To get the most out of using your Marineland Biowheel Filter this is how I fill my media box:
- A regular filter cartridge goes in the slot closest to the biowheel
- Right behind the cartridge I use a piece of Micron Filter Pad, cut to the size of the cartridge. This prevents fine particles from getting to your cartridge and does some water polishing. It's rinseable and reusable for a very long time!
-Behind this I use 4 Fluval MSF Foam Blocks, size 204/205/304/305. They come 2 to a box. There is enough room there to fit 2 rows of 2 blocks side by side with no gaps. They catch the large particles first. These 4 foam blocks can be pulled at any time and put into another filter to immediately seed the filter. I usually just pull the row of 2 at the back of the box. The foam blocks are rinseable and reuseable for a very long time too!
By stacking your filter box this way there is very little dirt actually getting to the filter cartridge so the cartridges last a long time, far longer than the carbon in them, but also acts as additional biomedia.
I also use AC 110 filters in conjunction with my biowheels, but with the large AC sponge and the very large bag of biological media that comes with the newer models, I cannot stack four fluval sponges in there.
I was also greatly disappointed that the smaller AC filters will not fit over the wide lip on my larger tanks. I like to keep a smaller emergency filter running on one of my large tanks in case I need to throw a smaller tank up in a hurry. The 280 Biowheel will fit on small and large tanks no problem.
I do like the increased flow of the AC for those fish that require it, but found that the AC 110 was too much for discus. On the discus tank it's two biowheel filters with tons of extra sponges inside.
- A regular filter cartridge goes in the slot closest to the biowheel
- Right behind the cartridge I use a piece of Micron Filter Pad, cut to the size of the cartridge. This prevents fine particles from getting to your cartridge and does some water polishing. It's rinseable and reusable for a very long time!
-Behind this I use 4 Fluval MSF Foam Blocks, size 204/205/304/305. They come 2 to a box. There is enough room there to fit 2 rows of 2 blocks side by side with no gaps. They catch the large particles first. These 4 foam blocks can be pulled at any time and put into another filter to immediately seed the filter. I usually just pull the row of 2 at the back of the box. The foam blocks are rinseable and reuseable for a very long time too!
By stacking your filter box this way there is very little dirt actually getting to the filter cartridge so the cartridges last a long time, far longer than the carbon in them, but also acts as additional biomedia.
I also use AC 110 filters in conjunction with my biowheels, but with the large AC sponge and the very large bag of biological media that comes with the newer models, I cannot stack four fluval sponges in there.
I was also greatly disappointed that the smaller AC filters will not fit over the wide lip on my larger tanks. I like to keep a smaller emergency filter running on one of my large tanks in case I need to throw a smaller tank up in a hurry. The 280 Biowheel will fit on small and large tanks no problem.
I do like the increased flow of the AC for those fish that require it, but found that the AC 110 was too much for discus. On the discus tank it's two biowheel filters with tons of extra sponges inside.
