Bio-Wheels GOOD/BAD?

[NightRydaz01]

I had an interesting comment come up and was wondering are bio-wheels good or bad for saltwater tanks. A spinning wheel that grows benificial bacteria on it how can that be bad for your tank. Some say use a powerhead and keep the circulation going. Now if I setup used a powerful filter one that's rated for a 75gallon tank on a 20gallon tank and a bubble wand across the bottom you can see the water circulating not enough to cause a whirlpool effect but enough to keep the water moving.

20 Gallon Saltwater Tank
15lbs Live Rock
Penguin 330
2 Persicula Clowns
2 Domino Damsels

Is this setup efficient for my enviroment ?

 

[aresgod]

the biowheel tends to harbor nitrates, so if you have a problem with them that is most likely why....but it can be avoided by thourough cleansing periodically, most people dont use them on reef tanks simply because they are not nesecarry if you have live rock, sand and a protein skimmer
Brahm

 

[1979camaro]

precisely...if you pull the wheel out and the filter pad that filter is great for creating water flow through your LR. That is the key to biological filtration in the reef tank. unless you like the look of the bubbles, there really isnt a need for it provided your water flow is up to snuff which you should be with 330gph, most people shoot for a miniumum of 10x the tank volume per hour...a good skimmer would be great for your setup in my opinion...i always plug the aqua-c remora as a good hob skimmer but in a tank of that size most any hob skimmer will do the job...the red sea berlin is considerably cheaper

 

[wayne]

They're good for getting rid of ammonia, but they can be a pain as the end product is nitrate which can be a problem.
So they're ok if you understand what they do, and what the end effect of that process might be.

 

[S.Reef]

I currently use a Emperor 400 and trickle filter on my 90FOWLR. Nitrates rarely go over 15ppms. The reason being live rock removes nitrates. With this being said if you have live rock, it will probably get rid of the nirtates but you probably dont need the biowheel.

 

[dbacksrat]

couldnt you attach the biowheel to a powerhead, then place both in a quarantine tank? (it took me a bit to come up with that gem)

 

[S.Reef]

Umm...im kinda confused. You would need another filter for a bio wheel. It cannot run on powerhead.

 

[1979camaro]

i know what he is saying, but like sam said, that wont work

 

[nightrydaz04]

After much reading I think a BIO-WHEEL is a suffiecent filtering device for NANO tanks 20gallons and below. It will help with the ammonia and then in return turns it into nitrate which your liverock should be able to turn into nitrite now from there im kinda stuck but i have at least a month to figure it out. My tank probably won't cycle through for another month maybe 2. I've read with smaller tanks it tank a longer time for the tank to cycle.

 

[1979camaro]

the process goes ammonia-nitrite-nitrate...there is no going from nitrate to nitrite involved. i had a nano (20g) and I tried using a HOB filter and a couple powerheads with LR. I found that I had a lot of nuisance algae and so I pulled the filter pad out...solved the problem. I really believe you are better off going without the biowheel and filter media. my recomendation, if you want this to really work well, is to get a HOB skimmer and use the HOB filter as a source of water flow

 

[S.Reef]

Hmm...seen it both ways. Biowheel in and out. Try it your way, if it succeeds use it, if not drop it.