Noob learns about sponges vs biomedia

[GaryE]

I don't know of any online based sites that don't sometimes lose long posts, as another person who writes the lengthy type. I too have had a lot of things vanish. There's a fundamental instability to sites not designed for lengthy writings. I know of no forums that don't do this.

My solution is to try to remember to keep it shorter, and go for more than one post if I get a response that seems to justify it. I'm a writer and I compose texts quickly, so I have to watch myself. I don't always do what I plan to, and more than one post has simply evaporated. I haven't always redone them. It's happened here, and on the other forums I used to frequent. I expect they all use the same basic software.

I always have the awareness that half a dozen of us can have a conversation here, but it can be read by hundreds of new hobbyists who aren't put off by us. So context, a little background info - they could matter to someone.

 

[malfunction]

SPONGES ARE BIOMEDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will tell you that the Aquarium Science site is awful, Their info is bad and I would advise one to ignore it.

I would say the same thing about the AI answers.

90% of people in the hobby are using what I call Urban Aquarium myths to guide their actions.

Folks are willing to beleve all the BS and to ignore established science. The fish are who suffers because of this.

Filtration is done by living organisms. Media does not filter, it provides a place for those organisms to liveand to have what they need in the water delivered to them.

If what most believe above were, true the world would not exists. Our job as keepers is to do the best we can ina glasss box to replicate the things that have been working in nature for millions of years.

And the best Poret ppi as a general rule is not the 30 ppi it is the 20 ppi. Clogged media is uselsss and the higher the ppi the faster it will clog. Almost all of my AquaClear filters use Poret 20 ppi.

For the past 20 Years I have been working with the rarer B&W Hypancistrus. I have spent well over $25,000 to acquire rare species. I have had at least 1,200- 1,500 offspring born in my tanks and go out across the country to other keepers. I have been told I have an excellent reputation for offering healthy fish which arrive alive, stay that way for those who keep them properly and my favorite reconntact from such folks that they have got them breeding tells me I am doing things right.

The absolute worst thing o do when cleaning foam is too squeeze it, That is the best way to shorten its useful lifespan. I have thrown out a loc ot the initial AC foams as the started to fall apart. To day I have Poret in filters for 10 years of more and it is still in great shape.

What a filter does beyond providing a home for the needed organisms which make oiut tanks safe is to move the water which contains those things through the media to feed those organisms. But, if one has no filter but substrate and other solid surface out of the liht, the bacteria will colonize these and will do the same job.

I joined this site a long time ago. Back then the owners and mods were pretty awful and I walked away for years. When I returned, I was reading plenty of posts about failed or stalled cycles. The cycling info here was pretty bad. I offered t rewrite it. Site admins could have rejected what I produced. But, it has been up since 2013. And the number of thread about cycling issues has declined drastically.

What I can also say is that in the 1990s what was accepted as the facts regarding what was doing the cyling chores has changed. Dr. Hovanec proved that the conventional wisdom as to what was doing the work was actually not. As the scientific tools got better, so did the knowledge. The actual microoganisms doing the work were identified, Then more of them were discovered. First it was learned that there were ammonia oxidizing Archaea as well as bacteria. Then it was discovered that some strains of Nitrospira (the ones that oxidize nitrite to nitrate) were actually able to oxidize ammonia directly to nitrate.

So, here is a question for the curious among members. The bacteria involved are singled celled lifeforms. They are there in huge numbers to make a tank safe. So, what do you think is the normal lifespan of the millions of individual single cells that are needed to keep a tank safe? What do these cells need to thrive and function as they do? If you want to learn the answer do not use Google Search ir its AI, Instead go to Google Scholar which only looks at the science and not all the other BS out there.

How many scientific papers has the guys who runs Aquarium Science had published over the years in peer reviewed journals? I have a few hundred such papers bookmarked. Here is an example of my file on the Archaea which includes comparisons of them and the bacteria.

View attachment 382289

This is really useful and a really impressive collection of literature. However….i can’t be the only one wondering what’s in the “funkifyme” folder

 

[malfunction]

Holy smokes! I had read about pot scrubbers in various places, I have seen the videos where guys like Cory from Aquarium Co-op fill filters with only sponges, people using filter floss, etcetera. But I had never put it all together. Today I did. Starting with a Google AI search, then reading some other forums and sources as well as here, I found out bio media is a complete marketing scam (with the exception of K1 media in a fluidized bed). I had already modified my AC20 by adding a 1" thick 20 PPI sponge then the supplied blue sponge, topped with a dual density water polishing pad, but I am now going to ditch the bottom 20 PPI layer and just get a second AquaClear 30 PPI sponge block and use two of them topped by the polishing pad. No other media needed.

Apparently the 30 PPI sponge is about the perfect "biomedia" around. I found this web resource fascinating.
Aquarium Science Filter Media

I have always run a UGF in conjunction with a HOB filter decades ago when I used to keep fish, and now, newly back to it. But I thought I was getting some bioload boost from the ceramic media. I don't need it, with the UGF, but it was nice insurance. Now I see there is even MORE insurance provided by doubling up on the supplied sponge.

A couple other things I learned. The Poret foam sold by Swiss Tropicals and recommended by @TwoTankAmin is indeed the "gold standard". If I was going to make a matten filter or a sump, I'd probably buy some. OTOH the Aquaclear sponges are so cheap for my HOB I'll just get more of theirs. They should last at least 5 years, from what I've read.

A corollary Is that if I was going to build a sump, and was not considering a fluidized bed, I'd probably just fill the entire thing up with Poret Foam, one 20 PPI block followed by as many 30 PPI blocks as will fit, in effect creating a massive Matten filter. Leave room in the last compartment for chemical media and a heater, but using stuff like Seachem Matrix or Fluval BioMax is both unnecessarily expensive and provides substandard biological filtering relative to a sump full of Poret 30 PPI foam. Makes sumps a lot simpler, too.

A couple valuable tips the Google AI found for me was that to cut really snug blocks of foam for HOB filters, soak them in water and freeze them solid. Then cut with a good serrated bread knife. Pretty clever, actually.

The other tips I got from AI for my AquaClear were about cleaning.

First I have plenty of bio filtration in my UGF and the now two 30 PPI foam blocks. No need to worry about the bio capacity in the pre-filter on the intake tube. For that it suggests getting a plastic bag over it inside the tank, then removing it in the bag to avoid gunking up the tank. Then really clean it super thoroughly in hot tap water. It's job is to keep small fish out of the filter and catch chunks of stuff the fish may pick at later. No need to worry about killing the bio colony in that.

For the two 30 PPI blocks in the filter, it recommends a 2-month schedule. Pull the bottom one and clean per normal in the water change water and replace it back in the bottom position in the filter in month 1. The next month pull the bottom filter again and clean it, but now move the top sponge to the bottom and put the cleaned bottom sponge in the top position. Month 3 is like month 1, month 4 is like month 2, etcetera. This keeps the biological capacity as undisturbed as possible. I am not sure why not go with a simple monthly schedule of clean the bottom sponge, move the upper sponge to the bottom and do that each time, frankly. The AI suggestion seems unnecessarily complex, but maybe there is a reason for it.

I figured most people here know about the superiority of sponges over biomedia. I thought that like me, some folks might be shocked at just how much sponges best the biomedia, and the tips might be helpful.

So, the main thing I agreed with in your posts is that we don’t need to get caught up in the latest fads in the hobby. Personally, I’m in the camp of just choose whichever filtration method you like best and that’s easiest for you to maintain. Ultimately, they’ll all do the job if planned properly

 

[JCinPA]

What surprised me as a noob was the huge gap in effectiveness between the expensive biomedia out there and plain sponge. It's an amazing triumph of marketing to sell a ton of less effective stuff for much more money. In some ways, maybe the sponge/scrubber pad thing is a "fad", but I like to think the biomedia stuff is the fad, and I'm jumping off that bandwagon. Like TTA said, sponge IS biological filtration. The marketing geniuses had successfully brainwashed many into thinking they needed mechanical first, and biological second with a different product, when really sponge is mechanical/biological. I was just surprised when I learned it. Anyway, here is the final form of my Aquaclear HOB filter basket. Two OEM sponges, one 1/2" thick slice of 40 PPI on top, and no "biological" in the sense of some other type of media and no chemical.

 

[gwand]

For my HOB filters I layer three sponges. On the bottom is 20 ppi sponge with the largest pores. Second the 35 ppi sponge and on top and the last to filter the tank water is the 50 ppi. Then a swab of floss as the cap. This works well.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I would suggest trying 10-->20--->30 ppi. Anything higer than 30 can clog pretty fast. I will only use 30 ppi in shrimp or fry tanks. I yend to use 20 ppi as the sole choice in most filters. I prefer to use the 10 for my prefilters but will also use 20 but nothing higher.

I had intended to do a sump set-up for a 125 gal. using sheets of 10-20-20-30. Unfortunately I never got the sump going as I was fforced to yse the 150 for the fish that were su[pposed to go into the 125. They were in a 75 which leaked and I was forced to change plans and put them into the 150. The 125 then became a grow tank for Hypancistrus and instead of doing the sump I used all Poret cubefilters and one tower filter. The 40 long which was to be the sump under the 1125 then became a pleco tank. I ran all the filters on thw 125/40L using a central air pump.

I use a lot of Poret. The sheets are used for Matten filters and then I will cut pieces from the sheets to make prefilters, to replace AqauClear foam and inside a canister. I also use 20 ppi sheets as tank dividers. Swiss Tropicals has them cut to the [erfect size for splitting either a 20L or a 33L. While I have not done corner filters, Poret is great for that as well.

Dspirte ths cost of Poret, it works out cheaper in the long run as it remains very usefull for many years. Ac foam and ATI sponges break down after a few years and must be replaced. Add to this the fact that Poret need to be rinsed a lot less frequently whic means I am saving the thing of greatest value in keeping tank, my time.

 

[JCinPA]

Poret is great stuff, but I only have one tank, it was not worth placing an order, and the Fluval sponge is pretty high quality.

And the PPI rating depends on your tank situation. With a higher bioload or messier fish, I’m sure 10-20-30 is great. For me it is totally unnecessary, I have one 10 gallon tank with 6 guppies and one gourami, a full UGF and the AC20, the chance of that 40 PPI clogging on top of 5” of 30 PPI is about zero with any kind of reasonable cleaning schedule. Two days ago I cleaned the filter and even the pre-filter didn’t have hardly anything in it. The bottom 30 PPI sponge was still basically clean.

The key learning point for me was foam = biological filtration. How one sets theirs up depends on their needs and 10-20-30 may be ideal for many. So is 20-30-40, and many people use some sort of polishing media at the top of their stack. With floss, toss it. With my 40 PPI, I’ll clean it and use for years.