Increasing the efficency of a wet dry

[Ornatapinnis]

You guys are wrong, putting air stones under your bio balls does increace the efficiency and activity of your nitryfying bacteria. THe reason is that the typical wet / dry is built with a bio ball chamber that is "sealed up" pretty well to prvent water splashing all over the place. THey have a pretty tight fitting lid and most systems maintain the water level up to the bottom on the bio ball chamber. Because of this, air flow thru the bio ball chamber is very minimal. Nitryfying bacteria consume large amounts of oxygen and can quickly lower the oxygen levels in a semi-sealed up chamber decreasing thier efficiency (not stoping thier activity but slowing it down) An airstone will deliver a fresh supply of oxygen to them eliminating this situation. I have first hand witnessed on my own as well as my clients aquariums. I think I first learned of this from Martin Moe from one of his books about designing filtration systems. I also believe that this is suggested by Dr. Watler Addey on his system design.

Thick Cell-pore slabs if situated in your sump properly can generate low oxygen conditions inside of them that can generate nitrate consuming bacteria (chemautoforic bacteria sp.) You don't want anareobic (no oxygen) conditions, this can cause hydrogensulphide to occour in your water.

Joel

 

[Nic]

thank you joel dont want hydrogensulphide in my tank

 

[Star-Flog]

... If you are running a wet/dry filter twice the recommended size for your aquarium and cycling your tank 20 times an hour there is still only so much FOOD for the bacteria to remove. Any extra bacteria will die off due to starvation.hope this clears some things up. keep asking if it doesn't!!

I'm just curious on your comments quoted as above. Isn't it no such thing as '"over-filtered" water (actually, the more the merrier) and even though beneficial bacteria may die off due to shortage of 'food' and it means that water is in its prime condition..

 

[dodgefreak8]

I'm just curious on your comments quoted as above. Isn't it no such thing as '"over-filtered" water (actually, the more the merrier) and even though beneficial bacteria may die off due to shortage of 'food' and it means that water is in its prime condition..

it is a good thing to be overfiltered just in case there is an increase in food for the bacteria. but that bacteria will only exist if there is food for it to eat. having the capability to house and utilize more bacteria than your tank needs is definatly the goal in overfiltration, but until it is needed that bacteria won't be there.

 

[dodgefreak8]

just thought I would share my filtration for my 220 so you get my point. I have a pro clear aquatics wet/dry filter for 300 gallons with about 1600gph flowing through it, 2 emporer 400's flowing 800 gph and 2 XP# canister filters flowing 700 gph. so total I have 2700 gph of filtration which cycles my tank about 12 times an hour. So I am greatly over filtered plus my aquarium is fairly heavily planted and under stocked (until my fish are full grown). And to get back to the air stone question my wet/dry is fairly open to the atmosphere it has about 10 1/2" size holes drilled in it just under the prefilter tray and is not even close to sealed tight. Maybe my filter is of newer design to address this problem of less oxygen but I still thingk it is not needed. Canister filters are still great biological filters and they only get O2 from the water that flows through it. for what it costs to run an air pump on my electric bill I think I would just drill some holes in my filter to aid in the the added air.