docbanzai
Fish Fanatic
//Begin Rant
Hi all,
A while back I was bitching about the awful ceramic substrate that is supposed to be used with a biOrb. I really was not happy with it (or the biOrb in general).
I have a biOrb 60 Tropical and so far I have replaced the heater for a decent thermo controlled 200w heater, and the terribly, terribly noisy airpump for a Rena 200 (oh and also had to add non-return valves to the pump as the two built in ones have both failed inside 12 weeks.) Now I have a decent setup.
I replaced the substrate with pea-gravel. I placed about 12 pieces of the original ceramic media around the filter holder in the base of the tank and then buried it all in gravel upto the top of the filter housing. I then completed a fishless cycle (in 20 days) and the tank is clean and running wonderfully. In my opinion it's working much, much better than it was originally, probably due to the increased power of the airpump and the fact that fish are not going to slice themselves to bits on that god-awful media. I have contacted Reef One (the manufacturer) and they strongly advised against messing with their stuff, as it is specifically designed to work in the biOrb. Well, it didn't work for me. Several dead fish later I decided to start messing...
So a lesson to be learned. BiOrbs look great (especially with the iLight) but the tropical version is NOT worth buying. Get the cold water version and add a good heater and dump that noisy (and inefficient) air pump. Even then it's a pricey investment...
I wish I'd just bought the Juwel Rekord 70 I wanted when I walked into the shop.
//End Rant
Hi all,
A while back I was bitching about the awful ceramic substrate that is supposed to be used with a biOrb. I really was not happy with it (or the biOrb in general).
I have a biOrb 60 Tropical and so far I have replaced the heater for a decent thermo controlled 200w heater, and the terribly, terribly noisy airpump for a Rena 200 (oh and also had to add non-return valves to the pump as the two built in ones have both failed inside 12 weeks.) Now I have a decent setup.
I replaced the substrate with pea-gravel. I placed about 12 pieces of the original ceramic media around the filter holder in the base of the tank and then buried it all in gravel upto the top of the filter housing. I then completed a fishless cycle (in 20 days) and the tank is clean and running wonderfully. In my opinion it's working much, much better than it was originally, probably due to the increased power of the airpump and the fact that fish are not going to slice themselves to bits on that god-awful media. I have contacted Reef One (the manufacturer) and they strongly advised against messing with their stuff, as it is specifically designed to work in the biOrb. Well, it didn't work for me. Several dead fish later I decided to start messing...
So a lesson to be learned. BiOrbs look great (especially with the iLight) but the tropical version is NOT worth buying. Get the cold water version and add a good heater and dump that noisy (and inefficient) air pump. Even then it's a pricey investment...
I wish I'd just bought the Juwel Rekord 70 I wanted when I walked into the shop.
//End Rant
