DarylF2
Aquarium Advice Activist
I have a Penguin 150 BIO-Wheel power filter in my 20L Freshwater planted aquarium (set up in early June 2006).
At first it worked great, but now the BIO-Wheel is stopping for no apparant reason. Cleaning/replacing the filter cartridge and cleaning the filter intake tube sometimes helps, but sometimes it doesn't help at all. The wheel itself appears undamaged.
Given that my tank is cycled and well-stocked with plants, is the BIO-Wheel necessary? Given that whenever it stops spinning it kills the bacteria in the part of the wheel that dries out, it not being terribly effective now, and may in fact be doing more hard than good due to the bacteria die-offs...
I'm thinking of just going with a dual-cartridge setup instead (this filter does support the use of an optional second internal filter cartridge), using the "inner" cartridge pretty much just as a biofilter and letting the outer filter act as a mechanical filter.
Advice?
At first it worked great, but now the BIO-Wheel is stopping for no apparant reason. Cleaning/replacing the filter cartridge and cleaning the filter intake tube sometimes helps, but sometimes it doesn't help at all. The wheel itself appears undamaged.
Given that my tank is cycled and well-stocked with plants, is the BIO-Wheel necessary? Given that whenever it stops spinning it kills the bacteria in the part of the wheel that dries out, it not being terribly effective now, and may in fact be doing more hard than good due to the bacteria die-offs...
I'm thinking of just going with a dual-cartridge setup instead (this filter does support the use of an optional second internal filter cartridge), using the "inner" cartridge pretty much just as a biofilter and letting the outer filter act as a mechanical filter.
Advice?