hi

i am currently settting up a tank and are about to buy filter material. the question that my other half has raise is why do we need to buy fancy filter material wouldnt stone chips do the same thing i cant think of a reason why they cant as we only need surface area for the bacteria am i missing something? The other question he has is why do you need to replace it ever 6mths. I have try to find a answer for this on the net but have fail to find something.

thanks for all your help

the more specialised filter material is porous so even more bacteria can grow.

You do not need to throw out your filter media.. a good rinse to get rid of the large stuff and you will be right as rain.

I have got media in some of my filters that are 7 years old. and still going.

I would recommend the Eheim Substrate, bit expensive but works really well IMO

Aqua One do some cheaper media which I guess is ok.. only just started to use it so no feed back from me yet.

Good synthetic filter media has massive surface area compared to stone - like hundreds of times as much for the same volume. One of the best is Biomax (1400m²/L) followed by Effisubstrat (450m²/L) then Siporax (210m²/L). All are excellent media. Synthetic media allows you to use a much smaller space for the same amount of effect media. My filter if filled with stone would have about 40m² of surface area. However, it's filled with Effisubstrat so there's 6750m² of surface area...

Mine is over 10 years old. I do use a prefilter which may be why it's lasted so long. I suspect the 6 month replacement recommendation by the manufacturer is more to do with revenue than actual replacement requirement.

Although the carbon does date out it's usefulness tho.

Yeah carbon should be replaced every 30 days, or better yet not used. You only need carbon if you're removing chemicals.

Any filter wool can be rinsed whenever you feel like it, but not replaced.

Cermaic Noodles etc used to store bacteria, as you asked, should never be replaced or cleaned (unless broken or completely clogged). As said above, the surface of the ceramic noodles means there is more surface area for bacteria to live, and the design prevents problems with water clogging so you dont get stagnant areas.

If I can't afford the media, I do put stones in, because they're better than nothing, but not nearly as effective as the noodles.

There are other products like PhosZorb, or ammonia removers etc that need either replacement or regeneration. These aren't needed, and should only be added later on if a specific problem exists.

There is a good 3 part artical here on fnzas about filter and material.

http://www.fnzas.org.nz/articles/technical/filtration/

It is worth reading before buying any filter meterial.