ceramic ring substitute?

[Pharaoh]

Scrubbies are the way to go. Cheap and effective.

 

[johnnyxxl]

army men can be uber cheap

 

[jenazen69]

never used cat toys. You know the balls that have all of the see trough cuts to tease the cats.

 

[echoofformless]

All of these are good choices. The lava rock meant for grills comes super cheap and you get to have a lot of fun smashing it with a hammer.

But - consider this truth: you don't need anywhere near as much biological media as you think you might in a properly stocked system. There is already more than enough surface area just in the tank itself. The amount of bacteria present is in proportion to the amount of ammonia for it to feed on.

 

[7itanium]

If you are looking for bacterial filtration I believe ceramic material may not provide the best surface area. But I may be wrong. Pot scrubbers are cheap and may provide more surface for the bacteria.

ceramic rings dont provide any mechanical filtration at all... they are used for biological (bacterial) filtration... and they are one of the best things to use for that purpose

 

[RodInCALIFORNIA]

i use nano sized bio balls

 

[HarlanAshmore]

i use eheim substrat pro

 

[echoofformless]

ceramic rings dont provide any mechanical filtration at all... they are used for biological (bacterial) filtration... and they are one of the best things to use for that purpose

At all? I'm not sure about that. Pretty much anything that the water flows through will trap debris. I know when I rinse my ceramic rings plenty of muck comes off of them.

 

[SMinNC]

I use whats in the tank. And use my "filters" for mech. and chem. filtration.
I do get the feeling I'm the only one that doesn't put stuff in a filter specifically for Bio filtration.

Maybe I need to get a bag of army men, and stick'em in the tank?
I don't think I've seen an army man decor yet. Although I did see'm in someones CO2 difuser, here.