# biowheel or filter floss?



## cosmo (Feb 11, 2014)

Hi,
I'm currently using a penguin 350 biowheel filter for my 55g tank.
I find that the biowheel causes lots of micro bubbles.
I was wondering if I can just add filter floss to the extra media slot in the filter and remove the biowheel.
Can this be done or is it a bad idea?


----------



## Y2KGT (Jul 20, 2009)

I personally like the bio-wheel filters. I know a lot of people don't like them for various reason including micro bubbles, excessive noise or the bio-wheel stops turning however I don't have any of these problems on my Emperor 280 or Penguin 150. I do daily water changes on both tanks with bio-wheels so the water level is always where it should be (near the top of the tank) and I think that helps.

Now as far as whether you should remove the bio-wheel and add filter floss. Keeping in mind these filters are designed to provide 3 types of filtration including biological, mechanical and chemical, by removing the bio-wheel you have removed the biological filtration. By adding filter floss you're adding additional mechanical filtration which you'll have to replace on a frequent basis. 

I would suggest you add biological filter media to the extra media slot such as Eheim Substrat Pro or equivalent and never replace it. Otherwise even if you replace your mechanical filtration on an alternating basis you still run the risk of a mini cycle.
--
Paul


----------



## cosmo (Feb 11, 2014)

great. Thanks for your help


----------



## mauricion69 (Sep 4, 2013)

.....


----------



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I agree with this


----------



## keltera (Feb 15, 2014)

my biowheel has stopped moveing, i dont know how to keep it moveing :/ flow is at max filter cartridge in the back of it (no charcoal) i may add some extra filter floss in there to help get the water higher to maybe get the wheel to turn.


----------



## Mazaar (Nov 5, 2013)

keltera said:


> my biowheel has stopped moveing, i dont know how to keep it moveing :/ flow is at max filter cartridge in the back of it (no charcoal) i may add some extra filter floss in there to help get the water higher to maybe get the wheel to turn.


Same thing happened to me, the guy at BA told me the biowheel is only suppose to make a half rotation per minute. However like Y2K said, keeping the water level up in the tank helps. I find the lower the water level the slower the wheel spins.

I have the penguin 200 i believe and the most noise i find it make is the bio wheel slapping on the water.


----------



## mikey1 (Nov 23, 2012)

keltera said:


> my biowheel has stopped moveing, i dont know how to keep it moveing :/ flow is at max filter cartridge in the back of it (no charcoal) i may add some extra filter floss in there to help get the water higher to maybe get the wheel to turn.


makes sure the end dowels on each side of the wheel are clean, remove the bio wheel and clean them,

while you have the wheel removed, clean the slots that the wheel sits in, a Q-Tip works well for this


----------



## JNSN (Nov 4, 2013)

Y2KGT said:


> By adding filter floss you're adding additional mechanical filtration which you'll have to replace on a frequent basis.
> 
> --
> Paul


Don't mean to hijack thread but do you have to replace the filter floss? What if you rinse them infrequently?


----------



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

You can squeeze out/rinse floss and reuse it a number of times. It turns grey and it will eventually begin to shred, at which point replacing some of it becomes necessary. I replace about half of mine at one time. 

Floss is a great water polisher, for sure, but I would disagree that it's only useful for mechanical filtration. If you don't care for the bubbles the biowheel makes, you might try using floss in it's place. It's not expensive, which is nice. Sponge, cut to fit the space, is another possible replacement for the biological filtration. Sponge lasts much longer than anything else other than ceramic media, needing only regular rinsing/squeezing to clean it.

But if you rinse/squeeze floss out regularly, instead of replacing it all frequently, it performs pretty decent biofiltration. It has tons of surface area that the BB will colonize, just as they do the wheels, sponge or ceramics. 

I use chunks of old floss to 'seed' new filters, which has worked well for me.


----------

