Has anyone ever tried Biohome?

[tawolcott]

sintered glass filtration media ..

http://www.reinbiotech.com/biohome/biohome.jsp

I'm suprised (and always somewhat confused) when products make the claim that they can reduce or eliminate nitrite and nitrate. I always wonder how they get that non-oxygen environment in an oxygen ladden environment.

Anyway, was wondering if anyone has tried or read a review of this

[cmor1701d]

Never heard of this before. The description makes it sound plausible. The I read the description on one of their other products - Easy-Life -. That sounds like 'snake oil' to me.

You know the old adage, 'if it sounds too good to be true...."

[roka64]

Hmmmm, well here is the first thing I see:
"houses billions of beneficial bacteria to get rid of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate"
As far as I know, PWCs are the only thing that will truly "get rid of" nitrAtes.

Next, it almost sounds like "live" sand. I wonder how much of the beneficial bacteria really survives the shipping and storage.
That's just my $.02.

[cmor1701d]

Scott,

It doesn't come as live anyting. It has internal pores and baffles where nitrifying bacteria can grow. If you look closely at the diagram of the pellet internals you can see that it contains 'eddys' where anerobic bacteria can grow. So basically it acts like a deep sand bed (which does remove nitrates) by allowing anerobic bacteria to grow.

I still see bubbles of nitrogen coming up from my DSB (that's nitrAte converted back to nitrogen by anerobic bacteria.

I'm intrigued by the idea of these pellets, but at $43.00 for 1kg I'm not ready to be the guinea pig. Besides, my trates are at <=1 as of yesterday's test.

[roka64]

Cmor, thanks for the explanation, I did miss the part about the anerobic bacteria. I wonder how that works, is it because they are "deep" enough that the water flow allows them to colonize? If so, why does a DSB need to be so deep, when thos are so small....just curious?

If they do work, they would be great and small to seed other tanks without taking up too much space.

[cmor1701d]

Scott,

You need to look at the daigram of the internal pellet. It has nooks and crannies that water can flow into but are not in the flow of water through the pellet. These are the areas that will starve for oxygen making them anoxic. Perfect spot for the denitrifying bacteria to grow. A dsb works on a similar method. The deeper you go (beyond 3 or 4 inches) the less water flow through the sediment. The sand becomes anoxic allowing the anerobic bacteria to grow.

[roka64]

Gotcha, I knew you would dumb it down for me! Thanks again. I have read and re-read some articles and sometimes just need a short answer. Yous makes perfect sense.

[cmor1701d]

That's the problem I have with this product. It actually makes sense that it would work. Their other prodcuts smell of snake oil, so I'm hesitant to try it. That and the fact that my trAtes are under control <g>.