Bio wheel filters?

[JedClampett]

So recently I decided to set up a bigger tank and my lfs gave me a bio wheel marineland penguin filter, so I can put that on the bigger tank, and I'm going to turn my Acuaclear 30 into a hob refugium. So my question is will the bio wheel filter be alright, I've heard different views on the subject. I do weekly water changes so I would think that my nitrates will not get high?

 

[mike007]

If you doing a reef tank I would take out the bio wheels. If you don't replace them often they will cause nitrate issues.

 

[Pfisherman]

In my 5.5g i use a biowheel as an algal scrubber. I dont know why it is not more common, ill post a pic. The algae grows on the wheel and then i filled up the media area with rubble rocks. This is a terrible pic btw, as this setup requires literally no maintenance. Minus water topoffs and infrequent water changes.

 

[JedClampett]

If you take out the bio wheel, will it still run carbon and gfo

 

[Pfisherman]

If you doing a reef tank I would take out the bio wheels. If you don't replace them often they will cause nitrate issues.

I respectfully disagree with this. I dont have any evidence as to why, but that doesnt make sense to me. I would however agree that if you dont change the cartridges often they would become a nutritional wasteland.

 

[JedClampett]

I've heard people say they don't replace the cartridges that often, but just clean them a lot

 

[Dtackett]

the biowheel design isn't very good. they improved it with the emperor series with a spray bar to hit the wheel but in the penguins the wheels aren't very effective. I could see using them as an algae scrubber, but for a biofilter its useless. mine had the issue of the wheel getting stuck and not free spinning. wasn't hard to correct but it did get annoying.

 

[Pfisherman]

I've heard people say they don't replace the cartridges that often, but just clean them a lot

In my first tank which was a 75, i ran the big biowheel filter it was called an emperor 400 i believe. I tried to only clean the cartridges and they became clogged with organic material pretty regularly. Im not recommend trying to run hob filtration but it can be done. I also ran a home made hob refugium that displaced about 5g of water. I will post a pic of that in the am.

It can be done, but its far from perfect.

 

[JedClampett]

Thanks, I would like to see you homemade one. I'll probably just put some rubble rock and chaeto in mine

 

[Pfisherman]

 

[Pfisherman]

 

[Pfisherman]

I used to do a lot of diy lol

 

[JedClampett]

So final opinion, run it with gfo and activated carbon, also doing weekly water changes and cleaning it or not running it

 

[JedClampett]

Why is it not a good thing that these filters quickly get rid of ammonia and nitrite, because nitrate is the least harmful, and wouldn't my water changes get rid of any

 

[Pfisherman]

The aerobic bacteria that colonize the wheels are what do this. They are superior to other hob filtration in that respect. More tomorrow.

 

[JedClampett]

Ok thx for all the help

 

[Waters]

When you are using media such as the bio wheels to complete the nitrogen cycle, the nitrates remain in your system, constantly building up until they are removed manually. When you are completing the cycle using good quality live rock, (ideally) the nitrates are converted into nitrogen gas, and removed into the air. This is due to the anaerobic bacteria that reside deep within the live rock.....these bacteria do not exist on filter wheels, bio balls, etc. That is the reason people say that these type of media can become "nitrate factories".

 

[brandon429]

Waters we were tying at the same time I have a different tske



The reason bio wheels and bio balls are claimed bad is twofold. 1 detritus retention, so if you clean them thats null (using extra surface area in a reef requires cleaning more often) and 2 no way for denitrification which originated from the idea that live rock is preferable because it has the bacteria to degas nitrate instead of just pump it out.

Those claims are from the 90s and persist today

But ff to 2105 is live rock doing anything to help the common reef reduce nitrate? Nope

Enter vodka dosing

Plants

Pellets

Sulfur denitrators

Skimmers, removes the precursor

Because: live rock doesn't degas enough to offset the bioloads and non cleaning we do in these tanks.

So your bio wheel is not required, it's extra surface area, optional and not bad if you wanted to run nine on a tank if you'll just clean them. Our live rock is producing more nitrate than bio balls and bio wheels (reversing the 90s claim) so we act directly on the nitrate now


I would agree that LR may do measurable helpful NNR under these conditions:
High dilution factor, low bioload, very clean organic removal care for the rocks constantly and a massive ratio of holey live rock to gallons of water and our tanks by and large just aren't like that, we reverse it