Fluidized Bed Filter

[neocyber_16]

how well do these filters work compared to canister filters?

 

[ste2k3]

water is pumped down to the bottom of the unit and then rises up a much wider tube which causes the water to move more slowly. this wider tube contains millions of fine sand grains which fluidise in the current. so you'v got a over a million little sand grains constantly suspended in mid water, this means that the whole surface of every sandgrain can ce colanised by nitrifying bacteria. this provides a massive surfae area. a possable problem with this is that all these bacteria also need oxygen to survive and so they strip the oxygen out of the water so the water leaving the unit is very low in dissolved oxygen. this should be airated by being passed through some sort of trickle filter/tower.

An external canister filted with a pump which circulaes water through the unit and then back in to the tank. the canister wil contain some sort of biological filter media. this is usualy a very porus rock/ceramic type of material. You wil never get the same ammount of surface area in an external as you would in a fluidises bed filter. the advantage of a canister filter is that you can norally put some carbon and floss etc in it as well. a fluidised bed is purly biological and needs to be fed with particle free water. normally, you will have enough surface area in an external canister filter for the average aquarium. fluidesed beds are normally used on high stocked systems such as centeralised breeding systems or comercial aplications.

ste

 

[thecichlidaddict]

This is one of those situations where one is better, but better isn't necessary. FBF filters have the potential for better biological filtration, but canisters can support even overstocked aquariums, so I'm not sure why more bio-filtration is needed in the first place. Both of these filters will give you the filtration that you need.