libbyb
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I have an Aquaclear 500 on my planted FW 55g. Right now, there are 22 cardinals, 6 odessa barbs and a cory.
Do I only need the sponge and ammo chips?
Do I only need the sponge and ammo chips?
Personally, I wouldn't use ammo chips. I've seen way too much about how they can have a negative effect on your tank. All you need is the sponges and some sort of bio-media like the ceramic rings that come with them.Do I only need the sponge and ammo chips?
If you are using an AC 500, add a second sponge insert. This is bio media, you can also add a bag of the bio rings, but the sponge is biomedia. prior to the AC 500 becoming the AC110, it did not come with the bag of biorings. The sponge insert was the biomedia. A second sponge basically doubles the biomedia, whether you use the rings or not. it will also help trap solids that get through the first sponge.
Is this an opinion or do you know this for fact? Again, I will reoterate, the bio cylinders are a recent addition to the AC line. For many years they provided adequate filtration with only 1 sponge insert, that performed double duty of mechanical and biological filtration. Adding a second sponge would double the bio. So, while the cylinders are an excellent bio bed,( provided they stay clean) you under estimate the value of the sponge insert. Perhaps, to get a better idea of the value of reticulted sponge, you should look at a hamburg or mattenfilter.One bag of the ceramic rings (or whatever shape they are in, mine were more like little cylinders) has more surface area to grow biomedia than 100 sponge inserts would have. If you want more bacteria, adding a sponge does not do nearly as much as adding a bag of the ceramic stuff.
you dont need carbon or the ammona chips you would be better off most likely adding another sponge or so bio media.
tell us more about your tank and what exactly are you using. root tabs and liquid ferts shoot for different things.
Is this an opinion or do you know this for fact? Again, I will reoterate, the bio cylinders are a recent addition to the AC line. For many years they provided adequate filtration with only 1 sponge insert, that performed double duty of mechanical and biological filtration. Adding a second sponge would double the bio. So, while the cylinders are an excellent bio bed,( provided they stay clean) you under estimate the value of the sponge insert. Perhaps, to get a better idea of the value of reticulted sponge, you should look at a hamburg or mattenfilter.
What can go bad with Carbon and Ammo Chips?
Just to throw out some numbers...
Seachem Matrix (which is their particular brand of porour ceramic biomedia, and presumably pretty close to the biomedia made by Hagen for the AquaClears) has been rigorously scientifically tested. One liter of their biomedia (that is, enough of the ceramic media to fit in a 1 L container) contains over 700 square meters of surface area for bacteria. Or in other words, over 7,500 square feet of surface area! I just measured the size of the biomedia bag of the tiniest, smallest AquaClear filter they make. Roughly 7 cm x 6 cm x 3 cm (or 3" x 2" x 1") is all it is. Yet when you do the math, this incredibly tiny bag of biomedia has over 1,200 square feet of surface area for bacteria to colonize (!!!!!!)
Now compare that with a sponge of the same size (especially the very open, airy sponges that AquaClear uses in their filters). You wouldn't even be in the ballpark. If you compared it to a really, really incredibly dense sponge (like the kind used in quality sponge filters) then maybe the gap would close a little. But I still doubt it would come all that close.
As a further way of arguing the point, and to take your own observation and use it against you, if the ceramic media didn't provide significantly more surface area for bacteria than the sponge does...why would Hagen have ever created the ceramic media to begin with?!? Since, as you correctly point out, the sponge is going to do a much better job at physical filtration than the ceramic does. So if the sponge does a better job of physical filtration, and a better (or even equally good) job a bio filtration, then there is absolutely zero reason for Hagen (or any filter company) to invest the time, money, and resources to create ceramic biomedia. It makes no sense. Yet every legit company out there that makes quality HOB or canister filters talks about the sponge material doing mechanical filtration and the ceramic media doing bio filtration.
Even if one didn't understanding anything at all about surface area, etc., just the fact that this is the direction that all of the legit filter manufacturers have gone really tells us all we need to know.