# New filter media question



## pepedopolous (4 Aug 2012)

Hi there,

I was thinking of changing my stock media in my JBL external filter for Seachem Matrix.  I'm doing a re-scape from scratch so I'll need to cycle the filter for a few weeks anyway.

If (as Seachem claim), Matrix is the bees knees, I could use less media than I did before. This would mean more flow/less resistance but still a very very large biological filtration capacity.

So, what do you guys think about this idea? Is this worth doing or am I just falling for marketing rubbish?

Many thanks, 

P


Just to be clear the media would be: -

1) Top tray:      Standard JBL sponges (coarse and fine)
2) Middle tray: Just a bag of Purigen (instead of JBL ceramic rings )
3) Bottom tray: Seachem Matrix (instead of JBL MicroMec sintered glass media)

A tray holds about 1 litre of Matrix and Seachem recommend this amount for a 400 litre aquarium. Mine is just 60 litres!


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## Alastair (4 Aug 2012)

I'd personally stick with what you have to save the money but if you want to go to the extra expense matrix is very good. Looks like a pot of large gravel at first glance ha ha. 
But yes you would need far less of the stuff therefore improving flow 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## pepedopolous (4 Aug 2012)

Thanks for the reply. I think I'll go ahead with this plan. People say it's the plants that do all the filtering anyway!

Cheers,

P


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## darren636 (4 Aug 2012)

you could keep th filter running in a bucket. Feed it ammonia. And be fully ready for the new scape- just replace some with the matrix when you are ready


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## pepedopolous (4 Aug 2012)

Hi Darren,

Thanks for the reply. The filter's been dry for a month whilst I've been away. I don't mind waiting to make sure everything's ready for inhabitants. Only some Amanos and Assassin snails at first, haven't decided on fish yet.


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## darren636 (4 Aug 2012)

pepedopolous said:
			
		

> Only some Amanos and Assassin snails at first, haven't decided on fish yet.


decisions decisions! big fish or small?


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## pepedopolous (4 Aug 2012)

With fast flow, would love to get some _Stiphodon_ but they're not readily available here  
Other than that, _Boraras_ and _Danios_. Maybe some nice Cardinal Tetras...


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## ceg4048 (4 Aug 2012)

pepedopolous said:
			
		

> So, what do you guys think about this idea? Is this worth doing or am I just falling for marketing rubbish?


Yes, it is mostly marketing hype. That's because companies think that no one knows how to use a calculator. According to Seachem's own website, the product has a total surface are of approximately 700 square meters per liter. The cheapest form of activated carbon has a surface area approximating 350,000 square meters. That means the bacterial population can potentially be up to 500 times higher than their product. At the same time, the carbon will remove chlorine, discoloration and some forms of organic waste for at least a couple weeks. You would be better served using carbon in your filter as long as the price is not too outrageous.

Cheers,


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## pepedopolous (4 Aug 2012)

Thanks ceg, I must admit I thought carbon was old hat and with a limited lifespan. However, I guess it can go on for longer as a mechanical/biological filter medium.


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## ceg4048 (6 Aug 2012)

Get something like this mate==>Fluval ZeoCarb
Buy it by the Kilo for best pricing. Will work 10,000X better than The Matrix.   :silent: 

Cheers,


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## dw1305 (6 Aug 2012)

Hi all,
Matrix is fine, but don't believe any of the claims about special biological media, there really is very little difference between any of them. The important things is that the water in the filter media remains oxygenated, and there are enough  potential sites for bacterial activity. You don't actually need a huge volume of bacteria to perform nitrification, and I would suspect that nearly all external filters provide a large enough volume of space, even when filled with a media that has "less biological filtration capacity". I like ceramic (or sintered glass) rings or Eheim coco-pops (EHEIM SUBSTRAT Pro), although it is the shape, rather than the media, which is important, and they may offer no advantage over Alfagrog, activated charcoal or Bio-cell floating media where flow is not limited.

Oxygen is a very different issue, which is why the measure of pollution used in the water industry is BOD, "Biochemical Oxygen Demand".

*BOD*
The people who deal with organically polluted water (by definition water with a high BOD) use 2 methods of biological filtration, either using direct aeration with high pressure oxygen and/or "wet and dry" trickle filters. We can't easily measure aeration, or BOD, but we can apply what we've learned from the waste water industry to our tanks. 

The first thing is to have a "wet and dry" trickle filter, these have a huge gas exchange surface area where the water is flowing in a thin film over the filter media. Unfortunately they have the down-side of being noisy and usually not available off the shelf, they all have the reputation amongst reef keepers of being "nitrate factories".

They are nitrate factories because they are so efficient at turning NH3 into NO3. 

Reef keepers have turned to using deep sand beds to anaerobically de-gas NO3 as N2, but we have plants to remove NO3, and being a "nitrate factory" is to our advantage, as we can ignore the potentially tricky balance between aerobic nitrification and anaerobic de-nitrification, by remaining aerobic and using plants to remove NO3. This is a *lot* easier. 

This then brings on to the theoretical advantages of media with lots of small pore spaces, that both aerobic and anaerobic processes can take place in the pore spaces. We don't need this to occur, we can just go aerobic, which is why oxygenation is important.

Direct oxygenation is more complicated, but you already have the most important factor, plants. If you want some detail, I wrote an article (really for Plec keepers) called "_*Aeration and dissolved oxygen in the aquarium*_", based upon the work we did with landfill leachate, and it is  currently housed at <http://plecoplanet.com/?page_id=829/>.

cheers Darrel


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## pepedopolous (6 Aug 2012)

Thanks. That's a really informative article. 

So I think this means that having less biological media *could * be beneficial by reducing Biological Oxygen Demand, thereby increasing the level of oxygenation in the filter?


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## roadmaster (6 Aug 2012)

I think reducing the number's of fish, and or food input, will decrease biological oxygen demand ,less fish = less food needed,and less poop, both of which can accumulate even in well maintained tank's.
Bacteria tends to develop in proportion to food available.
With that said however,,the biological media in my view,,competes with the plant's which use the same source for food.(So I use less biological media, and more mechanical).
I think keeping media ,whether it's biological media(ceramic,matrix,substrat pro, etc), or mechanical (pads,foam,floss) clean ,will provide less clogged media and better flow through which will help eliminate low oxygen condition's especially in sealed canister filter's.
I know some who only clean canister's every three month's or longer. I prefer to clean mine monthly, and it seem's to work well.(fishes,shrimp's are happy)
I have very little biological media ,mostly mechanical but it too houses bacteria as does most anything placed in the flow of water (scrubby pads,tinker toy's, lava rock,etc).
I can tell when my water ain't quite right,, Rummy nose are good at letting me know when noses go pink instead of crimson as they are most day's,week's.


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## dw1305 (6 Aug 2012)

Hi all,


> So I think this means that having less biological media *could * be beneficial by reducing Biological Oxygen Demand, thereby increasing the level of oxygenation in the filter?


Sort of, the BOD really relates to the pollution potential of the whole system, but the bacterial load would only grow to the limitations imposed by the nutrient availability (as "Roadmaster" says). What we found was that more media only produced "cleaner water", if the through the media wasn't impeded. Unfortunately I only started looking at canister filters (Eheim Classic 2213) right towards the end of the work, largely because I'd never used one, and had no appreciation (until I started talking to fish keepers) that people were using them as a syphon as well as a filter. 

For the planted/un-planted trickle filters (lengths of guttering) I always used hydroleca, with a preliminary settling tank to remove most of the bulky organics.

I do use canister filters now, mainly because all the tanks are in places (teaching lab, home) where I can't have noisy filters, but I only 1/2 fill them with media, and I always have a foam pre-filter on the filter.

cheers Darrel


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## pepedopolous (6 Aug 2012)

Cool, that's what I'm gonna have- only 1 tray instead of 2 with biological media. The other tray will have Purigen for polishing and the topmost tray just sponges.

Cheers,

P


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