Bio media?
- Thread starter Farmerjones
- Start date
I have not found lava rock to plug up any more, or faster than any other media types , but......
whether its lava rock, bio-balls or rings, I put any of that type media in bags, to make it easier to pull out the bags out of my sumps, and give a quick rinse off.
I give those bags of media a quick swish in water change water during almost every water change,
And according to my ammonia testing, those quick rinses have not hindered any biological ammonia consumption.
This process works to keep bio-media free of any gunk that would stifle or cover the aerobic biofilm growing on my media (gunk is not bacterial bio-film, the bio-film is microscopic).
That rinse also loses less robust bacteria, allowing newer more robust bacteria to thrive
whether its lava rock, bio-balls or rings, I put any of that type media in bags, to make it easier to pull out the bags out of my sumps, and give a quick rinse off.
I give those bags of media a quick swish in water change water during almost every water change,
And according to my ammonia testing, those quick rinses have not hindered any biological ammonia consumption.
This process works to keep bio-media free of any gunk that would stifle or cover the aerobic biofilm growing on my media (gunk is not bacterial bio-film, the bio-film is microscopic).
That rinse also loses less robust bacteria, allowing newer more robust bacteria to thrive
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Along the same lines as what you're said; my Frontosa colony downsized to just two females that were in my tank for about 7 months before I was able to get in a new colony. After I put in 14 more 5"-6" Frontosa there never was a spike in ammonia.
A partial re-post from a similar discussion that took place in the past here on MFK….
I think that this hobby can be a simple, or as complicated, as one wants to make it. I recall looking after a friends fish room while he was away in Singapore on a fish buying trip. He handed me 2 fricken pages of instructions & things that I needed to check each day! LOL But he had some incredible fish, probably 20K worth of Asian aro alone, along with thousands of dollars’ worth of black rays, and various other not so easy to find fish. His fish room was crazy over engineered, and super impressive by design, and he was smart enough to pull it all off & make it run like a Swiss watch. Myself, I could never build a fish room like that, I just don't have the know how or smarts in that area. I understand my limitations. Asking me to design and build a fish room like his would be like asking me to design & build a 3 story home.
I’m a simple guy which is why I tend to apply the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method to fish keeping as much as possible. I also like to add a layer of redundancy where I can, more than 1 filter (in case filter fails), more than 1 heater (at lower wattage so as not to cook fish if/when a thermostat sticks ON) , everything plugged into a GFCI power bar or receptacle, or dedicated GFCI breaker - with a grounding probe in each tank. NOT that I would EVER suggest to others to do this with their bio-media, and their tanks, but ....... I clean my sponges, and finer filter media directly under the tap with 2 ppm chloramine. I understand that I am killing off a percentage of bio-bacteria while doing this, but I honestly don't care if the bacteria is almost completely wiped clean each time that I do this, because I have a large bag of very well established (20+ yrs established) sintered glass bio-media in each filter that I protect like the crown jewels. Each tank contains 3 large bags of well-seasoned bio-media.
Those bio-media bags get a light swish in a bucket filled with clean, dechlorinated with Seachem Safe, tap water. I also clean ALL filters at the same time, on the same day, in each tank. Again, this is what I do, with my filters, and my tanks, and my species of fish, because I know exactly what I am doing. I would never recommend this to others. Way too many variables involved to second guess someone else's set up from afar.
One of my large bio-media bags is enough to kick start a 100 gallon tank, instantly. Just add water & fish. I would NEVER clean that media anywhere near ANYTHING that could even remotely be considered toxic. I too have learned my fair share of lessons, the hard way.
Now if I had a 0.1 ppm chlorine residual coming out of my tap, I wouldn't be the least bit worried about dechlorinator, and would probably do exactly like Ted Judy, or at the very most use a weak sodium thiosulfate solution for water changes, and for cleaning media. I don't have plants to help remove free ammonia (NH3) which is also very toxic to fish, so I use a water conditioner that can render NH3 safe for fish (Seachem Safe), because with each water change with chloramine, once the chlorine/ammonia bond is split, free ammonia is left behind. Free ammonia is like second hand smoke, even a little causes harm, and can have a cumulative effect. I think that this hobby can be a simple, or as complicated, as one wants to make it.
If someone feels that the chlorine and/or chloramine coming out of their taps won't cause any issues in their set ups, or their bio-media, then by all means go for it.
I also do massive water changes in the 80-90% range, and I have high pH, and at the higher pH values free ammonia becomes a lot more toxic to fish. Add higher temps to that equation and things become even more deadly, if one isn't careful. I hesitate to even mention how large of water changes I do, so as not to influence someone that keeps more sensitive species, or doesn't understand their own personal limitations, like I do. I have kept species of fish in the past where 30% water changes were pretty much the breaking point for their stress level, so that's as high as I went.
This is why is it so important to for each & every hobbyist to understand their limitations, with their set ups, and their fish, and then live by those limitations.
I think that this hobby can be a simple, or as complicated, as one wants to make it. I recall looking after a friends fish room while he was away in Singapore on a fish buying trip. He handed me 2 fricken pages of instructions & things that I needed to check each day! LOL But he had some incredible fish, probably 20K worth of Asian aro alone, along with thousands of dollars’ worth of black rays, and various other not so easy to find fish. His fish room was crazy over engineered, and super impressive by design, and he was smart enough to pull it all off & make it run like a Swiss watch. Myself, I could never build a fish room like that, I just don't have the know how or smarts in that area. I understand my limitations. Asking me to design and build a fish room like his would be like asking me to design & build a 3 story home.
I’m a simple guy which is why I tend to apply the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method to fish keeping as much as possible. I also like to add a layer of redundancy where I can, more than 1 filter (in case filter fails), more than 1 heater (at lower wattage so as not to cook fish if/when a thermostat sticks ON) , everything plugged into a GFCI power bar or receptacle, or dedicated GFCI breaker - with a grounding probe in each tank. NOT that I would EVER suggest to others to do this with their bio-media, and their tanks, but ....... I clean my sponges, and finer filter media directly under the tap with 2 ppm chloramine. I understand that I am killing off a percentage of bio-bacteria while doing this, but I honestly don't care if the bacteria is almost completely wiped clean each time that I do this, because I have a large bag of very well established (20+ yrs established) sintered glass bio-media in each filter that I protect like the crown jewels. Each tank contains 3 large bags of well-seasoned bio-media.
Those bio-media bags get a light swish in a bucket filled with clean, dechlorinated with Seachem Safe, tap water. I also clean ALL filters at the same time, on the same day, in each tank. Again, this is what I do, with my filters, and my tanks, and my species of fish, because I know exactly what I am doing. I would never recommend this to others. Way too many variables involved to second guess someone else's set up from afar.
One of my large bio-media bags is enough to kick start a 100 gallon tank, instantly. Just add water & fish. I would NEVER clean that media anywhere near ANYTHING that could even remotely be considered toxic. I too have learned my fair share of lessons, the hard way.
Now if I had a 0.1 ppm chlorine residual coming out of my tap, I wouldn't be the least bit worried about dechlorinator, and would probably do exactly like Ted Judy, or at the very most use a weak sodium thiosulfate solution for water changes, and for cleaning media. I don't have plants to help remove free ammonia (NH3) which is also very toxic to fish, so I use a water conditioner that can render NH3 safe for fish (Seachem Safe), because with each water change with chloramine, once the chlorine/ammonia bond is split, free ammonia is left behind. Free ammonia is like second hand smoke, even a little causes harm, and can have a cumulative effect. I think that this hobby can be a simple, or as complicated, as one wants to make it.
If someone feels that the chlorine and/or chloramine coming out of their taps won't cause any issues in their set ups, or their bio-media, then by all means go for it.
I also do massive water changes in the 80-90% range, and I have high pH, and at the higher pH values free ammonia becomes a lot more toxic to fish. Add higher temps to that equation and things become even more deadly, if one isn't careful. I hesitate to even mention how large of water changes I do, so as not to influence someone that keeps more sensitive species, or doesn't understand their own personal limitations, like I do. I have kept species of fish in the past where 30% water changes were pretty much the breaking point for their stress level, so that's as high as I went.
This is why is it so important to for each & every hobbyist to understand their limitations, with their set ups, and their fish, and then live by those limitations.
^ Best. Post. Ever.
There are, IMHO, two broad categories of aquarists. First, there are folks like RD in the post above. These people understand that they are maintaining and caring for what is essentially a super-organism...i.e. a colony of bacteria that does all the hard work and heavy lifting which allows the maintenance of their fish. Through a combination of experience and research...both important...they know what they can "get away" with, and also what must be assiduously avoided. They know what a "cycled" tank is...but they rarely, if ever, need to cycle one because their fishroom and its super-organism allow the creation of brand-new cycled tanks immediately, with no tedious and time-consuming testing and dosing and torturing of sacrificial inexpensive fish.
People like that need to be careful, because they are constantly beset with questions from aquarists in the second category; if they answer those questions and truthfully explain what they are doing and how and why it works, the questioners may try to emulate them and likely fail miserably. Another risk is that the questioners, armed with that most terrible of weapons...i.e. a very little bit of knowledge...will rise up and accuse them of lying, because that stuff just doesn't work for them!
That second category of aquarists consists of those folks who have sucked up vast amounts of internet knowledge and believed all the convenient parts of it; they understand all the minute details of aquarium maintenance, water chemistry, fish requirements, and literally everything else. They know what it takes to create a cycled tank...they should, since they always seem to be trying to do it...but despite purchasing test kits by the truckload, high-tech filters and media and all manner of chemicals and magical potions...they just can't seem to get it right. They just know that the atomic-powered ammonia de-stabilizer that they hooked up inline with their four reactor towers, used in combination with their brand new RO/DI water producer and a battery of chemical treatments, HAS TO produce absolutely perfect water...but they can't seem to summon enough patience to shake a test tube for 30 seconds and get an accurate reading...and their brand new fish are all arriving this afternoon, so WHAT SHOULD THEY DO????????
They know the answer that they want to hear...and they will continue searching for it until someone actually says it...and everything will be fine...until the next emergency, later that week.
Just an internal filter, yeah, stuck to one side of the aquarium. It was enough to filter a 100 gallon aquarium. Can't remember the specific brand and size of the filter though, but definitely a lot less biomedia in it compared to a 'standard' canister filter lol. Back then I used to clean it every six months or so. Not sure why it does not clog frequently or anything like that, but hey.
Yeh. One thing that is also not well known of nitrifiers, is that they are very resilient. Nitrifiers generally can go for prolonged periods (weeks to months) starved of ammonia before they even go dormant (or a similar process), and then even much longer before dying off materially. In one study, Nitrosomonas europeae was starved of ammonia for almost a year, and still there were individuals alive.
Any thoughts on oxygenation and the relative merit (or lack of) in placing a lid on a sump? For those of us in northern regions where relative humidity is often in the 20-30% range the evap associated w/ an open sump is very high.
