How much Media is enough ?

Logic tells me that the dominant bacteria strain would be whichever has the most to eat. I have nothing to back that statement up, so people who actually know stuff may say otherwise.

I definitely overkill on bio-media(ceramic rings), just so if I ever need to set up a quick tank, I'm always ready to go.

I basically follow the same school of thinking that applies to gathering firewood for winter. Get as much as you need, then double that amount.

Its hard to say really, I ran a 40g with a heavy bioload off of just a little baby eheim 2213... I don't anymore, I replaced it with 2 larger canisters. Was the 2213 adequate? It sure was and I never had an ammonia problem. Was upgrading to 4x the capacity necessary? Probably not, but it makes cleaning easier. And it makes it almos impossible for an average dumb guy like me to mess it up.

I plan for having half of my bio media being wiped out at any given time... whether it be from catastrophic equipment failure or an aggressive cleaning / maintenance schedule.

I'm willing to bet that 9/10 individuals who post on here have several times the necessary bio media in their tanks. But this is mfk afterall lol. There's no such thing as too much if you can keep up with cleaning it all.

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I most likely have enough media to run a waste water treatment plant. I buy bio media like some people buy donuts. Every time I see it I can't pass it up.

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I like overkill on my Bio media and like Mudbuttjones mention, my filter bio system capable to handle 400+ gallons bio load but it's all on my 125 gallons plus heavy planted...there is no way my water parameter getting crash by any kind of failure from equipments or human mistakes.

Edit: TBH my tank can be plants filtration only with my current stock, I just keep the power head on for water circulation.

Aquafreak said:

I most likely have enough media to run a waste water treatment plant. I buy bio media like some people buy donuts. Every time I see it I can't pass it up.

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I have about 40-50 liters of unused matrix plus a little ceramic. I changed over to Poret in all applications except a moving bed with 100 liters of K1.

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Podzy said:

You mention how your Bio system is capable of handlng 400+ gallons bioload. is this based on the media that came with your filtration ?
For example , Im only using what came with both fx 6 , I know its capable of 563 gph flow rate , but How do i know what type of bio load my media can handle ?

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No, I ran multi filters system on my tank and also add extra bio media in all my filter (those bio media came in with filter from manufacture never enough )
As for Bio load the BB only grow and stay within range of the bio load from your fish waste, there is no benefit to have more bio media (its benefit if you add more stock later and you knew that your bio grow more and can handle the new bio load in shorter time). You said that your tank ammonia reduced to 0 ppm in 12 hours so I have to ask how often you feed your fish? If Ammo/Nitrites at 0 ppm before the next meal then you're fine and your filter doing it job fine adding more bio media might make the circle faster but I have nothing to back that up.

..........."your Bio system is capable of handlng 400+ gallons bioload"

A single sponge filter will handle it with not a lot of stock! How much bio load a particular filter can handle has nothing whatsoever to do with how many gallons a system is. It has everything to do with the maintenance, stocking, type of fish, feeding............