reasonably well on a 10 gallon, I have a few lying around. You really don’t 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.
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