Bioballs: Filtermedia

[mianos]

Also from that paper:

"Nitrifiers need oxygen for normal metabolism. Every milligram of nitrogen passed through their full nitrification pathway (starting at ammonia and concluding at nitrate) requires approximately 4.5 mg of dissolved oxygen to scavenge electrons drawn from their nitrogenous substrates. "

I will write the math up later today (it's weekly fish tank cleanups and water changes time now )

But suffice to say, that's not much dissovled oxygen when you consider how much nitrate to be processed and that the oxygen can be continually replenished.

[wrk21]

baz,

i hate when my balls are exposed to.........lol

wayne

[wrk21]

if i can just get ot , well sort of , for a sec, we have all nearly agreed that you should keep ya balls dry so in the case of a canister filter why do they have noodles, small bio balls, matrix and what every else when the only oxygen thats going in there is through the water........cant be real effective!!

yes i know theres a sponge or filter wool at the top which is the mechanical part so why do we need the rest????

[mianos]

if i can just get ot , well sort of , for a sec, we have all nearly agreed that you should keep ya balls dry so in the case of a canister filter why do they have noodles, small bio balls, matrix and what every else when the only oxygen thats going in there is through the water........cant be real effective!!

←

That would be because we all don't agree that the balls need to be dry. We all agree the oxygen should be present for the process to work but some of us believe that if there is enough oxygen idssolved in the water the process will work fine. Some people don't belive there is enough dissolved oxygen so we have two types of bio ball placement. I have both and both seem to work for me. Scientifically there should be enough dissolved oxygen if the fish are OK as they need more than the nitrifiers but some people probably won't agree with that