Fluid bed Filters, Are they any good?

[Guest]

My question is does anybody have experience with fluid bed filters in any of your aquariums. The reason I ask is that I am starting a planted tank, sometime soon, when the funds are available and am trying to figure out what options I have. I know a lot of people here run canisters, but the lighting I was thinking about doing may cause temperature problems and to avoid spending more down the road I was thinking about a fluidyzed bed filter so that if I needed to I could install a chiller. Or wood it be necessary at all. I got a 72 gal and a 300watt MH fixture for the light, and ofcoarse I will be running Co2 as soon as I can afford it. I wont set up the tank untill I get all my parts. I dont want to battle with algea. So if anybody had any info on that type of filter that would be awsome.

Edit* I guess nobody likes them.

 

[Menagerie]

I have no idea. Is this a common filter with planted tanks? Perhaps this thread needs to be moved to get you the advice you are looking for.

 

[keithpardee]

Fluidized Bed Filter

Hello,

I built a fluidized bed filter similar to the one in the DIY project located at http://www.aquariumlife.net/showdiy.asp?id=10. I have a 90 gallon tank with the FBF and a marineland 350 bio-wheel for filtration. I have it heavily stocked (8 oscars about 4 inches) while i am trying to get a breeding pair. My ammonia and nitrites are always at 0ppm and my nitrates are at less than 5ppm. I tried building a DIY wet/dry filter before the FBF filter, but it seemed to have a problem keeping the nitrate levels down.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Menagerie No its not a popular filter at all by my experience with the members of the forum or anybody I know who runs aquariums. It's always been canisters or wet/drys. From what I gather they seem to be a freshwater version of a calcium reactor in the fact that they take water from the tank push it threw a sand bed and return it to the tank. The sand bed inside the device is what holds all the bacteria and in turn gives the bio filter. Being that you could set the thing up so it wouldn't agitate the water and disperse the co2 thats being injected; I just wondered if anyone had any experiece with them. I wanted to go MH on the tank and was just thinking about keeping it cool. Thats why I was thinking of this filter if in the future needed to add a chiller. I think this would work better than hooking a canister up to a chiller. As of yet I still dont know how I will proceede.

 

[Jchillin]

I moved your thread to the Planted Tank forum. You will probably get some additional responses.

 

[Guest]

Hello,

I build a fluidized bed filter similar to the one in the DIY project located at http://www.aquariumlife.net/showdiy.asp?id=10. I have a 90 gallon tank with the FBF and a marineland 350 bio-wheel for filtration. I have it heavily stocked (8 oscars about 4 inches) while i am trying to get a breeding pair. My ammonia and nitrites are always at 0ppm and my nitrates are at less than 5ppm. I tried building a DIY wet/dry filter before the FBF filter, but it seemed to have a problem keeping the nitrate levels down.

Thanks Keithpardee, That link for the diy FBF is awsome. That makes it a heck of a lot easier to justify building one that way than it does buying the one that they sell at the fish places on the internet. Yeah, I now when I had my diy wet/drys they were great at removing the ammonia and nitrites, but the nitrates would always just hover there and you really couldn't do anything about them. Um do you runs your fbf with a sump set up like they show in the thread or is it stand alone? I kind of want to make or buy one that stands alone so that I can minimize waisting co2 for a planted tank. Thanks again

 

[czcz]

Since plants are excellent biofilters and will uptake ammonia, the large biofilter capability of fluidized beds is unnecessary. This is also true of wet/dry.

 

[malkore]

I wouldn't bother with something that extravagent. Plants are an excellent bio filter for ammonia and nitrate.
I also wonder how it would affect plant roots...the concept isn't far removed from UGF filtration, adn the plates for that filter cause plant root issues.

 

[Guest]

Since plants are excellent biofilters and will uptake ammonia, the large biofilter capability of fluidized beds is unnecessary. This is also true of wet/dry.

I wouldn't bother with something that extravagent. Plants are an excellent bio filter for ammonia and nitrate.
I also wonder how it would affect plant roots...the concept isn't far removed from UGF filtration, adn the plates for that filter cause plant root issues.

I'm really not considering a fluidyzed bed filter for taking care of a extremely large bioload in a planted aquarium. I'm considering it because from my understanding you can hook the things up like a canister filter and not loose co2 like you would with a wet/dry or a hob with a biowheel. My main concern is will a fluval, xp3 or an ehiem be able to pump water threw a chiller if need be. At least with the FBF if the need arises you could just upgrade the pump for an extra couple hundred gallon output more to componsate the strain an extra peice of hardware is causing or placing on head hight.

 

[czcz]

But why use an FBF instead of keeping it simple with closed loop and just injecting CO2 in the line and piping to a chiller?

Or another alternative is investing the time for FBF into a sump instead, so you also get the benefits of larger water volume, and you could put whatever you want in there. Sump will lower the temperature as well.

(No help with chillers.)

HTH