What about moving bed filters?

[Florin Ilia]

[video=youtube;cFQBMDQIdwQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFQBMDQIdwQ[/video]

[video=youtube;9YNwrTeHNHs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YNwrTeHNHs[/video]

[video=youtube;By167chL5wo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By167chL5wo[/video]

Anyone using these devices? Are they as good as some people claim (zero maintenance etc)? Is there a version that's less conspicuous?

(I'm not ready to try one of these, I'm just curious)

 

[Biollante]

Put it in the Sump?

Hi Florin,

Yes, I have a couple going and they work well. I do not think they are any better than any media that operate in any canister or sump system.


I have a system similar to the Anoxkaldness, it is a 150-liter barrel (bright blue) filled with ceramic, plastic and “pellet” media; a vortex sediment filter gets the big chunks, aerates and feeds the water into the bottom of the magic blue barrel and comes out the top clean. An efficient system that could handle twice the load we carry. We do perform maintenance, so I do not get the maintenance free bit, as with any biological filter you do not want to over clean it.


As with any other biological filter, it has to mature.


Though, the media may not require any special care as is true with “bio-balls” or ceramic media or my all-time favorite material, stainless steel dishwashing scrubs, the mechanical filtration in front still does.

For a while, it was popular run water into bio-ball towers in sumps from the bottom, forcing water up through the top, I think folks realized there is an advantage to all the extra air.

Biollante

 

[Mark Lem]

10 years ago I tried what was called a "fluidized bed" filter which seems like it was essentially the same. I used it to add extra bio filtration. It was a HOB container with sand as the media. A power head pumped water into the bottom, it flowed up thru the sand which was thus suspended in the lower part of the HOB canister/tube, then flowed out the top back into aquarium. Worked fine, and it was hanging on back of tank rather than inside tank. I gave it up after 3-4 months, as it didnt create really any flow in the aquarium at all, in favor of other bio/mechanical filtration styles that in addition added some flow to the aquarium, such as convential canister filters and wet-dry's

 

[kevinbkk]

i recently saw one in LFS , i got interested because i liked just the way how media spins, i picked one for $20 (media + pre filter box ) and as suggested by LFS i hooked up with my ehiem 2215 , thinking that nothing than at least my little kid and cats will be happy watching it , but next day i saw water was very clear, i even didn't know that was called as moving bed filter, the time i bought,

 

[DukeNJ]

Cleaning bio media in my canisters is my most dreaded chore. I wonder if under-filling baskets with lighter media would enable some of the same self-cleaning behavior seen here in an ordinary canister.

Anyone ever try it?

 

[Tom Barr]

They work okay, but a wet/dry is much better, less work etc. If they shut down for longer than few mins, the bacteria starts to die off due to rapid O2 loss.

 

[Biollante]

What Horrors Lurk…

Cleaning bio media in my canisters is my most dreaded chore. I wonder if under-filling baskets with lighter media would enable some of the same self-cleaning behavior seen here in an ordinary canister.
Anyone ever try it?

Hi,

The fluidized filter bed in this case is “fluidized” by highly oxygenated water carrying the pollutants.:nonchalance:

The wet/dry system that Tom Barr references is simply a “fluidized” bed where the bed isn’t, well fluidized, but fixed, a “fixed bed filter.” In the wet/dry system (fixed bed filter), the fluid is water carrying the pollutants and oxygenated by breaking over and becoming thin film over the fixed bed.:encouragement::cower:

Turning a canister into a fluidized bed filter would require some method of oxygenating the polluted water. The easiest method would be dumping the water into a sump through a screen (mechanical filtration) then feeding the water from the sump into the bottom of the filter and forced up through whatever media you choose (generally it will be “pelletized”) and back into the tank.:nonchalance:

• The canister design might not give optimum flow.

If a filter is so nasty it requires more than rinsing half or a quarter of your media once every two to four weeks, then there is not sufficient biological filtration, mechanical filtration ahead of your canister, good tank management or some combination thereof.:wink-new:

Biollante

 

[DukeNJ]

Thanks Bio. I clean the canister every 3 months or so. Not bad, just always looking for better.

 

[Biollante]

One Does Not Wish To Offend the Quality, Does One?

Hi,

I was not trying to be snarky, especially not with the Duke of NJ as I have an opportunity to meet the Bailiwick of (old?) Jersey’s current Duke, so I do not wish to get a reputation for being snarky with the quality, especially given my low-birth.

My suggestion is to clean (as in rinse) a quarter or half the media once a month, all at once every three months can create its own problems.:cower:

Biollante

 

[DukeNJ]

NP Bio. I didn't take anything snarkily.

I have a G6, so it's easy to replace the mechanical filter media. I swap that cartridge weekly without having to open the canister.

Every few months there is enough sludge built up that its time to rinse the bio media too. Low maint really, just always wondering what the next improvement might be. I don't have room in the Osaka's cabinet for anything larger than a canister, so options are limited.