• What is this Filter???

  • Shawn

Hello everyone! I recently visited the "Aquarium Center." I saw an interesting Chinese filter there, priced at about $40. I have attached a diagram of it. In short, it consists of a column about 40 cm high and 10 cm in diameter; it is filled with aragonite sand to about one third. Water is supplied from a pump with a capacity of 2000 l/h through a tube that reaches the bottom. The principle of operation: the pump pushes water into the tube, where the sand "boils." Question! What exactly does this filter filter? Does anyone already have a similar filter?

Jason

It looks like an FBH filter. Quartz sand is suitable for freshwater, while aragonite is apparently suitable for seawater.

Andrew9581

Biofilter - there was a discussion about homemade ones, ranging from PET bottles to triangular ones. Correction Oh, it's the sea, there it was about freshwater.

Tanner

And more details... What processes are happening there?

Angela7060

Yes, a regular sand filter (FBF). And who said there is aragonite sand there? Usually, the sand is silicate, although it is fine and white. It works like any biofilter - bacteria settle on the surface of the sand grains and oxidize nitrogen from ammonia to nitrate.

Hunter1471

Simply put, when sand is boiled, bacteria settle on each grain. Here, read this.

Jessica8898

And yet, is oxygen supplied to the filter along with seawater or not? It works like any biofilter - bacteria settle on the surface of the sand grains and oxidize nitrogen from ammonia to nitrate. As far as I know, this process is aerobic...

Erica752

In freshwater (herbaceous) environments, it's the opposite: less oxygen, more carbon dioxide, while in the sea it doesn't matter since there's plenty of oxygen from the foam.

Barbara

I have one of these on a small aquarium, a useless thing if there are live rocks in the tank. This filter fights ammonia, but the effect is almost imperceptible. The media in it is heavy sand, definitely not aragonite. I will modify mine to a carbon or phosphate filter (you cut it and glue in a socket fitting) or just throw it away.

Tonya

What about the nitrate factory?