Adding new bio media to existing tank

[duanes]

The biofiltration in any tank, is based on a food/ micro-organism ratio, and dissolved oxygen content in the water.
As long as you have sufficient surface area for the microrganisms to grow on, addng more or different materials won't change anything.
Adding more biomedia doesn't increase the food to microorganism ratio efficiency..
Adding more fish and more waste could increase it, but not more tons of rings, or haircurlers, or lava rock, or some other new bio-configuration on its own.
your biobacteria are determined only by food (amonia, and nitrate) bacteria consume, and .......the dissolved oxygen in the water columbaerobes need to function, not the inanimate surfaces, bacteria latch onto as biofilm.

Of couse a sudden increase in fish population could overwhelm that poplation....
or a lengthy power outage that squandered DO enough to kill off that bio- bacterial population,...... could do some damage, especially if the tank is overcrowded and nitrates are elevated due to a lack of a sufficient water change routine .

 

[Tpepe321]

The biofiltration in any tank, is based on a food/ micro-organism ratio, and dissolved oxygen content in the water.
As long as you have sufficient surface area for the microrganisms to grow on, addng more or different materials won't change anything.
Adding more biomedia doesn't increase the food to microorganism ratio efficiency..
Adding more fish and more waste could increase it, but not more tons of rings, or haircurlers, or lava rock, or some other new bio-configuration on its own.
your biobacteria are determined only by food (amonia, and nitrate) bacteria consume, and .......the dissolved oxygen in the water columbaerobes need to function, not the inanimate surfaces, bacteria latch onto as biofilm.

Of couse a sudden increase in fish population could overwhelm that poplation....
or a lengthy power outage that squandered DO enough to kill off that bio- bacterial population,...... could do some damage, especially if the tank is overcrowded and nitrates are elevated due to a lack of a sufficient water change routine .

@duanes I do plan on adding more fish. Ammonia has been at 0. I stay on top of the water changes. So no urgent or real need.
Other than a hope of slightly improving water clarity (which is already perfectly fine for the most part) I’m more so being preemptive because I do plan to add more fish and the fact that the HOBS are only half full so in my mind why not fill them up and increase places for the BB.

My hesitation only comes from reading adding too much bio media at once can cause negative side effects. Wanted feedback on this and if so how much is too much

 

[cockroach]

I am not familiar with using Purigen.

However, the new media.....dump it in.
I have added more than 100% extra media in a sump and didn't notice any short term changes.
I have added it by dumping it on existing media.
I have mixed it into a basket of mature media.
I have added it to a completely new part of a sump.


Add new bio-media with reckless abandon and without fear.
As for the Purigen, some quick searches said basically you can't overdose with it. So i think adding some may not hurt but maybe check that with someone who has experience with it.

 

[skjl47]

What do you mean by add them to a chamber after my biomedia?

My reasoning for adding it was to improve water clarity and another way to absorb Ammonia, Nitrite & Nitrate

Hello; A thing is we readers do not know enough about your tank. I made the assumption the tank is stable and has been running a long time. Only ammonia and nitrite are consumed by the bb with the final product being nitrate. Fortunately nitrate is somewhat less toxic so most tanks do well enough with a constant level of nitrate. Even so it is better to get nitrate levels as low as is possible. That almost always takes water changes. For some setups large volume and often WC. Not enough information about your setup to judge.
I do not know of Purgens magic so cannot say if it takes out nitrates. Such would be interesting news to me.

Some folks try to pull nitrates from tank water with emergent plants. Plants which have their stems and leaves. The roots of the plants dangle into the tank water. I think the idea is the nitrates and other chemicals from the tank wind up in the leaves of the plants. The name pothos comes to mind but I am not confident that is the name of the more popular plant. Will require a light setup outside of the tank. One of the moderators (@duanes) has posted about his efforts.

Another point. balanced tanks can and have been run without any dedicated "media" at all. I have run tanks with a simple sponge filter running off an air pump. Do not get me wrong there is nothing wrong with adding lots of "bio-media." my contention being if you already have enough surfaces on which the bb can colonize, more surfaces will not help much if at all.

There are, to me, two sorts of media. One for giving the bb a place to live. The other is for the simple job of mechanically trapping solid stuff. I am on the bad side of some on this forum as i throw away the purely mechanical media and replace it with new stuff.
To answer one of your questions, there is a sequence for loading media in a power filter. I like to have a lot of mechanical media first then bio media. That wat the bio media does not get clogged up with detritus so much.

 

[skjl47]

add new media in small batches over a few days to avoid disrupting the established bacterial colony too drastically.

Hello; My WAG is that advice assumes you are taking out the old media and replacing it with new stuff. Not the case if I read your posts correctly. But if you do plan to pull old media and replace, then yes do so in small batches and give a couple weeks between batches.

 

[jjohnwm]

So you are adding additional biomedia to an existing tank that is cycled and which currently has zero ammonia/nitrite and some level of nitrate? And the goal is to somehow "improve" your filtration?

First off, any medium of any sort that is placed in your tank will eventually become a "biomedium" to some extent, as bacteria colonize its surface. It never hurts to have more surface...but in most ways it doesn't really help either. Your bioload will support a given population of bacteria. Adding more area will not increase your bacterial colony beyond its current population, which is limited by the amount of ammonia produced by your fish. More area is nice if you foresee starting other tanks in future, but it won't magically change your filtration for either better or worse. I can't imagine where you have read that adding more media can have negative effects, but I'd probably stop reading there.

If you have particles in your water and want to improve clarity, that is achieved by better mechanical filtration. Adding more or better mechanical media may help in that regard.

Coloured or stained water, caused by tannins or other dissolved substances, is IMHO best corrected by frequent and large water changes, but admittedly lots of people want to buy some magic bullet to make their water clear and colourless. This is where chemical media come in; the most commonly used is activated charcoal, but Purigen is another option. I haven't used charcoal in years and have never tried Purigen, so can't really comment with certainty on it, but...like charcoal, Purigen removes tannins and other chemicals from the water and holds them within itself. I have read many times that charcoal can if overloaded start to release those chemicals back into the water. Is this true? Beats me. Can Purigen betray you the same way? I dunno.

What I do know is that personally I want that crap out of my tank, not sitting in some chemical jail cell waiting to get out and mess up my water when I least expect it. It's sort of like spraying some aerosol into the air in my house to keep it smelling fresh. I don't want to do that; I want to keep the house clean so that it doesn't stink in the first place...just like my aquarium water.

 

[RyanScanner]

@RyanScanner not sure if I’m following you. I have HOB filters. In the filter I have a sponge, filter floss and my existing media bag from bottom to top. My plan is to add 1 pound of These bio rings and one of These 100ml purigen bags to both of my seachem tidal 110 HOB filters.

What do you mean by add them to a chamber after my biomedia?

Or on top just before the out flow not at the inflow before the biomedia.

 

[neutrino]

I generally agree with the comments by duanes and jhohnwm. First of all, adding bio media will not disrupt anything, as one or two comments seem to suggest (unless I misunderstood). The beneficial microbe colony grows or shrinks with changes in bio-load and available nutrients, up to the limitations of available surface area (assuming otherwise favorable conditions, including sufficient dissolved oxygen). Adding more bio media simply adds more real estate for colonization. Everything else remaining the same, bacteria density per square inch would decrease, but the overall population would be the same, spread over more media surface but still in equilibrium with available nutrients. Remove fish or reduce feeding and this population will adjust, add fish or feed more and the population will adjust. There's the (debated) theory that adding enough media of the right type can lower nitrates, but that's a whole other subject-- complicated, and people have gotten varying results, from nothing to seeing a benefit.

Used up carbon leaching stuff back into your tank is mostly a myth. If you research it, outside of hobby posts to that effect (look up recharging activated carbon), then yes, activated carbon can be forced to de-absorb, but it's a process involving conditions you won't see in your tank-- and wouldn't want to, because your water would boil, your fish would be cooked, etc. The only other thing I've read is some substances adsorbed at one pH could be released with a significant pH change. I think this was going from alkaline to acidic, don't quote me on that part of it. I suspect that people have picked up on one or another of these things and morphed it into 'don't use carbon because it leaches out toxins.' Maybe some have had this issue with wild pH swings in their tank, but did they actually confirm this by testing for substances in their water or were they just guessing?

I've seen the suggestion that if you keep carbon long enough it disintegrates and releases stuff back into the water this way. My guess is it's possible, but would be rare in practice. Years ago I experimented with one of my tanks using only carbon as bio media for over a year (which worked, by the way) and found it takes a long time for it to soften up and lose integrity.

Carbon has its place imo. But anymore I only use it if I've collected a piece of driftwood that's releasing way heavy tannins and I want to reduce them. You can also use it to remove meds, but I rarely need them and usually remove them with water changes. When I'm looking to tweak water clarity I usually tweak my mechanical media.

 

[Something Fishy Here]

I'm surprised no responses yet have experience with purigen. I've read about it many times on here and have used it for years with no issue whatsoever. I just chuck the bag into the filter wherever it fits. My tank was cycled and mature and had no problems with bio, or particulates, just heavily tannin stained. I still do 70% wc every other week. When i first added the driftwood the water turned to tea within a day of a water change, even twice weekly water changes wouldn't keep it from turning to tea. Purigen worked great. Never tried recharging it, others on here have mentioned it though. I changed it once after about a year, it's been a year and a half since then and may change it again soon. I've changed the driftwood a few times for pieces i like better and have never boiled or soaked them or anything, just pop them in the tank. Just my experience.

 

[Tpepe321]

If you have particles in your water and want to improve clarity, that is achieved by better mechanical filtration. Adding more or better mechanical media may help in that regard.

@jjohnwm
Do you have some examples of better or additional mechanical filtration that I could add