PlanetCatfish.com

hi folks
whats the best biofilter media?..ive heard ceramic chips are good. can i just break any old ceramic bowl and use the pieces as a biomedia?

Get those with very coarse surface as they have a bigger surface area. Good products i have tried are biohome and sera siphorex.

Well, I'm no expert, but most ceramic bowls have some type of glaze on it. Bio media should have porous surface areas for bacteria to get into and colonize. I would think a glaze would prevent that.

I think I read somewhere that some ceramics were glazed with toxic glazes for artistic purposes and they come with warning labels about using for eating and drinking purposes. If you were sure the ceramics you plan to use are safe, only the sides where glazes are not present is porous thereby reducing surface area suitable for bacteria colonization.

I use lava rock in my canister filters. I did use ceramic tubes in my filters but that was more for mechanical filtration. The tubes trapped debris while allowing water to flow.

Like I said, I'm not an expert and would be interested in reading more in this thread.

I read somewhere that some ceramics were glazed with toxic glazes for artistic purposes

If I remember correctly it was lead in the glaze that was the problem.

Ceramic bio media made for this purpose is more porous than regular ceramics

Birger

Ceramic bio media made for this purpose is more porous than regular ceramics

Then you wouldn't recommend "breaking up any old bowl" either.

If you have some surplus white "eating plates", they'll be useable, but the stuff made for the purpose that you buy in the LFS will be a couple of grades better because it's more porous (as some other posters mentioned).

The glaze that is "dangerous" would mostly be the ones that are:
1. Highly decorated in fancy colours (yellow/red may be Cobolt, blue (I think) may be lead).
2. Non-dishwasher-proof (particularly combined with #1).

If the plate can withstand the chemicals in a dishwasher, it's most likely good in the filter, which is MUCH milder, chemically speaking.

Also, if you're after something cheap, try plain white tiles from the tile-shop. They are less expensive than plates (unless you can get the plates for free by raiding your "old plates cupboard"). Also, they are only glazed on one side.

But there's still lots of problems, just because it's safe for your fish, doesn't mean that it's going to make a good filter. The problem with broken ceramics would be that you may get very poor waterflow through some areas, which means either less filtration (not so bad case) or aneorobic breakdown causing smell and poisonous byproducts(bad case).

If you want cheap filtering, get some polyester "wool" from your LFS. It's a few pounds/dollars/euros.

If you want ceramic filter material, use the stuff that the LFS has, those little ceramic "macarooni" ("tubes" in case you're not pasta literate). It's sure to make good flow through the filter, be nice and friendly to the fish.

It also lasts (almost) forever. If you're really unlucky and need to sterilize it, you can either boil it or use some antibacterial cleaning fluid (bleach or similar). Just make sure you rinse it through THOROUGHLY because it is porous, and chemicals as well as bacteria may well stay in there for some time.

So it's really a one-time investment. [Ok, so I used to loose one or two bits once in a while when I cleaned the filter, so eventually I had to buy another pack to top up, but that's in maybe 10 years or so].

Of course, if you have half a dozen extra large filters, the initial investment starts to amount to something like a mortgage payment

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Mats

tks guys
what about bioballs?...are they more effective??...can i use pvc bits or plastic bits for biomedia?

You should really just buy your media from your lfs. Its much easier and it is made so that It will not harm your fish. Plus what is your time worth.... Are you going to spend an hour breaking plates or cutting up pvc. Just grab it on your way out from your weekly visit to your lfs!

whitepine wrote:You should really just buy your media from your lfs. Its much easier and it is made so that It will not harm your fish. Plus what is your time worth.... Are you going to spend an hour breaking plates or cutting up pvc. Just grab it on your way out from your weekly visit to your lfs!

Whitepine: I agree 100%.

Alvin, is there any particular reason you don't want to buy the stuff that the fish shop has available for this purpose? [Like your LFS is actually 400 miles away? I'm not joking, I don't know anything about South Africa's fish-trade, so I can't tell if this is a likely reason or not, I just know that it's a pretty big place with some "empty" space in places and very densely populated in other areas. Just like the US in that respect, really. But then, for filter material, it shouldn't be a problem to buy it mail-order anyways...]

Remember, if you make your own media, _YOU_ are responsible for making sure it's safe for your fish. If you buy something from the fish-shop, you can be pretty close to 100% sure that it's not going to harm your fish in any way, and pretty close to 100% sure that it's reasonably efficient filter material.

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Mats