Ceramic media vs sponges - any quantifiable benefits?

[LancsRick]

The two Eheim 2217's I run at the moment have a media setup as below:

- Floss
- Substrat Pro
- Coarse blue sponge
- Coarse blue sponge

One of them also contains a bag of purigen. They seem to do a really good job of keeping 190l clean and shiny.

I'm thinking of getting another couple of Eheims for my Rio 180, and I see that the default media setup they come with is:

- Carbon (will be throwing this away)
- Floss
- Coarse blue sponge


Now, the question:

- Is there any benefit to getting Substrat Pro or Ehfimech in there too? Given that there will be a pair of filters to provide the 10x flow I'm after, there shouldn't be a great filtration load on either filter. That said, if there's one thing I've learnt in my short time here, it's not to skimp on filtration.

Comments welcome, but please can you indicate whether you're speaking from personal experience or from hearsay? Thanks!

 

[Alastair]

Substrate pro I'm sure most will agree is a perfect biological media, and would definitely recommend ehfimech or some other form of mechanical rings to help catch the larger particles Before they hit the bio media ie sponges, substrate pro, matrix etc.
I found myself though that substrate pro although a fantastic media, restricted flow a fair bit when I had it in my 2080 compared to other bio but definitely recommend getting ehfi mech or similar


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[Antipofish]

I tend to favour Sera Siporax for maximum biological benefit and as most filters contain far more bio media than necessary it follows (to me) that you can get away with less of it. As well as already allowing better flow in the first place compared to substrat pro, the reduced requirement should also benefit flow more. Hey, if its good enough for The Green Machine, its good enough for me

 

[ceg4048]

I'm thinking of getting another couple of Eheims for my Rio 180, and I see that the default media setup they come with is:

- Carbon (will be throwing this away)
- Floss
- Coarse blue sponge

Not sure why you would throw away perfectly good activated carbon. It's as good a filter media as the more expensive media you propose to buy. Why not just throw your money away instead? That would be better for our landfills.

Is there any benefit to getting Substrat Pro or Ehfimech in there too?

There are no magical properties attributable to Eheim sintered glass media, other than how they are able to magically remove your hard earned money from your wallet, and to somehow make you feel good about it. The reason sintered glass is attractive is based on their high surface area to volume ratio. As a result they can hold large colonies of bacteria if needed. If you have a very high fish load or overfeed a lot then this is an advantage. But the penalty you pay is that sintered glass has a very high coefficient of drag, so they produce a significant reduction in flow. If flow rate is a problem, which it often is in a CO2 injected, high light tank, then it's better to reduce drag by installing foam pads, alfagrog, or even chopped up pot scrubbers.

If I were going to use sintered glass I definitely would avoid paying megabucks for Eheim's overpriced product. You can get the rings or balls from generic brand suppliers at a significant cost savings. They are exactly the same. Even the Fluval glass media is much cheaper. Activated carbon has as high a surface area as the sintered glass because it's made in a similar way, but instead of sintering the ceramic they sinter the charcoal to produce the high surface area.

Cheers,

 

[Aqua sobriquet]

I agree about the Sera Siporax. Very large surface area but good flow around it. Bit expensive over here but if you need some other stuff buy it from one of the German web shops.

 

[Alastair]

Ive used most types but Personally I found alfagrog excellent media and like Clive mentioned it made a big improvement on flow. Cheap as chips too.


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[REDSTEVEO]

A guy called Alan used to run a place called Alison's Aqauatics in Caergwrle near Wrexham. He had some of the best planted tanks I have ever seen. People used to travel from miles around. He used SERA Siporax in all his filters and nothing else. No sponges, no wool no nothing. Eheim bucket filters filled to the brim with Siporax in every one of them.

High CO2 and large regualr water changes were his other recommendation. If you speak to Jim or Mark at the Green Machine they will tell you that Alan helped them set up and they copied his techniques to a large extent, although they have moved on and diversified a lot since then.

Alan was headhunted by a major aquatics company in Canada and emigrated to work out there to reproduce what he had done at Alison's Aquatics on a massive scale.

Have a shufty at the pictures below of some of his tanks. What can't speak can't lie.

Hope this helps.

Steve