HOW MANY BIO BALLS????????
Sylvia Budak
I am thinking of building a wet/dry filter to use in my 55 gal. marine
tank which currently holds 1 firefish gobie, 1 clown gobie, 1 percula clown,
and 1 royal gramma. I now have a Fluval 303 canister filter filled with
ceramic beads as my only filter. I want a wet/dry filter because I have
always had a bit of a nitrite problem (never high enough to panic, yet hardly
ever ideal.) I have read about an article in FAMA on how to do this but do
not have access to this magazine. I'll keep trying, but in the mean while I
have a few questions.
I have been reading THE MARINE AQUARIUM REFERENCE by Moe and am
astonished by the amount of bio balls that would be required for a 55 gal
tank! He recommends 3-5 square feet of surface area per gallon, and using
the tables in his book 3 square feet would be roughly 7 gallons of bio balls
and 5 square feet would be roughly 12 gallons! That quantity of bio balls
is very expensive! Did I misinterpret something or does one really need
that much surface area?
Second question, could I use my Fluval 303 to pump the water from the
sump back into the tank? If I could do this I could have addition biological
filtration from the Fluval and maybe add some mechanical filtration in one
chamber rather than have 3 chambers full of ceramic beads.
Thanks in advance for any advice,
Sylvia
George Booth
55 gallon tank has 45 gallons of water (a pretty bare tank!), you would
need about 10 gallons of BioBalls. I've seen ads (Burleson) for Dupla's
"new super-duper" BioKascade BioBalls which claim to have 2.7 times the
surface area. This would be under 4 gallons. I haven't seen the prices,
but I bet they are 3 times as expensive :-)
---------
George
Patti Beadles
> I have been reading THE MARINE AQUARIUM REFERENCE by Moe and am
>astonished by the amount of bio balls that would be required for a 55 gal
>tank! He recommends 3-5 square feet of surface area per gallon, and using
>the tables in his book 3 square feet would be roughly 7 gallons of bio balls
>and 5 square feet would be roughly 12 gallons! That quantity of bio balls
>is very expensive! Did I misinterpret something or does one really need
>that much surface area?
I run my 55, (OK, Dean's 55, but still in my possession) with approximately
seven gallons of plastic rings. I've had great success with this, and the
added benefit is that the rings are only $3/gallon. If you're worried about
quantity, 10 or 15 gallons is still quite reasonable at that price. I use
a Quiet One pump as the main system pump. It's too much for a 55, so I have
it throttled back quite a bit.
The 300 has a trickle filter with 40 gallons of real McCoy Dupla Bioballs.
If you divide 40 by 6 (rough number for ratio of 300:55) you get 6.someodd
gallons. (No, *I* didn't pay for the 40 gallons of 'em. Do I look stupid?)
The rings are available from Ken Basar. You'll find his ad in many issues
of FAMA. I'm satisfied with them. And now that you've figured out how you
can afford it, go ahead and build a 10-gallon trickle filter if you want.
Too big is certainly better than too small.
--
.....................T'aint nothing for me to disclaim.......................
"One thousand and one yellow daffodils begin to dance in front of you -
Oh, dear! Are they trying to tell you something?"
pa...@hosehead.hf.intel.com ... or just yell "Hey, Patti!" (503)-696-4358
D. Baldwin
In article <280...@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM>, syl...@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM
(Sylvia Budak) writes:
|>
|>
|> I am thinking of building a wet/dry filter to use in my 55 gal. marine
|> tank which currently holds 1 firefish gobie, 1 clown gobie, 1 percula clown,
|> and 1 royal gramma. I now have a Fluval 303 canister filter filled with
|> ceramic beads as my only filter. I want a wet/dry filter because I have
|> always had a bit of a nitrite problem (never high enough to panic,
yet hardly
|> ever ideal.) I have read about an article in FAMA on how to do this but do
|> not have access to this magazine. I'll keep trying, but in the mean while I
|> have a few questions.
|>
|> I have been reading THE MARINE AQUARIUM REFERENCE by Moe and am
|> astonished by the amount of bio balls that would be required for a 55 gal
|> tank! He recommends 3-5 square feet of surface area per gallon, and using
|> the tables in his book 3 square feet would be roughly 7 gallons of
bio balls
|> and 5 square feet would be roughly 12 gallons! That quantity of bio balls
|> is very expensive! Did I misinterpret something or does one really need
|> that much surface area?
I'm not sure of that particular info in Moes book, however
the actual "surface area" of a particular media is highly variable
among the different media available. I have a 55gal reef tank running
off of a life reef W/D for a 70 gal and it seems the box holding
the filter media is about a cubic foot--I'm not sure,bu I think thats
close. A quick calculation tells me a cubic ft should hold about
7.5 gal ( 1 cubic foot = 1728 cubic inches = 28317 cubic cm =28317 ml=
28.317 liters = 7.49 gal). So I guess your interpretation was
correct. Seems like a lot though. How about an alternate media such
as soda straws or hair curlers or the little platic units for
scrubbing teflon pans ? I have heard that these are sufficient.
|>
|> Second question, could I use my Fluval 303 to pump the water from the
|> sump back into the tank? If I could do this I could have addition
biological
|> filtration from the Fluval and maybe add some mechanical filtration in one
|> chamber rather than have 3 chambers full of ceramic beads.
I am certain that your Fluval will not pump enough water to
power your W/D. I would get a 400-600 gph water pump for this. You
should turn your tank over more than 5 times/hour. The ratings on your
Fluval are probably not for a 6' head (vertical height of water
displacement) as they usually are on good water pumps.
Good W/D systems are expensive. The whole hobby is. Good luck.
Robert Moss
I am curious where you saw the numbers of 2.7x surface area for Dupla's new
Biokaskade balls. The add I saw said 20,000 mm^2.
Doing a little dimensional analysis:
20,000 mm^2 1 cm^2 1 in^2 1 ft^2
------------- X ---------- X ---------------- X ------------ = 0.2153 ft^2
100 mm^2 2.54x2.54 cm^2 12x12 in^2
Now assuming this is per ball, and there are 54 balls per gallon this comes up
to 11.63 ft^2 per gallon.
(I called Dupla and they were unable to provide a canned answer of how many
ft^2 per gallon, but said there were approx. 54 balls per gallon, this means
that the new balls are 2" diameter like the old style).
The add did say however that only 3%-5% tank volume of the new media is
required (that is about a 3x reduction in media). But I assume this reduction
is due to a more efficient media structure that depends more heavily on
degassing of nitrogen byproducts rather than the usual baterial methods.
But: * The add failed to mention wether these volumes are for marine or
freshwater tanks. (Freshwater setups typicaly require only 60% the media
of a similarly sized marine tank)
* Dupla may like to quote undersized filters in order to sell lots of
extra reactors and control systems.
I would be interested in any additional information you may have on Biokaskade.
Robert Moss
George Booth
> (I called Dupla and they were unable to provide a canned answer of how many
> ft^2 per gallon, but said there were approx. 54 balls per gallon, this means
> that the new balls are 2" diameter like the old style).
I've never seen a Bio-Ball, but I assumed they were 1" in diameter.
According to BioPack, 1" diameter balls do about 250-275 per gallon.
How big are Bio-Balls?
---------
George
Robert Moss
In rec.aquaria, bo...@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (George Booth) writes:
> How big are Bio-Balls?
Bio-Balls are slightly less than 2" dia., 54-55 per gallon.
Same with BioKaskade balls.
Mini-Balls are approx 1" dia. (they look like minature Bio-Balls)
---------
Robert