Bio Media best choice for Sump advice?

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amazontank

amazontank

Redtail Catfish
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Nov 14, 2010
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I am gonna make a move this weekend on investing in bio media. Here are my choices.

I have a 720 with Sump and center over flow. I wanted to add some bio media in the tower as well. I have now 2 gallons of bio balls and large bio cubes in the sump along with some Eheim Substrate Pro.



Here are my choices let me know what the experts are using and any suggestions for my sump and tower.

Bio Chem Stars 20 pack for 8 dollars. 8x20= 160 stars for 60 bucks.

Seachem Matrix 5 gallons 100 dollars.

Eheim substrate pro 2 gallons for 80 dollars

Marinepure biomedia 1 gallon 70 dollars

Marine pure bio block 8x8x4 is 70 dollars each.

Anything better? Thanks in advance for anybodies help!
 
joe jaskot said:
I'd go with the marinepure (either one).
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Thanks man from all my research that seems to be the best choice. The most expensive also I can't afford to fill my sump up with it. Maybe Bio balls in sump and put a bag of Marinepure in the bottom of the center overflow tower. The tower can hold 30 gallons of media, but my lfs guy said to not put anything in the tower.
 
amazontank said:
Thanks man from all my research that seems to be the best choice. The most expensive also I can't afford to fill my sump up with it. Maybe Bio balls in sump and put a bag of Marinepure in the bottom of the center overflow tower. The tower can hold 30 gallons of media, but my lfs guy said to not put anything in the tower.
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I personally don't care for bio balls. They don't have a huge amount of surface area and you are way better off with matrix or really porous pumice/lava rock/cinders. Bio balls work well in wet/drys but submerged there are a lot better options.


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100 liters of Kaldness K1 in a 100 gallon stock tank moving bed filter. Can't be beat. Mechanical filtration by socks. 100 liters treats the fish waste of about of about 20 lbs of fish. I have room to add another 50 liters in the future.
 
rodger said:
100 liters of Kaldness K1 in a 100 gallon stock tank moving bed filter. Can't be beat. Mechanical filtration by socks. 100 liters treats the fish waste of about of about 20 lbs of fish. I have room to add another 50 liters in the future.
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That sounds like a bad ass filter I will look into this stuff. How do you do a moving bed btw?
 
add air to create movement to the media via big air stones or off the return I believe buts it a bit harder.

my friend just buys those plastic storage tubs, puts a mesh on the top and bottom so water can flow freely then puts it in the sump with some air stones under it this lets the media dance, theres a few methods to do it its big in aquaponics.
 
I agree with your LFS, I wouldn't put anything in that overflow tower either. It'll just get covered with crap and then it'll be a nightmare to clean. Bio media should always go after the mech media.

From what I can tell MarinePure's claim to fame is the extremely high surface area and the ability to create denitrifying zones. They recommend that the blocks be used in passive filtration, which means basically just sitting there with minimal water movement over it, to achieve the denitrifying effect. Not sure how well that'll work in a high flow sump. So unless you can achieve that then really it comes down to if MarinePure has more surface area then other ceramic media to house more aerobic bacteria and allow you to have a higher fish load. I cant help you there as I dont know. I think if it was me I would just get a bunch of Matrix since its sooo much cheaper and has been proven.
 
Pond Matrix is alot more cost effective for a larger tank. That being said, I wouldn't add bio to the towers unless you're extremely overstocked and have no room in the sump. Anything in there is just going to collect debris and be a challenge to clean.
 
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