Biological Filter Heart Of A Tank?

[aaronnorth]

your wee has more than just ammonia in it

 

[Corleone]

So does fish pee.

I've seen it mentioned several times, but I've never actually seen somebody say that they've successfully done it. I'm usually one for experiments and certainly have tanks sitting around, but I'm not too thrilled about having a tank full of pee sitting around my house, and I don't like the sort of things that could end up on my police record if I did this in the back yard. When my toilet broke a couple months ago, it did get a white bacterial bloom, though. That's not the right bacteria, but in aquariums it is a sign of excess ammonia.

 

[jnms]

I just got some wool for the filter, I am planning on swapping the carbon out for 2 trays of wool and 1 tray containing a sponge.

This means the water will filter through the main sponges, followed by the bio-max, then into the wool and finally into a fine sponge. Unless it would be better to have the wool as the final media in the canister?

 

[aaronnorth]

isnt the wool and the fine sponge more or less the same?

 

[jnms]

Well they look totally different, the fine sponge is like a square bath sponge - where as the wool is like rough cotton wool. But if you mean they perform the same function? Then I am not sure...

 

[aaronnorth]

they are different then. The fine sponge i thought it might of been fine pieces of cotton woven togther (which is similar to the wool but more compact.)

 

[rabbut]

Go from course to fine and maintanance will reduce That means sponge then wool.

I know someone whom claims to have cycled a tank using urine. I wonder if Miss Wiggle remembers Harold from my place of work. Fairly old, slightly ecentric chap always going on about plants, whiteworm and his expeirence of breeding neon and cardinal tetras back in 1940 something He was one of the first to do this (neon and cardinal breeding and I believe using urine to fishless cycle), and actually gets a mention in one of my fish books...

HTH
Rabbut

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Go from course to fine and maintanance will reduce That means sponge then wool.

I know someone whom claims to have cycled a tank using urine. I wonder if Miss Wiggle remembers Harold from my place of work. Fairly old, slightly ecentric chap always going on about plants, whiteworm and his expeirence of breeding neon and cardinal tetras back in 1940 something He was one of the first to do this (neon and cardinal breeding and I believe using urine to fishless cycle), and actually gets a mention in one of my fish books...

HTH
Rabbut

ha ha yeah i do, i remember him trying to convince Ian to come and give a talk to an aquarists society about plants once and was telling us how he bred neons by adding wee from a pregnant woman to the tank, apparently the hormones trigger spawning.

interesting guy

 

[OldMan47]

Ideal filter media setup would go from coarse to finer mechanical followed by the biomedia. The very last thing would be something like the filter floss to make sure no fine bits of stuff comes off the media and ends up in the impeller or being returned to the tank. That last bit will be called a polishing filter if you are buying a precut piece of material for it.
By having it go coarse to fine, as Rabbut said, it will make the filter go longer between cleanings. By having both before your biomedia, the media will stay cleaner and need very seldom be cleaned. The polishing filter is mostly for esthetics in having crystal clear water and also to protect the pump impeller.
WD's memory about carbon was spot on. I read the same thread less than a week ago in the scientific section. Carbon will reach an equilibrium with the water going through it for a given concentration in the water. As that moves higher and lower, the carbon will adjust how much it retains to reach a new equilibrium.

 

[jnms]

Ideal filter media setup would go from coarse to finer mechanical followed by the biomedia. The very last thing would be something like the filter floss to make sure no fine bits of stuff comes off the media and ends up in the impeller or being returned to the tank. That last bit will be called a polishing filter if you are buying a precut piece of material for it.
By having it go coarse to fine, as Rabbut said, it will make the filter go longer between cleanings. By having both before your biomedia, the media will stay cleaner and need very seldom be cleaned. The polishing filter is mostly for esthetics in having crystal clear water and also to protect the pump impeller.
WD's memory about carbon was spot on. I read the same thread less than a week ago in the scientific section. Carbon will reach an equilibrium with the water going through it for a given concentration in the water. As that moves higher and lower, the carbon will adjust how much it retains to reach a new equilibrium.

Thanks, I will reconfigure my media later then. Is there any reason that I can't put two different media in the same basket? For example, could I put bio-max in the basket and overlay it with a sheet of wool? Would this cause any problems?

 

[rabbut]

I've do that before with no issues in a 404, so I don't see it being an issue in the new 05 series

 

[aaronnorth]

its it ok, a blue tray is provided so that you can out a polishing pad in.

 

[waterdrop]

No problem putting more than one media in a basket. The function of cannister baskets is to speed up the cleaning process, allowing you to lift out and dunk the media in old tank water more easily and quickly.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[andywg]

Ideal filter media setup would go from coarse to finer mechanical followed by the biomedia. The very last thing would be something like the filter floss to make sure no fine bits of stuff comes off the media and ends up in the impeller or being returned to the tank.

I would disagree that this is ideal. The thing that stops biological media working so well is having physical gunk covering up the surface of the biological media preventing bacteria from settling on the surface and getting oxygen. By having filter floss after the biological media you are trapping fine particles after they have had the chance to get stuck in the biological media (many of which have fine pores to maximise the ration of surface area:volume).

An ideal filter set up will have all mechanical media before biological media, thus is the efficiency of the filtration enhanced.

 

[Jeff Lange]

carbon takes out metals in the tank, it doesnt affect the nitrogen cycle. It is highly porous and good for biological filtration. After a few days to weeks, it can start to leak if it becomes to saturated.

Leak Bacteria? So is carbon not very good for a fishless cycle?

I used carbon when I cycled my 65 gallon. I used a Magnum 350 with carbon as the media. I had no fish in the tank so I left the carbon in for the full 6 weeks or so it took to cycle my tank. Worked fine for me. I have since replaced that filter with a Rena XP3. I now use 2 XP3s with my tank.