Hey all, a friend of mine came over and set up my filter in a way that he said he always used that worked best. I have a power filter with two bio-wheels. he claims that it works best to just remove the bio wheels and set foam filters angled up towards the tubes that shoot the water into what is supposed to be the wheels. he is very good with aquariums and his tanks are always spotless so i have to believe it works. but i just feel like the bio wheels are something that should be used! everything i read about them is that they work wonders with bacteria and stuff that the tank needs! give me your input please!

havent heard of the foam pads. but after my bio wheels got to grimey to turn. I threw them out and havent used them since. I use bio max in the filter instead. The wheels were too much of a pain for me, but I know some people have had success by changing them out.

good luck

The bio wheels are supposed to function as a wet-dry filter, because the majority of the wheel is in contact with the air (dry), while a small piece is touching the water (wet). The reason this is supposed to be so efficient is because the extra air is supposed to really increase the bacteria's ability to convert ammonia into nitrite and then into nitrate.

Thats the thoery behind it. So if your bio-wheels are working then I would leave them on, but as cebosound said, they often stop turning and become a pain. But either way enough bacteria will grow in your tank to cope with the ammonia and nitrite.

Oh its like they do at the sewer plant. they use floating areators to churn the water, my guess is for the bacteria to break down the sh!t. Same principle i guess. sorry thinking outloud.

yeah i knew the whole purpose behind the wheels and thats why i wasnt sure i should take them out. but if the bacteria will grow to take care of ammonia anyways then i am going to leave them out. thanks all!

I cannot say I am particularly familiar with these bio wheel filters but if you take the wheel out, then you are seriously reducing the efficiency of the filter and what's it supposed to achieve when it comes to removing toxins from your tank.

The bio wheel filter isn't very common in the uk, but as far as i can tell foam is placed around a wheel. the idea is the wheel turns giving the foam more area to generate Bactria. having a length of foam will still work but I couldn't say it would or wouldn't work any better. i would have thought if a length of foam without the wheel done the same job then the makers of the wheel wouldn't have gone to the trouble of putting them in?

marcus wrote:


Good point.



Anyways TeeDeeZee, I would stick with the biowheels. They will go through periods where they get gunked up and rotate slower (which is perfectly normal), however with the emperor models the spray bar keeps them moving so there's no issue. My only recommendation is you only have penguin filters is to make sure you fill the extra media cartridges with ceramic rings/balls etc. Almost every size type biological filter media will actually fit in them...(I use the large fluval ceramic rings) or better yet...buy some mesh bags, and fill them with media in place of the cartridges...you can fit around 6 bags in each emperor, thus dramatically increasing surface area for bacteria.

For some further info read the article about halfway down in the thread link: I found it rather interesting.

Bio Wheel Filters