Is a BioWheel Worth it?
- Thread starter Mahamotorworks
- Start date
Very well worth it. If you don't want to spend more money on a good canister, then a bio-wheel is the way to go. On a 29G, an Emperor 280 would work well, I have one on my 26G, and I love it. And have 2 Emperor 400's on my 55G. Definitely worth it. And if you already have a cycled tank, run it side-by-side with the old filter for about 3 weeks, then it should be more than ready to run without the old filter.
I use the, on all 3 of my tanks. My favorite is the Emperor. The bio wheel on my 20 gets stuck once in a while, but the emporer sends a stream of water directly onto the bio-wheel, it never gets stuck. When you go to get it don't go to Petco, lol. Petco had the Emperor 400 for like $80, I bought it online for $35.
How do the Penguins stack up against the Emporers? They are both made by Marineland (I think). The Penguins are about $10.00 cheaper for the same capacity at KensFish
guess i seem to be the only one that DOESN'T like them, biowheel filters were my first filters and i hated it, mine sent the water underneath the bio wheel, which then inturned made the fins move, when the bio-wheel got enough of a bacteria colony on it or if muck got on it, the wheel would stop moving, i was constantly cleaning it Just the muck off the spindles to get it to move again. I've since moved to aquaclear hob filters and i love them, no problems what so ever, and a huge huge basket for media. OH that was the other thing about the Biowheel filters, the filter pads would always get some kind of slime build up on them it was so gross lol.
Also with the aquaclear filters since the media basket is so big, i have two extra bags of ceramic chips in thier to get more bacteria built up for the next tank that im doing, that way once i have the tank i can just move the bags over and voila instant cycle.
Also with the aquaclear filters since the media basket is so big, i have two extra bags of ceramic chips in thier to get more bacteria built up for the next tank that im doing, that way once i have the tank i can just move the bags over and voila instant cycle.
I just bought one to go on my 55 gal and after a few days of running it and seeding bacteria from my old tank it is already getting green with bacteria growth. My tank is starting to show nitrite levels slightly going up after like 4 days! I think they work very well from what I have seen. They are realy easy to get going and mine worked good the first time I plugged it in.
