Canister Media Efficiency

[CBBP]

I mean technically the water flow is right.. the bacteria home thing is just theory. but tonight I ended up taking two hors to stack my filter media neatly and tightly packed. it ended up looking real nice and it gave me a whole shelve of free space for more media (which is the main reason I did it). you would be amazed how much space is wasted inside a canister filter when you just dump the media in and let it lay any which way.

 

[Tolak]

The reason you toss those little noodle looking things in is to diffuse the water flow. Your first picture shows a nice straight water flow, which it will continue to do up through the media to the outlet. Instead of the water flowing through the entire width of the media column, it will tend to make a single straight path from the intake up to the output.

As far as bacteria growth, any decent media of that design is slightly porous. The bacteria cling not only to the outside surface that you see, but on interior surfaces that you can't see.

None the less, it is a cool idea. If you could pop something in the bottom to diffuse the flow it should work better.

 

[CBBP]

The reason you toss those little noodle looking things in is to diffuse the water flow. Your first picture shows a nice straight water flow, which it will continue to do up through the media to the outlet. Instead of the water flowing through the entire width of the media column, it will tend to make a single straight path from the intake up to the output.

As far as bacteria growth, any decent media of that design is slightly porous. The bacteria cling not only to the outside surface that you see, but on interior surfaces that you can't see.

None the less, it is a cool idea. If you could pop something in the bottom to diffuse the flow it should work better.

I off set the layers because I have several different kinds/sizes/shapes of media. So they come out like so:

0.0.0.0
.0.0.0.
0.0.0.0.

So the water wills till bouncy around and i will fit more media in haha.

 

[dylema]

You both have good points here. I would like to see some more research done and hear a fluid mechanics person's opinion.

Perhaps the shape of the noodles isn't the best for stacking and maximising the water flow around and through the media. Maybe a fairly spherical yet lumpy and porous media would pack in better but allow the water to spend more time going around each piece of media. Or maybe we souldn't think so hard about it.

 

[CBBP]

You both have good points here. I would like to see some more research done and hear a fluid mechanics person's opinion.

Perhaps the shape of the noodles isn't the best for stacking and maximising the water flow around and through the media. Maybe a fairly spherical yet lumpy and porous media would pack in better but allow the water to spend more time going around each piece of media. Or maybe we souldn't think so hard about it.

well the water flow stuff was not my main reason for doing it.. only a though after I had done it. my main reason was to stop wasting space. As I said i got a whole XP Sheelve for new media.

What should I put in it?

 

[dylema]

I like the look of those ehiem balls that are a little lumpy and porous I think. They are supposed to be really good. Sorry I don't know the proper name for them. They are pretty expensive though.