Biowheel 100

[blackhorse]

I have two Biowheel 100's. One for my main tank and the other for my quarantine tank. The plan was, as someone suggested, to just swap out the biowheel from my main tank to the quarantine to get it cycled instantly. The problem is that both of these filters stopped working after a very short time. Has anyone else had problem with these? and most importantly are there any better filters that I could buy to do this method of instant cycling with?

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

How did they stop working? Wheel stop turning? Or something else.

When my wheels "stumble", I've found one of several things will bring it back to life:

1. Clean salt buildup off the shafts and plastic bearings of the biowheel
2. Vigorously rinse biowheel off in saltwater
3. Clean entire unit, specifically the impeller unit. A gunked up impeller will slow down the flow sometimes to the point where there's not enough flow to really keep the wheel going.

 

[blackhorse]

Thanks. I took both of them apart and cleaned them. They are both working fine now.

 

[melosu58]

That was pretty good advice Kurt. Always good advice to clean your equipment.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Glad to hear that worked, blackhorse. Especially glad, because I think I'm one of the ones who recommended the Biowheel to you to start with!

 

[blackhorse]

I think the main thing is the propellor thing wasn't seated in there properly but I'm sure cleaning it helped. Thanks again Kurt for the recommendation on the Biowheels makes things pretty simple when i want to get my quarantine tank up and running.

 

[itafx]

I have two Biowheel 100's. are there any better filters that I could buy to do this method of instant cycling with?

Recommend consideration of Emperor 400 and Emperor 280. Simply the best i've ever seen for power filters. Nothing else comes even close:

- Powerful
- Has biowheel in addition to media cages
- Heavy gage non-brittle plastic housing
- Extra media cage you can put your own removable media in and save $ big time.
- 2 media slots on the 280 and 4 media slots on the 400. This gives lots flexibility for switching media around and jump-starting cycles. 280s were on sale at several places over the holidays for $34. Hard to beat.