claypots as biomedia?

[spoofsjsc]

I made a few DIY plants and used claypots as wight to keep them down. i noticed a decent amount of bacterial growth on some after being buried in the substrate (esp the ones in the gravel-substrated tank).
Now the question is...
I'm working on a sump and i'm thinking of using small,broken pieces of clay pots as media. they're probably porous like ceramic rings right?

 

[bigspizz]

If thats all you have it will work till you upgrade....But their are many cheap household items you can use for biomedia that imo would produce better results.

 

[kitbasher]

I think techinically they would work. Since clay pots are fired in a kiln they have a finer grain and are not as porous as other bio-media. The name of the game is surface area. The ceramic bio-media has lots of holes in it so lots of surface area. Nylon scrubbies have lots and lots of surface area. The only thing I would worry about with the clay pots is channeling. I think they would "fill" up and the water would flow around it.

 

[Nic]

they would work but your better off going to the dollar store and buy nylon scrubbies or a bucket of bioballs as said key is surface area and you will need as much as you can possibly fit in there