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A discussion HERE, brought to mind a question I have. When I was setting up my first scape using an Oase Biomaster filter, I followed advice of the Pondguru on Youtube. When reviewing canister filters, he basically tosses out most of the foam and loads up the filter with bio-media and carbon foam last. I set up mine similar. I have the 30ppm foam in the prefilter, Medium foam in first tray, bio-media in all other trays but last, and polishing pad plus some Purigen in the last tray. I've since read that heavily planted tanks don't really need all that bio-media and you're just wasting money with it. @Dennis Wong's comments in the post linked above seem to follow that. What are your thoughts? How do you set up your canister filters? Do you continue using Purigen or carbon in established tanks?
A discussion HERE, brought to mind a question I have. When I was setting up my first scape using an Oase Biomaster filter, I followed advice of the Pondguru on Youtube. When reviewing canister filters, he basically tosses out most of the foam and loads up the filter with bio-media and carbon foam last. I set up mine similar. I have the 30ppm foam in the prefilter, Medium foam in first tray, bio-media in all other trays but last, and polishing pad plus some Purigen in the last tray. I've since read that heavily planted tanks don't really need all that bio-media and you're just wasting money with it. @Dennis Wong's comments in the post linked above seem to follow that. What are your thoughts? How do you set up your canister filters? Do you continue using Purigen or carbon in established tanks?
I know a lot of fellow hobbyists that do use Purigen and live by it; it’s absolutely another great ‘tool’ to have in there, but I simply haven’t gotten to it yet for this setup.
I have used Purigen in the past, but it seemed more for ‘insurance’ in the case something went wrong.
Yah I was surprised by Dennis’s comment but obviously trust his expertise. I had seen that Green aqua recommended loading the whole oase set up with biological media specifically matrix which I what I have on my oase 350 except the top most chamber which has the orange foam and the pre filter has the usual sponge as well. So far my water is pretty clear but not sure if it would be better with foam. The only time I used purigen was to soak up the tannins from the wood when first set up
I only use Purigen to remove medication. Most of my filters just use foam. I used to use a lot of biomedia, but it just makes them heavy and isn’t necessary.
A discussion HERE, brought to mind a question I have. When I was setting up my first scape using an Oase Biomaster filter, I followed advice of the Pondguru on Youtube. When reviewing canister filters, he basically tosses out most of the foam and loads up the filter with bio-media and carbon foam last. I set up mine similar. I have the 30ppm foam in the prefilter, Medium foam in first tray, bio-media in all other trays but last, and polishing pad plus some Purigen in the last tray. I've since read that heavily planted tanks don't really need all that bio-media and you're just wasting money with it. @Dennis Wong's comments in the post linked above seem to follow that. What are your thoughts? How do you set up your canister filters? Do you continue using Purigen or carbon in established tanks?
I also did the same as you after watching the Pondguru videos before setting up the Tank. Partly because I liked the idea of having a 30ppm foam before rest of the main filter. But I see now that a lot of you run with 30ppm foam in the prefilter while I have 10ppm.
I think I will switch to 30ppm in the prefilter and gradually change back to a setup looking more like the original setup from Oase.
Most likely I will use the Hel-X provided with the filter in the two lowest trays and just use foam in the rest of the trays. Hopefully I can just leave the two lowest trays untouched when cleaning the main filter
I'm using Purigen in the topmost layer to reduce the tannins, with Matrix in the bottom section instead of the supplied biomedia. Otherwise the foam as supplied by Oase in the prefilter and other chambers.
Interesting, when I first looked at filters I came across the pond guru too, and then went and added heaps more Bio media, I was really keeping fish, no plants at that point.
My canister filters are still set up the same way. and haven't given it much thought since, Yes ive seen Green Aqua recommend the same as the PG.
But recently I was really surprised when I was reading this thread Journal - Experiment Tank || 90x50x36cm, 39gal, Horizontal Reactor High-energy Aquascape Journal and noted the filter setup, and wondered the same, Maybe plant focussed tanks don't need to be re configured with the additional bio media ? Im guessing also its more to do with improving flow, Re-powering a canister with an external pump.
Something im curious about too. I haven't read the link of Dennis's you've added but will.
On Naturescapes_ROCCO, S tank the pre filter, filter is quite small to house much Bio Media, I see he does have a UV steriliser as well,im not familiar with them of how they are used.
I use a combination of stratified foam filters (coarse to fine) and some dedicated biological media. Usually the more fish or intense feeding the higher the % of biological media.
TLDR; Biological filtration is more than nitrification . Even a foam filter can be enough, if you reduce your BOD another way, such as water changes.
Maybe it helps to state that nitrification is only a small part of biological filtration, so 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite is not a complete indicator of a good biological filter. It does nitrification, what about the other organic chemicals released in the water column? In water science, the biological oxygen demand (BOD) is used to estimate the degree of organic pollution of water bodies. The method to get this parameter is time intensive and not readily available at the hobbyist level. If we can't readily measure it, we have to be proactive at reducing BOD by reducing input (e.g. light stocking of all creatures, lower metabolism), dilution (water changes) or filtration (oxidization, resins, biological).
In this context, if we decide to limit the use of the other BOD limiting strategies, biological filtration becomes more important. Given a suitable growth environment (oxygen or lack of it, temperature, pH, etc.), microbial populations will be limited by space and nutrients. The thinking is we want to be prepared for a large release of organics (uprooting plants, large trimming, dead inhabitant) so we want to provide plenty of space for the microbial population. "Biological media" claims to do this. "Mechanical media" such as foams of filter floss will also become colonized and act as support for your biological filtration. In case of mechanical media, a part of the biological filtration gets disrupted as the media gets clogged, cleaned or replaced. So maybe it's worth having some dedicated biological media or maybe you won't ever notice a difference.
Greetings ladies and gents. New to the forum here. First post outside the welcome forum so be gentle.
I have done the opposite to the suggestion in the OP and chucked out all my expensive biomedia and replaced with 20 ppm foam, with great effect. Unexplainably my nitrates actaully went down. Everything else was perfect. I have become more and more convinced that the whole biomedia industry is rather "snake oily" and offers no improvment in useable surface area over foam. All these claims of surface area mean nothing in real use as the surface area in tiny pores may be absolutely useless in the real world aquarium filter. I have seen very little evidence either way and what I have seen has favoured using foam. I think there is also a groundswell (possibly more among thinking fishkeepers rather than scapers) of doing as I have done.
Greetings ladies and gents. New to the forum here. First post outside the welcome forum so be gentle.
I have done the opposite to the suggestion in the OP and chucked out all my expensive biomedia and replaced with 20 ppm foam, with great effect. Unexplainably my nitrates actaully went down. Everything else was perfect. I have become more and more convinced that the whole biomedia industry is rather "snake oily" and offers no improvment in useable surface area over foam. All these claims of surface area mean nothing in real use as the surface area in tiny pores may be absolutely useless in the real world aquarium filter. I have seen very little evidence either way and what I have seen has favoured using foam. I think there is also a groundswell (possibly more among thinking fishkeepers rather than scapers) of doing as I have done.
For a while, I followed the Green Aqua recommendations and packed my filter full of biological media. But after reading more, I started swapping some of it out for foam. Honestly, I didn’t notice any major visual change in the aquarium, the Oase prefilter was already doing a great job catching debris, and I’ve always kept the top orange foam layer in place.
The one real advantage I can see for biological media, though, is that it doesn’t clog as easily. When I cleaned out the filter chamber, I realized that foam tends to get packed with gunk over time, while the biological media (matrix) stays open longer, so if you’re running a good pre-filter setup, the biological media might let you go longer between cleanings.
The one real advantage I can see for biological media, though, is that it doesn’t clog as easily. When I cleaned out the filter chamber, I realized that foam tends to get packed with gunk over time, while the biological media (matrix) stays open longer, so if you’re running a good pre-filter setup, the biological media might let you go longer between cleanings.
Certainly if the foam is too fine it@ll clog quickly. My suspicion is that if running only foam its important for it to be fairly coarse for it to avoid clogging and to work decently as the only filter medium. I did quote mine as being 20ppi, but I think it might be even coarser. They are Eheim's coarse foam pads for the classic series.
Basic setup is Sponge, Purigen and AC on a new setup for 60-90 days and some biomedia. When the AC and Purigen are done I put in more sponge. I do coarse to fine. So 80/20 sponge to other media after the 90 days I used to love filter floss but now skip it. Mainly because its a pain to pull and throw out unless its in a Hang on Back or a small internal filter like a Sicce Shark. I could use it in the prefilter of my Aquael but then I am opening that too often for my liking.
I have done nearly all the different biomedias since 2006 and my experience is that glass boxes dont need that much biomedia and most things are just hype, plenty of real tests have proven this too. The type of biomedia no longer matters to me and I will use what comes with the filter or what I have that is mature. So rings, biohome, pot scrubbers etc are all fine considering how little you really need. The plus of using some biomedia is that it shouldn't clog like a sponge.
Lastly sponges do both mechanical and bio and you can even get Activated Carbon and other types of sponges that do your chemical filtration. That seems like a lot of wins. plus they are cheap.
My personal one (Oase 250), I just tried to cover the bases. First layer is the sponge that comes with the filter, second layer is seachem matrix for biological, third layer is another basic sponge but with a chunk cut out and replaced with a filter bag of purigen. Final layer is the orange sponge that came with it, along with a layer of filter floss on top.
Man I’m on a flight right now and going down the filtration rabbit hole on this forum. Now I’m considering reconfiguring my media setup, but I want to make sure I understand the dogma correctly.
I’ve always had crystal clear water so I never really gave much thought to filtration other than making sure I have good flow.
Over in the other thread, there’s lots of talk about pre-filters, which I hadn’t previously considered. It makes sense now that catching debris and being able to easily dispose of it during filter maintenance is huge for removing excess organic waste that would otherwise accumulate in the other chambers. I’ve actually never run filter floss in my canisters. Like many here, I’ve loaded up with ceramic media, purigen, and some coarse sponge but without really paying attention to the order.
Embarrassingly, I can’t seem to figure out the actual flow pattern of the Oase Filtosmart 100 which I’m currently running on my tank.
Based on a YouTube video from JJ Aquariums, I filled chamber C entirely with ceramic media (same chamber also holds the heater) and filled chamber A about halfway with ceramic media and put a bag of Purigen on top. JJ uses filter floss but I didn’t have any. I left the included foam in chamber B.
I don’t really understand the flow pattern. I’m assuming water flows in through A and out through B, but how does that draw water through C in a laminar fashion? Besides ensuring that the mechanical pre filter goes first, does it matter how bio media and Purigen are ordered?
Also, as a side question, since I’ve never run filter floss: does it reduce flow considerably?
I don’t really understand the flow pattern. I’m assuming water flows in through A and out through B, but how does that draw water through C in a laminar fashion?
I do have the same filter. The pump housing contains small openings that allow gradual water transfer from chamber B to chamber C. I think this was done to keep the water fairly clean with slow flow when moving through the biocompartment. I took the compartment divider between chamber B and C out, better temperature control in my settings. The flowpatterns sketched below is what I see in my filters.
I do have the same filter. The pump housing contains small openings that allow gradual water transfer from chamber B to chamber C. I think this was done to keep the water fairly clean with slow flow when moving through the biocompartment. I took the compartment divider between chamber B and C out, better temperature control in my settings. The flowpatterns sketched below is what I see in my filters.
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