Aquaclear 110
- Thread starter Kustrud
- Start date
i also use to go to the dollar store and buy those black plastic baskets. clip it to the edge of the ac110 and fill that with the bio media. so you have easy access to the mechanical media for maintence. i always found that the ac110 had enough flow to substain a larger portion of media then fits in the back.
Personal preference here. Like i said i like to stack two of those blocks which in theory makes the ac110 a dedicated mechanical filter but in reality the foam contains much more surface area for BB than ceramic rings or the like. The foam will require more intensive maintenance to keep the filter flowing well but ime the two foam blocks in the ac110 is the way to go, minimizes bypass and polishes water the best, and the maintenance is friendly with the included baskets imo. I would say the clearest tanks ive kept were smaller tanks with multiple ac110s running like i described. Ceramic rings and similar are best kept where they will not accumulate detritus and you wont have to disturb it much for cleaning imo.
HOB's in general have that problem; they really aren't well suited for use with biomedia that has very little surface area because there simply isn't room for very much media at all. Sponge media is IMHO the best combination of surface area, price, ease of cleaning, etc. Ceramic rings are really a silly idea in most filters; aside from being heavy, requiring containment in some kind of bag or other corral, and being a PITA to clean...they have relatively little surface area per unit volume. We are forever seeing debates and arguments over which biomedia is "best"...but they all do the same thing, i.e. provide surface area to be colonized by nitrifying bacteria. Therefore, the "best" ones are those which provide the most surface area per unit volume.
Here's a chart lifted from another forum...but I've seen very similar numbers from numerous other sources as well...
Bio Media Comparison Information | Aquarium Filter Forum
Bio Media Comparison in square feet per cubic foot of Surface Area. You have to find a balance between good filtration and water flow. Fast water flow is good to oxidize ammonia but if the media gets clogged too fast the water flow slows and so does the oxidation. The flow through the filters...
www.fishlore.com
Looking at those numbers...without even bothering to consider other factors like cost, weight, ease of handling, etc...it's pretty hard to come up with a good reason for ever choosing ceramic rings as a biomedium. Maybe if you get them for free...and are using a sump with a huge amount of free space...but, otherwise, why even bother with any of those media with laughably small surface area numbers, such as ceramic rings, clay balls, lava rock or even...gasp!...Matrix? But in a HOB like an Aquaclear or any other, with relatively limited room for media...forget it.
And check out the figures for poly-floss! It's messy...needs regular changing as it isn't all that durable...not that easy to clean...certainly not very "green"...but the surface area is immense. The only real problem with it is that every time you change it, you are throwing away all those bacteria and need to have another batch well-started on the replacement floss, so it's just too much trouble to be considered a practical biomedium; better thought of as mechanical filtration only.
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right off the bat im not disagreeing with any of this. but if you take the information for what its worth. im not seeing how bioballs will have a higher surface area then some of the others on that list. but the real takeaway is that. some of the lower surface area media were more efficient then some of the higher surface area media. my take away from that is its more about how the media is used. then the actual surface area.HOB's in general have that problem; they really aren't well suited for use with biomedia that has very little surface area because there simply isn't room for very much media at all. Sponge media is IMHO the best combination of surface area, price, ease of cleaning, etc. Ceramic rings are really a silly idea in most filters; aside from being heavy, requiring containment in some kind of bag or other corral, and being a PITA to clean...they have relatively little surface area per unit volume. We are forever seeing debates and arguments over which biomedia is "best"...but they all do the same thing, i.e. provide surface area to be colonized by nitrifying bacteria. Therefore, the "best" ones are those which provide the most surface area per unit volume.
Here's a chart lifted from another forum...but I've seen very similar numbers from numerous other sources as well...
Bio Media Comparison Information | Aquarium Filter Forum
Bio Media Comparison in square feet per cubic foot of Surface Area. You have to find a balance between good filtration and water flow. Fast water flow is good to oxidize ammonia but if the media gets clogged too fast the water flow slows and so does the oxidation. The flow through the filters...
Looking at those numbers...without even bothering to consider other factors like cost, weight, ease of handling, etc...it's pretty hard to come up with a good reason for ever choosing ceramic rings as a biomedium. Maybe if you get them for free...and are using a sump with a huge amount of free space...but, otherwise, why even bother with any of those media with laughably small surface area numbers, such as ceramic rings, clay balls, lava rock or even...gasp!...Matrix? But in a HOB like an Aquaclear or any other, with relatively limited room for media...forget it.
And check out the figures for poly-floss! It's messy...needs regular changing as it isn't all that durable...not that easy to clean...certainly not very "green"...but the surface area is immense. The only real problem with it is that every time you change it, you are throwing away all those bacteria and need to have another batch well-started on the replacement floss, so it's just too much trouble to be considered a practical biomedium; better thought of as mechanical filtration only.
I almost didn't link the entire conversation, simply because I only wanted the chart showing relative amounts of surface area of the various media. I must say that my take on this is quite different than yours; the writer states clearly that he was wrong the first time he presented his analysis of the info, and frankly I think he is still far off the mark.
Do you really believe that holding up the medium and trying to see through it is any kind of measure of effectiveness?
He is suggesting the same nonsense that was used to market the earliest canister filters many decades ago, i.e. you can go many months between cleanings, and the longer you can "get away with", the better. Honestly, this guy sounds like Father Fish; that's a bad thing.
The notion of increasing the contact time of water with the medium is an old idea, and...as long as it isn't carried to extremes that are unlikely to be achieved in the aquarium...still has merit. The writer is suggesting that wooshing the water through the medium at the maximum possible speed is beneficial; again, perhaps true up to a point, but extremes must be avoided.
If you have a pump that moves 1000l/hr, moving your water through a sheet of foam that is 1 foot square, you will filter you water nicely. If you then double the area (not total surface area, just the area of the mechanical filtration chamber, you will then halve the speed at which that same volume of water passes through the medium, since it has twice as much space. All other things being equal...biomass in the tanks, etc...nothing will change in terms of biological filtration. There won't be more bacteria, since there is no more food for them, but they will be more thinly spread over the larger area.
He talks about the speed at which the medium clogs, and this will happen much more slowly in the second example...but the whole idea of biofiltration is for the medium to never be clogged; it's the mechanical filtration medium which is supposed to remove solids, preventing them from ever getting into the biomedium in the first place. In practice, this is never 100% effective. You will occasionally need to rinse the accumulated fine material from the biomedia to keep it free-flowing, but that should be a rare thing; it's the mechanical medium which should be cleaned...and frequently, not just once a year!
This started out as a discussion of Aquaclear HOB's. IMHO, the best thing to do is simply place 2 or maybe 3 layers of foam and call it quits. Whatever extra surface area you might get from a tiny spoonful of ceramic rings isn't worth even mentioning. And you are probably best off to forget about separating biofiltration and mechanical filtration into two separate categories in that tiny few square inches of space. Clean the bottom sheet of foam (i.e. the dirtier one) weekly in tank water, then put it on top of the other sheet. Doing that every week will allow both sheets to function as both mech and bio filters, and you will be alternately cleaning them and reversing their locations in the filter.
This isn't just theory, that will be re-thunk and re-explained next week and then reversed again the week after. I did it this way in multiple tanks for many years. It works great...until you eventually realize how much better and more convenient a sump is...
Things like bioballs and k1 are intriguing. Even based on manufacters specs they have relatively low surface area but it's the process that makes the beast. IE wet dry or fluidized. Sponges have been and always will be a top tier media. The only downside I have with it is it's buoyancy. They need to be held in place especially of your flowing any reasonable volume through it. Where as say the bricks of sintered glass don't.I almost didn't link the entire conversation, simply because I only wanted the chart showing relative amounts of surface area of the various media. I must say that my take on this is quite different than yours; the writer states clearly that he was wrong the first time he presented his analysis of the info, and frankly I think he is still far off the mark.
Do you really believe that holding up the medium and trying to see through it is any kind of measure of effectiveness?
He is suggesting the same nonsense that was used to market the earliest canister filters many decades ago, i.e. you can go many months between cleanings, and the longer you can "get away with", the better. Honestly, this guy sounds like Father Fish; that's a bad thing.
The notion of increasing the contact time of water with the medium is an old idea, and...as long as it isn't carried to extremes that are unlikely to be achieved in the aquarium...still has merit. The writer is suggesting that wooshing the water through the medium at the maximum possible speed is beneficial; again, perhaps true up to a point, but extremes must be avoided.
If you have a pump that moves 1000l/hr, moving your water through a sheet of foam that is 1 foot square, you will filter you water nicely. If you then double the area (not total surface area, just the area of the mechanical filtration chamber, you will then halve the speed at which that same volume of water passes through the medium, since it has twice as much space. All other things being equal...biomass in the tanks, etc...nothing will change in terms of biological filtration. There won't be more bacteria, since there is no more food for them, but they will be more thinly spread over the larger area.
He talks about the speed at which the medium clogs, and this will happen much more slowly in the second example...but the whole idea of biofiltration is for the medium to never be clogged; it's the mechanical filtration medium which is supposed to remove solids, preventing them from ever getting into the biomedium in the first place. In practice, this is never 100% effective. You will occasionally need to rinse the accumulated fine material from the biomedia to keep it free-flowing, but that should be a rare thing; it's the mechanical medium which should be cleaned...and frequently, not just once a year!
This started out as a discussion of Aquaclear HOB's. IMHO, the best thing to do is simply place 2 or maybe 3 layers of foam and call it quits. Whatever extra surface area you might get from a tiny spoonful of ceramic rings isn't worth even mentioning. And you are probably best off to forget about separating biofiltration and mechanical filtration into two separate categories in that tiny few square inches of space. Clean the bottom sheet of foam (i.e. the dirtier one) weekly in tank water, then put it on top of the other sheet. Doing that every week will allow both sheets to function as both mech and bio filters, and you will be alternately cleaning them and reversing their locations in the filter.
This isn't just theory, that will be re-thunk and re-explained next week and then reversed again the week after. I did it this way in multiple tanks for many years. It works great...until you eventually realize how much better and more convenient a sump is...
Good discussion!!!
Anyone know the PPI in the stock AC 110 sponge by chance?
I got this stuff and put a layer on top of the sponge and it fits perfectly! Just wonder how long each piece will last….
I definitely am going to go with either two AC 110 sponges, or one on the bottom plus something a little finer on top.
Anyone know the PPI in the stock AC 110 sponge by chance?
I got this stuff and put a layer on top of the sponge and it fits perfectly! Just wonder how long each piece will last….
I definitely am going to go with either two AC 110 sponges, or one on the bottom plus something a little finer on top.
Bioballs are meant for wet/dry towers...and K1 is designed for a fluid-bed filter. So both of them pretty much require a reasonably spacious sump to operate as intended. But...if you have all that space, what is the point of some ultra-efficient filtration medium...complete with its specialized hardware...when any old ghetto-grade basket of foam or tub full of potscrubbers can be used in sufficient quantity to provide more than enough surface area for the biofiltration required?
If you are using one or two tiny little HOB filters, it almost makes sense to go for some top-of-the-line biomedia...except you simply don't have the room to utilize them to their fullest capacity in that dinky little filter box.
Yeah, yeah, I get it...a wet-dry trickle tower provides plenty of oxygen for lots of bacteria...and a tumbling swirling mass of K1 creates a violent environment in which only the healthiest, toughest, most fighting-trim bacteria get to survive and do their thing. So what? Your filter either supports enough biological bacterial activity to process the ammonia being produced...or it doesn't. And in the real world, a couple of tiny HOB filters will handle the bioload of a large aquarium. Anything more might add to the "cool" factor...or as cool as fish tank filters can be...and might make it easier to take out some media to kickstart other tanks...but beyond that, what's the point?
I've got a large quantity of K1 tumbling like mad in my biggest sump downstairs; I'm way to cheap to buy stuff like that, but I got it essentially for free. Adding it did absolutely nothing discernible in terms of improving my tank's health. It gets to stay only because my granddaughters like to watch it tumbling.
If you are using one or two tiny little HOB filters, it almost makes sense to go for some top-of-the-line biomedia...except you simply don't have the room to utilize them to their fullest capacity in that dinky little filter box.
Yeah, yeah, I get it...a wet-dry trickle tower provides plenty of oxygen for lots of bacteria...and a tumbling swirling mass of K1 creates a violent environment in which only the healthiest, toughest, most fighting-trim bacteria get to survive and do their thing. So what? Your filter either supports enough biological bacterial activity to process the ammonia being produced...or it doesn't. And in the real world, a couple of tiny HOB filters will handle the bioload of a large aquarium. Anything more might add to the "cool" factor...or as cool as fish tank filters can be...and might make it easier to take out some media to kickstart other tanks...but beyond that, what's the point?
I've got a large quantity of K1 tumbling like mad in my biggest sump downstairs; I'm way to cheap to buy stuff like that, but I got it essentially for free. Adding it did absolutely nothing discernible in terms of improving my tank's health. It gets to stay only because my granddaughters like to watch it tumbling.
On the 225, my aquaclear 110s have ceramic rings at the bottom, bio bale in the middle, and poret 20 foam on top. In the smaller tanks I get better results with filter media pad up top. The water flow from the aqueons makes even poret 20 foam clog quicky. I use filter pad that is dark green polyfiber on the smaller tanks.
