Bio Wheel

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KaiserSousay

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Feb 20, 2009
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PartlyCloudyFlorida
Am in the planning fever, over a new filter system.
This will be a combo, filter and vac unit mounted in the stand.
Thinking of a pair of whole house water filters and a 700 or so, gph @tank, pump.
Anyway, had thought using some of the return to drive some bio wheels might be cool.

While that was kicking thru the vast empty that keeps my hat off of my shoulders, I thought….
What about an electric motor driven wheel unit.
Low rpm, sealed motor to drive the wheel.
Small, low rpm gear reduction units can be found at pretty decent prices, as I recall.
The drive could be as simple as friction of a rubber wheel against the bio wheel rim.
Could be like a water wheel, with the bottom just kissing the tanks water.
Or with slow enough rotation, a greater portion of the wheel could be submerged, without splashing or undue noise.
Don`t believe I have seen this anywhere.
 
Sounds like a lot of work for little or no benefit. You'll be fine sticking with normal biomedia.
 
The only way I can think of a DIY BIO wheel being useful is if you did something like this.


Take one of the long flower troth that are like 7'X6"x8", then put the a line of as many bio wheels as you can fit in the troth. Then feed water in from one end and drain back into the tank from the other end. This would be like a compact super bio wheel that could be stored above the tank.

However still my thought that a DIY canister or high efficiency sump would be better use of DIY time.
 
FSM;3670006; said:
Sounds like a lot of work for little or no benefit. You'll be fine sticking with normal biomedia.
Click to expand...

But if I go with the spin on filter units, there really is no place for any bio media.
Not that the in tank colony would not grow to process the ammonia, I just feel better having an out-of-tank colony as well.
Being as wet/dry just really can`t be beat for bacteria colonies, if this goes beyond planning, I could have super bio separate from a high flow, micron sized mechanical filter system.
With the whole thing in the $100 range.
 
knifegill;3670075; said:
Troth? Trough?
Click to expand...

I got cha...:D
I`ve seen the "planter box/window box" above tank filters you mean..
Very clever use of space and materials.

But I think you are missing that this would be part of a high flow mechanical filter system.
Think of a Mag 350 on steroids. Close to 700gph through media I can get at wal mart. Media that will filter to the 20-30 micron range with no by pass.
Pretty serious filtration. Beyond sponges and quilt batting ability.
I will agree that a wet/dry sump could be done, with less headache, but do not agree it would be a better filter.
The only advantage a sump would have is an increase in water volume and a place to stash your heater.
I`ve had sumps. Fed by HOB overflows, both with skimmer and skimmer less, and PVC “pretzels”.
Cool systems, great builds and allot of fun to put together.
Because of space in stand limitations, mine had to be on the small side and at times, was a real headache to keep in balance.
Sumps are great bio factories, but do only a pretty good job of mechanical filtration. They are OK, don`t get me wrong. I just think this would be better.
 
Sounds like a lot of work for little or no benefit. You'll be fine sticking with normal biomedia.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I thought bio wheels are "normal" bio media.
They are running on my Penguins right now.
They come on Emps and Penguins as well as some Mags and HOT filters.
Kind of a Marineland identifier.
The only change would be not depending on the flow from any other source to turn the wheels.

As far as the time invested, well it is my time to waste, eh?
This might not go any further than planning, but so far, have not seen anything that would keep it from being a "killer" bio system.
 
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