I just got some free fish and accessories today, more like I rescued them, but anyway. The guy gave me a brand new box of fluval biomax and I was curious if I put it in the HOB I have it would work or even be effective at all.
Can I put fluval biomax in a HOB filter?
- Thread starter LArifleMAN
- Start date
Yes. it will be fine. you can get little bags to put your biomax in from local pet stores they are very cheap maybe 2$ and work great.
Yup, it won't know it's in a HOB. 
As long as there is a steady water flowing through/around it, it will grow beneficial bacteria on it and do its job.
As long as there is a steady water flowing through/around it, it will grow beneficial bacteria on it and do its job.
It works great in HOB's. I must say though that the one MAJOR exception to this is the AC110. It has too large of a media box to use it in conjunction with the sponge that comes with it. If you use the Biomax in an AC110 (MY OPPINION, so take it at face value!!!) it is more affective to use ONLY the biomax in a large bag ($1 - $2) like Owain said.
The sponge in the AC110 is very restrictive of the waterflow. It tends to very quickly become too dense for water to push through at the extremely high rate that the AC110 runs at. This causes the sponge to rise within the media box. The Biomax media at the top of the media box is then pushed through the lid and exposed to air killing your benneficial bacteria and totally defeating the purpose of the Biomax. It is NOT used for mechanical filtration (strictly bio filtration) that DOES NOT WORK in dry air.
Duct taping the lid on to not allow the media to rise above the water level is even worse (in an entirely different way) that killing off your entire Benny Bacteria culture. Massive exploding water bombs sending plastic AC110 shrapnal through the room is hardly my idea of fun dealing with.
Given that wonderful experience, I would STRONGLY prefer to deal with every single fish dead from a Beny Bact crash than the water warfare of an AC110 bomb!
Really? I used Biomax as my only bio in an AC110 and that was the only filter I had on my 60g. I never had any problems. I thought that beneficial bacteria DO NOT die when exposed to air. That's why people using a wet/dry filter don't have BB die off even though some of the bio is exposed to air too. I thought that as long as you have water running through the bio media, the BB will be able to produce.
This is what I indended for the message to be. The AC110 works fantastic with Biomax (as long as the sponge is NOT used in conjunction). I have also never had a challenge with the entire huge media box completely full of Biomax media ever getting "hogged" up enought to push through the lid. This only occurs when the sponge is used at the bottom layer of the AC110 media box. I have even attempted to place the Biomax sack at the bottom of the AC110 media box, and the sponge above it.
The flow is still restricted, the Biomax media does not rise at all, but the sponge can push out to plop on the floor.
This also applies to any media. The sponge on the AC110 is not functional IMO!!! I will NEVER use charcoal again due the sponge pushing the Activated Charcoal pouch through the lid ripping tha bag and leaving a wonderful black speckled subtrate that I have to live with! Errgh!