Making your own cermics for BB growth

[tscharf]

Im making an attached filter for my rimless 5gal tank and am attempting to make my own cermaics for BB growth. all i did was break up some ceramic tile and im hoping this will work, im not looking at maximizing area or anything, just giving a place for the bacteria to grow. anybody know if this will allow for BB growth or if i should just give in to making a filter for free and go get some ceramics rings from petsmart/

 

[jcardona1]

I don't think so, it's not as porous as the ceramic rings that are sold for meda. I think it would be the same as throwing gravel or marbles in your filter; the surface area won't be much

 

[ar0wan]

But it will work. They live on the surface of everything.
INSERT Ad for Seachem Matrix HERE

 

[jcardona1]

But it will work. They live on the surface of everything.
INSERT Ad for Seachem Matrix HERE

True, but when space is a concern, the objective is to get the media with the most surface area per cubic foot. It's hard to beat ceramic media in this case. If we all had 1000g containers we could use as sumps, we'd dump in a bunch of soccerballs for bio media and call it a day

 

[tscharf]

heres some pics, sorry for the poor quality its my first time cutting glass and siliconing

 

[ar0wan]

That will definatly not hold many soccar bawls

 

[tscharf]

haha as i said its only a 5gal tank, id say the filter holds maybe a gallon or so

 

[ar0wan]

 

[tscharf]

think that stuff will work better?

 

[jcardona1]

think that stuff will work better?

It should be better than the generic ceramic rings I think, but it's hard to know the actual surface area off all these different ceramic media out there. Seachem says this:

Matrix™ is a porous inorganic solid about 10 mm in diameter. Each liter of Matrix™ provides as much surface (>~700 m2) as 170 liters of plastic balls! Plastic bio-materials provide only external surface area, whereas Matrix™ provides both external and internal macroporous surface area