KirkyArcher
Fish Addict
Well I have now got nothing but this product in all my Biological trays (2 out of the three available trays in a Fluval 206 for the 125 litre & 306 for the 200 litre ).
My tanks I must admit do fall into the heavily stocked bracket
This media is super porous having a wicking effect when dunked into water and as a result has a large surface area for Bacteria to colonise,
They do a remarkable job of handling Ammonia and Nitrite as quite a lot of filter bio-media does, returning zero ppm on every test,
However the supplier makes the statement that in long term use the by-product of the nitrogen cycle "nitrate" will also be reduced as Anaerobic bacteria has time to develop within the media,
My Findings
I've had some of this media in the 206 along with the fluval biomax and some Ehiem Substrat pro for well over 8 months and have gradually phased out the other two over that time-frame. About week after a 25% water change I would regularly get average Nitrate readings of 20-40 ppm, but now I think this anaerobic bacteria must be developing, or at least something is having an effect, I have been doing tests No3, No2 and NH3 every other day for 18 days now and my Nitrate is still showing just 5 ppm (no water change, and feeling uncomfortable about leaving it very much longer) which I think goes some way to support the claims made about reducing water change frequency and volume. The 200 litre that has the same media in it but has not yet had time to for the anaerobic bacteria to develop is still retuning 20 ppm for Nitrate after a week. NO2 and NH3 handled very nicely at 0 ppm
My tanks I must admit do fall into the heavily stocked bracket
This media is super porous having a wicking effect when dunked into water and as a result has a large surface area for Bacteria to colonise,
They do a remarkable job of handling Ammonia and Nitrite as quite a lot of filter bio-media does, returning zero ppm on every test,
However the supplier makes the statement that in long term use the by-product of the nitrogen cycle "nitrate" will also be reduced as Anaerobic bacteria has time to develop within the media,
My Findings
I've had some of this media in the 206 along with the fluval biomax and some Ehiem Substrat pro for well over 8 months and have gradually phased out the other two over that time-frame. About week after a 25% water change I would regularly get average Nitrate readings of 20-40 ppm, but now I think this anaerobic bacteria must be developing, or at least something is having an effect, I have been doing tests No3, No2 and NH3 every other day for 18 days now and my Nitrate is still showing just 5 ppm (no water change, and feeling uncomfortable about leaving it very much longer) which I think goes some way to support the claims made about reducing water change frequency and volume. The 200 litre that has the same media in it but has not yet had time to for the anaerobic bacteria to develop is still retuning 20 ppm for Nitrate after a week. NO2 and NH3 handled very nicely at 0 ppm
