Media Questions

[GoGators]

I have a 29 gallon planted with a penguin biowheel 150. It has 2 slots for media, in the first slot I use the filter you buy. The 2nd is a DIY filter made using an old filter and a new filter pad with poly-fil in place of carbon. The filters are beginning to restrict the flow (waters coming out the overflow). Yesterday I rinsed them in old tank water and it worked but today it's restricted again. The filters have been in for 2 months. I finished fishless cycling about 3 weeks ago. The filters started restricting the flow this week. What do I need to do?

 

[waterdrop]

You just need to be creative and work with other media types you can find on the store shelves, various sponges and ceramics. Part of what a filter designer does is work out the balance of flow and restriction, so you have to do that too.

Perhaps others with this specific filter will have more ideas!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

Thanks WD. I was thinking it may be time for a new cartridge but I don't want to risk a mini cycle as I now have almost a fully stocked tank. I've been doing daily h2o tests and everything is great but I want to keep it that way. Should I cut the used pad in half and use it as the inside of the new filter if I change or should I not worry about the restriction and just keep cleaning them in tank water during water changes? I don't want to alter what I'm doing too much because the water is crystal clear and my nitrates are staying below 20 ppm. If I change the media in 1 filter how should I go about doing it without causing a mini cycle and is it ok to go totally carbonless with 2 DIY filters or should I stay with 1 carbon and 1 without. When I say almost fully stocked I mean I'm at 26.75 inches of adult size fish but right now they're all still small, about 1/2 they're full grown size.

 

[waterdrop]

Well it would be nice if a BioWheel owner would step up and tell us what the re-supply paks are that are available for these things. Do you think the only thing offered for these two lower sub-containers below the biowheel are carbon filled pouches? I would have thought maybe they had sponge or ceramic choices, correctly sized for the filter and sold by the biowheel people. I'll bet the intention is that there should be enough bacteria on the wheel itself that changing out one or the other of the lower two (probably they would say "mainly mechanical" ) sections would not result in a mini-cycle. And I'll bet with your undersized population of fish you could change a whole one of these and not get a mini-cycle (you'd just change water a few times anyway, not a big deal) but it would be nice to know about what all is available that nicely fits the filter...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

Ive looked several places and the only filter I could find is the same that came with it. The cartridge isn't that expensive but I found that walmart sells filters that are made by the same company just cheaper made. All I use those for is the black plastic cage. I remove the blue padding and carbon and put a little bit of poly-fil inside with a white filter pad bought from the LFS on the outside with 2 rubberbands holding it in place. Since going to the DIY filter the water stays much clearer and it took 2 months before flow was restricted. Not to mention a years worth of filters set me back only $15. The water goes through the filter with carbon first then the DIY. The flow problem I believe is being caused by the factory filter because I used to use 2 marineland filters made for it and had the same problem. The blue wool looking stuff gunks up and water starts coming out the overflow, I clean them then 2 days later it starts coming out the overflow again.

 

[mickspark81]

Hi

I just wanted to add that i believe you should change your thin wool layer every 10 - 14 days as its usually on the top of the filter and stops all the bigger waste like leaves and debri. This in my experience gets clogged up alot faster than any other part of the filter and will cause restrictions to flow if not dealt with

Also..You can purchase loads of those wool media layers from ebay at a suprisingly low price

I am new to the hobby myself and maybe you already know this, but if not its good advise (i believe)


Good luck and have fun

 

[waterdrop]

Oh, this is great! OK, two things! First, thanks Mick for that insight, that may indeed be all that's needed! Its true what he says GoGator, if you have other larger biomedia areas in a filter, its ok to change your "fine mechanical" filtration (the "thin wool" as he calls it or "blue wool" as you call it) as frequently as needed, as it shouldn't even have a measurable effect on your biofiltration. (If you want to prove it to yourself the first few times just do a few before/after ammonia and nitrite tests to confirm whether the removal of the wool caused a "mini-cycle" as we call it, which would be trace measurements of ammonia or nitrite showing up after the change, when they weren's there before.

OK, the second thing is that I wasn't sure about your communication until your latest post but now I think what I'm hearing you say is that its the -commercial- filter pack with the carbon in it that you've found to be doing the slowing down whereas your own homemade one doesn't and your original question was just asking whether it seemed safe to just use 2 homemade ones and chuck the remaining commercial one altogether. (apologies if this seemed obvious to you all along, somehow I couldn't make it out!)

Well, in answer to that I say absolutely! Chuck the commercial one and go with your homemade ones that are working! You are just confirming that you are a member of the club here of hobbyists who are not afraid to experiment all the time with media!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[GoGators]

WD, you and OM47 are life savers. I've got a different problem now. I've got 2 sick gourami, one has a red bump on his chin and a ragged spot on his tail and the other has a spot on his lower fin that's discolored like the other had before it turned ragged. The ragged tail is a very small spot. That being said I'm glad I had an old filter laying around as I had to go buy a 10 gallon hospital tank. I had to cut my DIY filter in half so I had some mature media for the 10 gallon. How long will it take before I can change the remaining commercial filter in the 29 gallon since I had to take half of my diy for the 10 gallon. The 29 has a 2 month old commercial filter and a new pad on the diy with half of the old fiber-fill inside.

I'm treating the gourami with marycyn2. They were in with my other fish for about 2 weeks. Will the others be ok or did I screw up and get the whole community sick.

 

[waterdrop]

I'd recommend trying Wilder over in the emergencies section. WD