Marineland Emperor questions

zachjohnson65

zachjohnson65

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Mar 31, 2007
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Staunton, VA
I have been looking at the 400 emperor, i was wondering if you can place 2 media containers back to back instead of a media container and a pad.
Also what happens in the bio wheels are not used? Does anyone else not like the marineland intake strainer, it gets clogged way to easy.
 
I don't see why you couldn't place two media containers on the same side. They seem to fit (although I haven't done this).

You could run it without biowheels. It would be quieter, and probably still be a fine filter, IMO, but I haven't tried that either.

Stuff does collect on the intake, but it hasn't reduced the flow of my filter appreciably. You could find a sponge to put over the intake as a prefilter.
 
I have 5 of the 400's and I love them. You can't place 2 media containers in one side, they won't fit. One container and a pad fit fine. I have had some of them in use for over 3 years w/o any problems at all and my water quality is great. I only use the media container w/floss - I don't need the pads (not a carbon user). I used to cut the bottom out of the pad, remove the carbon and use a pad and a container. Rinse the pad off, replace the floss and you are ready to go at minimal cost.
 
The bio-wheels collect nitrifying beneficial bacteria (BB) that is extremely important because without it there would be no cycle and ammonia would build up to dangerous levels. While BB does collect in other parts of the tank (gravel, etc.) a lot of it collects in the filter and the bio-wheels provide a great place for the BB to grow because the BB is aerobic (oxygen loving) and as the bio-wheels spin they expose the BB to atmospheric air which has a much higher concentration of oxygen than tank water so the BB get much more oxygen. Would the bacteria grow without the bio-wheels? Yes, but a lot would grow in the other filter media and when you throw that out you would be throwing out a lot of your BB and your tank would go into a mini cycle causing high ammonia levels that could harm your fish. Because the bio-wheels should not be replaced you won't have that problem if you use them because you won't be throwing out as much bacteria when you change the other filter media because a lot of the BB that is in the filter is on the bio-wheels.

Bottom line is you should not remove the bio-wheels because they provide a great place for BB to grow.

Also if your tank and filter are cycled and you decide to take out the bio-wheels you would be throwing out a lot of your BB.

I would not remove the bio-wheels.
 
The bio-wheels are overrated for efficacy. They do what they are designed to do, but it will not hurt your tank to remove them. Yes they create another location for BB but the amount created is not an absolute essential necessity or of such significant amount that a tank would crash without them. It is a helpful design but works without it.

I have taken mine off and not used them and found no difference with or without them.
 
Thanks for the replies, I was thinking of using the media containers for phosphate removing granules. i was wondering about the lack of bio wheels just in case i run across a used one without any. I like the idea of sponge instead of a stainer.
 
excuzzzeme said:
The bio-wheels are overrated for efficacy. They do what they are designed to do, but it will not hurt your tank to remove them. Yes they create another location for BB but the amount created is not an absolute essential necessity or of such significant amount that a tank would crash without them. It is a helpful design but works without it.

I have taken mine off and not used them and found no difference with or without them.
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I can assure you that they make a difference. The fact that you haven't noticed a difference doesn't mean one doesn't exist. It just means you haven't hit the limits of your systems nitrification potential without them. If you do and put them back on you will see the difference they make.
 
What difference is there to be seen? If your tank's ammonia and nitrite readings are zero, that's pretty much that.

This beneficial bacteria thing has gotten out of hand. There is only as much or as little beneficial bacteria in a system as there is food for it to consume, neither more nor less. And as long as there is surface area - somewhere, anywhere, the stuff will grow. I have had betta bowls with no filtration at all become "cycled." Simply put, enough bacteria was living on the glass that it consumed the ammonia and nitrite.

So really - all of this talk about mega wet/dry and mega bioball insanity is just insanity. Bacteria will live anywhere it needs to live - and while biowheels and what not will provide a very nice place for it, why go through the hassle, noise, and evaporation issues that come along with them when they aren't necessary? The beneficial bacteria will live anywhere and everywhere available to them. And if there is only so much for them to consume, they won't need any additional area to colonize because they're simply not alive to colonize it. Add more ammonia, get more bacteria. So perhaps in a really heavy stocking scenario a biowheel may be providing some additional space, but even then the bacteria has plenty of surface area such as glass, rocks, wood, plants, etc to hang out on.

The only way to hit your system's "nitrification potential" is to see how much you can overload it until it breaks. Why would you do that anyway? I mean, if the aim is to be able to theoretically overstock the tank, you're not doing yourself any favors to do so. So sure, a biowheel will give you that additional surface area for nitrification, but if your system can't handle its bioload just on its internal surface area, you're overstocked anyway. In other words, if you've made your system so that removing the biowheel will make it crash to the ground, you've made a mistake in stocking!

This is coming from someone who used to love biowheel filters - I've owned a 125, a 150, and a 400. They gave me a certain peace of mind for a long time, but that was before I learned that they're entirely unnecessary. Just a noisy evaporator. Now that I'm on all canisters with a few ACs and Whispers on smaller tanks, I see no change in anything except I don't have as much evaporation and my plants are doing better. Not that I would never encourage someone to get a Penguin or Emp filter as they're great units, but worrying about biowheels is not a headache you need to have.
 
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I find that my Emperor was louder without the BioWheel than with it. At least it was when I tried it for 5 minutes, but it was too loud (lots of splashing) and put it back in right away.

You can use filter sponges from, I think, Fluval instead of the bonded filter pads for Emperors. I forget which sizes for sure or even if it was Fluval or Aquaclear, but someone on here posted a while back on how they maximized their Emperor's biocapacity by using those sponges, and by stacking them a certain way, this also allowed them to catch the big stuff without clogging up the finer sponges for biomedia. God, now I wish could remember what those were 'cause I'm upgrading from my 280 to a 400 soon. At least as soon as I can get a replacement flow manifold housing for the 400 and it actually works then. Got it used, and the portion that connects the two spray bars in the middle was cracked. I think that's why it wasn't flowing properly (only thing I can see wrong with it).
 
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