Bio wheels

[fishman]

I am running 2 HOB filters on my QT tank and have noticed that the biowheels do not spin as freely as they should. I know once they are in the water for a while they spin irregular, but sometimes they go for a long time without spinning. Any suggestions to improve this? Has anyone else had this problem?

[melosu58]

Try to adjust the water spray bar so it shoots water at top of wheels pushing it around. It`s not supposed to turn fast.

[lmw80]

Also, it's a good idea to rinse out the intake tube. I find that when gunk builds up in the intake it slows down the biowheel even more.

[Kurt_Nelson]

Originally Posted by fishman

Any suggestions to improve this? Has anyone else had this problem?

From what I can tell on mine (little BioWheel 100 for shifting over to QT only), it's from salt buildup under the biowheel "bearing", pushing the bearing on one side up higher than the other side and causing the wheel to get a little unbalanced.

Every couple weeks, I take out the biowheel and lift out those little purple "bearings" that the biowheel stub shafts drop in to. (At least they're purple on mine!) There's usually a bunch of salt buildup under those bearings that I clean out, as well as the salt on the bearings themselves. Takes about 20 seconds. Pop everything back in and the wheel runs a lot smoother.

[fishman]

I rinsed and cleaned under where the little bearing is and that helped on one of the biowheels but not the other. I think the one that isnt turning is the one that was in my sump for like 3 months. I bet this has something to do with it. Its almost like its to heavy. I wonder if I should replace it with a new one?

As long as you are getting flow over them I would not be too worried if it is for a QT.

[fishman]

Well I would think that if its not rotating then its not going to allow the bacteria to live on it?? I have to manually push it along from time to time to get it to spin.

Well now you have created interest for me on this topic so I am off to look into it. I have never used a bio-wheel so my opinion is purely speculative.

But, if you were using an Aqua Clear HOB the water flows up through the sponge, carbon, bio-balls or whatever media is there and the bacteria colonizes on the sponge etc.

Does a bio wheel have to be turning for it to collect bacteria? As long as water is flowing through it it will not hold bacteria?

[fishman]

Well I have stripped my HOB down to only have the biowheel running. Reason is I found having the spounge, ect in there creates more problems than what its worth. However once I have a fish in the qt tank I might put one of the carbon/spounge filters in there...dont know yet. I would think you would have to have the biowheel tunring to collect bacteria.

Right but why is that? Regular sectioned off media HOB's do not move. Is it a specific design of the b-wheel?

I am sorry if I have gotton off topic here. I never used one and it i nterested me because I was considering buying one for a small QT myself. I am going to do some research.

[fishman]

Ok so dont know how familiar you are with HOB filters. Its a Penguin 170. So the water is brought up through an intake tube, then it would be brought across a filter with carbon and then it goes under the suspended biowheel and turns it. I have heard if you soak the biowheel in your main sump the good bacteria will reside there as if it would on a peice of LR. Im wondering if I can just pull the biowheel off and put it in my tank and put a new biowheel on the filter.

[Hara]

I would dump the biowheels and just put liverock rubble in the container

I would go with Hara's suggestion and it is cheaper.

I sont know much about biowheel filters because I do not use them.

I have a bunch of rubble in my fuge that I take out and throw in an HOB AC for the filtration. Then I put it back in fuge when I am done