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HELX-13/K1 verse Foam in Canister Filters

Bradders

Bradders

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Hello,

Well, here is a question that is causing me to scratch my head - something for the more technical of you out there to help me finalise! (Yes, I know I am obsessed with filters! 🙂)

In the Oase Biomaster (but it can be any canister filter with trays for media), some trays come with 800ml of HELX-13 plastic media, and some trays come with 20PPI foam. Now, my question is whether 800ml of HELX-13 (similar to K1) will be as good at providing a surface area compared to the sponges - which I measured the sponges to be around 70 square inches in size when you take away the cut-outs.

The sponge is the easier part of calculating surface area per volume. But how would one calculate the surface area that HELX-13/K1 media provides at 1 litre, 5 litres, 10 litres etc? I did a rough calculation that 800ml equates to 49 square inches using an online calculator - but that might be for liquid, so I'm not sure whether that would be a fair calculation.

Does anyone have some experience (and a technical mind!) for working this little puzzle out?

Thanks,
Brad
 
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Wookii said:
Whilst this is all interesting academic stuff, providing the filter is appropriate for the tank size, the decision on how many, or what type of fish, to stock is however completely unrelated to the filter and certainly to the type of filter media used in that filter. I do love a car analogy, to basing stocking capacity on the quantity of filter media used would akin choosing the safe speed you should drive at based on nothing but the aerodynamics of your car!
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I did try to warn everyone that I was bonkers for stuff like this! 😂
 
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Bradders said:
they said that HEL-X13 will break down around 6.5g of food per day per litre. So your 8 litres should handle 52g of food breakdown per day.
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Wookii said:
lol that from Oase sounds dubious advice at best! As I mentioned above, there are far too many other variables.
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Haha, yes, I agree, that sounds like an attempt to be much more accurate and specific than the underlying conditions can justify.
Wookii said:
As I found out from advice on this forum (probably from Darrel lol) even washing under the tap is fine - the levels of chlorine in our tap water are likely not high enough to cause significant damage to the microbial population on a filter sponge, even when its washed under the tap.
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Personally, I only use sponges in my filters - When I do WC's I just squeeze them out in some of the tank water I drained into a bucket... This may not be a practical approach if you're dealing with a lot of filter media. It's just a practical consideration for me and I don't doubt washing the sponges under running tap water (at roughly similar temperature as the tank water) would work just fine.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
Haha, yes, I agree, that sounds like an attempt to be much more accurate and specific than the underlying conditions can justify.

Personally, I only use sponges in my filters - When I do WC's I just squeeze them out in some of the tank water I drained into a bucket... This may not be a practical approach if you're dealing with a lot of filter media. It's just a practical consideration for me and I don't doubt washing the sponges under running tap water (at roughly similar temperature as the tank water) would work just fine.

Cheers,
Michael
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That’s exactly how I clean my filter foam, tip some water change water into a large bucket (this is all it gets used for), squeeze foam a few times, i don’t attempt to get it spotless, just give it a bit of a clean, then put foam back, i don’t clean all foams, just the bottom one, i circulate the foams, cleanest at top, moving others down one, each clean
 
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fredi said:
That’s exactly how I clean my filter foam, tip some water change water into a large bucket (this is all it gets used for), squeeze foam a few times, i don’t attempt to get it spotless, just give it a bit of a clean, then put foam back, i don’t clean all foams, just the bottom one, i circulate the foams, cleanest at top, moving others down one, each clean
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It sounds very sensible on the cleaning front - nothing done all at once.
 
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For my FX6 and FX4, I slap the foam pads on a stone in my back yard, once on each side. That’s it. Removes any real detritus buildup or blockages. Fast and simple.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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hypnogogia said:
Is it self cleaning inside a filter, provided the trays are not packed full and it can therefore float?
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I believe it is when it's mobilised - i.e. a moving bed filter.
 
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hypnogogia said:
Is it self cleaning inside a filter, provided the trays are not packed full and it can therefore float?
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Actually, it's not. I had some K1 inside a Seachem Tidal 110 HOB filter a while back, which was big enough that, when combined with an air pump + hose, it was actually a moving bed. Transferred the K1 one of my FXs when I was cycling (I know, that's a bad word around here) my 5' tank. Opened it up to clean it out and, I can assure you, K1 is not self-cleaning unless it's being moved about quite actively. Plenty of detritus will accumulate on it unless it is being thrown about by a powerhead or massive amount of air.
 
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hypnogogia said:
Is it self cleaning inside a filter, provided the trays are not packed full and it can therefore float?
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I've found it to be the case. I cleaned the filter on my low tech (Oase 850) over Christmas for the first time in about a year, and the Hel-X were clean as a whistle. That said, the whole filter was pretty clean considering the duration - thanks I think to using the fine black sponges on the pre-filter. The Hel-X were brown for sure, but nothing much mulm came off them during rinsing.

Le duke said:
Actually, it's not. I had some K1 inside a Seachem Tidal 110 HOB filter a while back, which was big enough that, when combined with an air pump + hose, it was actually a moving bed. Transferred the K1 one of my FXs when I was cycling (I know, that's a bad word around here) my 5' tank. Opened it up to clean it out and, I can assure you, K1 is not self-cleaning unless it's being moved about quite actively. Plenty of detritus will accumulate on it unless it is being thrown about by a powerhead or massive amount of air.
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Not my experience at all, but then the Tidal have no decent pre-filter. When we're talking 'self-cleaning' we're meaning continuous removal and regeneration of the bacterial layer/mulm, not large chunks of detritus that enter the filter - they need to be filtered out before hitting the plastic media.
 
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Hi all,
Wookii said:
That said, the whole filter was pretty clean considering the duration - thanks I think to using the fine black sponges on the pre-filter. The Hel-X were brown for sure, but nothing much mulm came off them during rinsing.
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My filters are always like that, almost no biofilm and just some black <"tea grouts">. As well as a chunky pre-filter sponge I have <"Asellus and snails"> in my filters, so I'm guessing that they are part of the reason. I can't remember if any of the filters used to have <"thick and sticky biofilms">, partially because I've only kept fairly heavily planted aquariums recently.

I'll be honest, I would be a bit worried if I had this in a filter, purely because I would be worried about the biofilm being too thick and lack of oxygen unleashing a <"tsunami of ammonia"> (TAN)

a-well-functioning-aquarium-filter-768x535-jpg.jpg

cheers Darrel
 
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Wookii said:
I should also add, for a good quality stocking calculator/planner, this is one of the best I've used:


Though in all cases, all tanks are different, and need to be considered in context of things such as tank layout vs species selected etc.
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Thanks. Yeah, it says my aquarium is 130% stocked but over-filtrated.
 
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