biowheel filter question

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rrogan

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Sep 26, 2007
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I'm going to be injecting co2 into my 55g soon and I have a penguin 350, and eheim 2217 running on it now. I like the filtration I get out of it but i know biowheels let a lot of co2 escape. I was wondering if it would be better to just remove the penguin completely or if I can just remove the biowheels and let the water run down the little slide. Would this stop most of the co2 escaping? The canister should have enough bacteria in it to handle the bioload. It's also semi heavily planted. Is there a way I can make a biowheel chamber or something with pvc that I can put inline so I don't lose that bacteria too?
 

echoofformless

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Oct 1, 2005
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In a semi heavily planted tank, I wouldn't worry much about bacteria loss because plants actually prefer to get their nitrogen from ammonia more than anything else. So even with the loss of some of your bacteria, there would never be any noticeable ammonia spike.

I would say lose the biowheel and maybe even the filter in favor of another canister. Or at least for the time being lose the biowheel.

I'm of the opinion that people are far too crazy about this whole bacteria thing. These crazy amounts of biomedia, wet/dry filters, etc...I stand by the belief that with the right amount of filtration, and with the surface area of the tank, there is more than enough area for bacteria to colonize.

If you actually did need ridiculous amounts of bacteria to keep your tank going as per all of this overdoing that seems to be prevalent, you would need to be keeping multiple times the numbers of fish that you should be stocking in a tank anyway. So the long of it - yes, you can easily lose the biowheel.
 

rrogan

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do you think the biowheels are the main cause of the co2 loss, or is it the fall from the filter to the water? So I guess I'm asking will removing the biowheel actually do anything to stop co2 loss, or will I be loosing just as much? If I were to get another canister would I just be able to go with an eheim 2213 or should I get a larger one?
 

Rbishop

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I think the bio wheel is exposing more surface area of water to the air around it, increasing your CO2 loss. I would lose the HOB and get another canister.
 

Rbishop

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I'd add another canister, I prefer double filtration on 55 and up
 

echoofformless

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It depends on the efficiency of your 2217 - as long as your media isn't overpacked and you're getting a strong flow rate, I'd say your secondary filter can be smaller.

Plus it depends on how much flow you want - who lives in the tank? What sort of system is it?

Say it's a river tank with heavily stocked, very active fish - you want lots of current and good filtration.

But if it's a still water tank - like maybe a tank with gouramis and rasboras - flow rates should be dramatically lower.


For a general tank however I'd say do twice the recommended. So if your 2217 is rated for tanks over 75g or so, then buy a second filter that will bring you up to the recommended filtration for a 100g tank.
 

rrogan

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Sep 26, 2007
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ok thanks, I'll probably get a 2215 soon. Might end up just getting another 2217 though since they are closely priced on big als.
 
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