Why does everyone overdo the bio?

cvermeulen

Jack Dempsey
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OK, now, this is just an opinion and I'm hoping for some reasonable debate here on the topic of biological filtration.

I've noticed that a lot of folks wayyyyy overkill their biofilters, wetherh it's by using expensive media, massive bakki style bio towers, huge sumps with bioballs and scrubbies, or whatever else. Now, a huge sump is great for adding water volume and housing equipment, but having 5 different kinds of media in there always makes me scratch my head. I can totally understand overkilling the mech fitlration, because there is clarity to be gained from it, but at some point with bio, you are only providing extra surface area that will not be used by BB. Read that again, it won't be used.

A tank will only support enough BB to process it's ammonia and nitrites in a certain time scale. Increasing the flow may shorten the time it takes to process slightly, but it won't grow your bacteria colony. My favorite example is a 120gal tank, that I had 3 very large, very messy, piggish monsters in. I was running a sump with some filter socks and 5 gallons or so of a mishmash of bioballs, pea gravel, and crushed coral, all running off a cheap 800gph pump. Now, I had to do water changes every week to keep the nitrates down, but the BB was more than adequate to deal with the ammonia, so why would you make a bio tower and 30gals of scrubbies and a rugf in the tank, and blah blah blah?

Wet dry filters may be theoretically more powerful, but they are also (usually) noisy, and the "dry" section is lost water volume. DIY bio towers just look like a pain to deal with if they ever need maintenance. Why bother if your tank does not require it?

Dont' get me wrong, I completely understand the appeal of overdoing things, but my aim here is to open the idea that in some cases less is more. A 70gal sump on a 200gl tank is great in some ways, but if it fills up the stand and is a pain to get at and the job could be done by a rugf, or a trio of AC110's or a canister then you know, maybe the rugf makes more sense, even though it's not as overkill.

It's akin to adding 2x4 framing to the outside of a 100gl plywood tank I guess. Yeah it's stronger, but it just doesn't need to be, so why bother?

Anyways, other opinions on the matter?
 

cvermeulen

Jack Dempsey
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And to be the first reply to my own thread, another example. I started my (first) 200gl plywood tank running a 70gl sump with a 3600gph pump. It had 20gals of bioballs, filter socks, powerheads in the tank, AND I had an FX5 on the tank. It was just dumb. Well, my sump plumbing started to leak, so I had to remove it from service, with the RUGF. The powerhead in the tank died, and I was left with only an FX5.

Well now, what was this. My water was just as clear, if not clearer because the debris could settle instead of being constantly stirred. The house got about 6db quieter, and my weekly maintenance was cut to about 1/3. The tank's power consumption went down drastically, and I stopped having to peel leaves off my overflow screen. This was long ago, and it first got me thinking about appropriate levels of filtration - just another anecdote to discuss.
 

ettfettbranamn

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I can see why you'd have massive filtration units if you are one of those who run 2 300g tanks, 1 600, a 1200 pond, and a couple of 125s.. with that amount of fish something just always happens and you can't be ready enough with spare bb and filtration. If I had the money I'd definately do one of those good looking sumps just like the computer guys have custom chassis for their computers with coloured water and stuff to cool it..

I guess the excess is a part of it.. but you are absolutely right.. the bb will only grow as long as it has nutrition = fish poo/rotting matter.. I'm pretty happy with my canisters but I'm on the other hand not extreme enough to have a fair opinion..
 

cvermeulen

Jack Dempsey
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ettfettbranamn;3530965; said:
I can see why you'd have massive filtration units if you are one of those who run 2 300g tanks, 1 600, a 1200 pond, and a couple of 125s.. with that amount of fish something just always happens and you can't be ready enough with spare bb and filtration. If I had the money I'd definately do one of those good looking sumps just like the computer guys have custom chassis for their computers with coloured water and stuff to cool it..

I guess the excess is a part of it.. but you are absolutely right.. the bb will only grow as long as it has nutrition = fish poo/rotting matter.. I'm pretty happy with my canisters but I'm on the other hand not extreme enough to have a fair opinion..
Oh absolutely. A huge system like that needs to cope with big upsets. I'm just always surprised by the excess on some people's basic 50-150gl tanks. Whatever makes you happy, but the noise, humidity and maintenance are not fun after the initial setup. I wondered if people (like me) were thinking more is better when they set it up, only to be signing themselves up for big power bills, humidity, noise, leaks, maintenance, blah blah blah.
 

Pharaoh

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Cleaned up thread. This will be a good topic to foster for discussion. Please keep side comments to PMs or start a new thread.

I for one think a lot of it might have to do with ignorance with regard to knowing how much bio media is necessary. Common idea is, "if you don't know, double it to be safe."
 

cvermeulen

Jack Dempsey
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Noto;3530999; said:
Did you see the similar thread here: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=264851?

I think a lot of people either (A) have been mislead, accidentally or deliberately, by sales clerks and fellow hobbyists regarding how much biofiltration is enough, or (B) like you said, think bigger is better and don't realize just how much overkill they are engaging in.
Oh no I didn't see that. Thanks for posting. I'm sure it's been kicked around many times, but I wanted to keep it fresh - so many people don't look at older threads. I like what he has to say about a single HOB running a tank. That's how a lot of LFS's do things too - either a single sponge or an HOB for larger tanks. I prefer to run two, because they are cheap, you get redundancy, and you also have mobile seeded filters.

I recall using an old aquaclear HOB with a single floss cartridge to filter my oscar tank when I was only a teenager, and I never had any problems with the fish.

Currently I have a 200gl tub filtered by a large bucket sitting on a shelf with nothing more than pillow stuffing in it. 10gls bio balls = $$$, one pillow stuffing = $9.99. Bonus; pillow stuffing does mech as well.
 

cvermeulen

Jack Dempsey
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Further bonus to HOB filters and canisters (lets see if I get flamed like last time I brought this up) Sumps are very energy inefficient. An AC110 uses something like 12W, and an FX5 is on the order of 30W, I forget the exact numbers. my 800gph pump running my sump is something like 75W. A properly gas exchanged W/D will also result in a fair bit of evaporation and heat loss. You can stick a lid on it, but then there's little to no point having it partially dry.
 

FSM

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They aren't that inefficient if you get a good pump. Quiet one 4000 pumps 1000 GPH at 0 head, 50 watts.

An FX5 uses about 50 watts as well.
 

Pharaoh

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cvermeulen;3531025; said:
Oh no I didn't see that. Thanks for posting. I'm sure it's been kicked around many times, but I wanted to keep it fresh - so many people don't look at older threads. I like what he has to say about a single HOB running a tank. That's how a lot of LFS's do things too - either a single sponge or an HOB for larger tanks. I prefer to run two, because they are cheap, you get redundancy, and you also have mobile seeded filters.

I recall using an old aquaclear HOB with a single floss cartridge to filter my oscar tank when I was only a teenager, and I never had any problems with the fish.

Currently I have a 200gl tub filtered by a large bucket sitting on a shelf with nothing more than pillow stuffing in it. 10gls bio balls = $$$, one pillow stuffing = $9.99. Bonus; pillow stuffing does mech as well.
Same can go with bio media for sumps.

Sumps become really efficient when running multiple tanks or just plain old huge tanks. HOBs would not be efficient at that point when looking at incurred purchase costs, maintenance time and wattage.
 
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