To floss or not to floss...

[sunkenmetal]

It takes a little longer to get them "plate ready"

Nein

[SunnyHouTX]

Nein

LOL

BTW, anybody know how long it takes typical biomedia to get fully loaded with good bacteria? A couple of weeks? A couple of months?

[Totenkampf]

amano will seed his canisters for two months, i think that seems a bit long. too bad you cant take it offline for a bit and blast em with a fishless cycle regime for a couple weeks. i loaded up biowheels to the point that they barely move in three doing this recently.

[sunkenmetal]

Take some bio media out of an established filter ad to your new filter that should speed things up....

[Totenkampf]

on an interesting note, the german engineer olaf deter (a primary figure connected with introducing the hamburg mattenfilter to german aquarists on a large scale) will size these HMF systems so that 2 water exchanges pass through the poret pad per hour. he has calculated that this is optimum for bacterial conversion based on his experiences with sewerage treatment plants. i wonder if we are shooting ourselves in the foot by using high flow rate pumps on bio rigs? Maybe a slow trickle wet/dry for bio and higher flow cansiters for mechanical combination are the best / most efficient way?

[aggrofishkeeper]

Just buy a bottle of live bacteria and dump it into your filter.

[SunnyHouTX]

Just buy a bottle of live bacteria and dump it into your filter.

And they'll instantly latch on to the bio media?

[Totenkampf]

you have to add bacteria glue too sunny. i always use the bacteria start stuff but i dont know if it establishes the filter much more quickly, especially since this is for a running aquarium so you have plenty of bacteria on the decor already. i do dose it now an again just to make sure that there are a variety of bugs present and not just a couple dominant ones. bio-zyme under the gravel worked well tho, but i cant find it for FW much these days.

[SunnyHouTX]

Yeah, I've heard that 2 months number being thrown around before. I guess I just have to look at the haze a little but longer

[SunnyHouTX]

on an interesting note, the german engineer olaf deter (a primary figure connected with introducing the hamburg mattenfilter to german aquarists on a large scale) will size these HMF systems so that 2 water exchanges pass through the poret pad per hour. he has calculated that this is optimum for bacterial conversion based on his experiences with sewerage treatment plants. i wonder if we are shooting ourselves in the foot by using high flow rate pumps on bio rigs? Maybe a slow trickle wet/dry for bio and higher flow cansiters for mechanical combination are the best / most efficient way?

That's a good topic for a long discussion.

I think, high flow or low flow, what matters is the amount of active bacteria present on the bio media. I also think that for a bigger tank having a higher flow through rate in the filters and good flow inside the tank is important so that any ammonia/nitrite spikes are dissipated quickly.

That's why I wanted a 8x - 10x tank volume flow through my canisters and 4x - 5x flow through my sumps in all my tanks. So far this rule of thumb has served me well and I'm not speaking for others. When you get to 200+ gallon tanks, this gets harder to do because there aren't any canisters that can offer that kind of flow. At that level, 2x 2262 or 2x FX5 are the best options.

With municipal waste water treatment plants, the requirements are different since there's no way to retrieve water when it leaves the plant after treatment. So it's important to have as much reaction time as possible to get as much junk out as possible.

Since we recirculate water in our tanks between water changes, we can fudge with flow rates a little bit more since the water is constantly being treated as it's being loaded with ammonia.

There's a certain point where flow through the filters has to be enough to handle the bioload being created in the tank. Below that level, the filters can't keep up.

[sunkenmetal]

Look at the big brain on sunny...

[aquabee]

Look at the big brain on sunny...

He hides it well.

[aquabee]

I'm definitely big on water clarity so I use at least some floss and pads in the 2260. Then again, I don't have that big of a bioload in the 105... yet.

[wesleydnunder]

I use floss in both canisters. I have to replace it a little more often but to me it's worth the work to have the water clear.

Mark

[Totenkampf]

hmmm, maybe i should revisit floss on a cleanup type filter...i still dont want it in my tray canisters but maybe a mech only classic type?