Do I Need the Bio Wheels

[redfishbluefish]

With the fish losses I had from a cucumber nuking my tank, I need to quarantine a large number of fish. So I picked up a used 55 gallon with a Marineland Penguin 350 Bio Wheel filter.....with no filters or bio-wheels. I'm not familiar with bio wheel filters, but do I need to replace them for a QT tank filter?

 

[Reefing Madness]

Youd need the bacteria of a cycled tank for your qt, the bio wheels would provide this once they've had time to grow the bacteria. You can run the wheels and filter on a qt, won't be an issue.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Thanks for the reply.

I was aware the wheels held bacteria, but here's why I asked.....Buying new wheels and the filters, I'm looking at 27 - 30 bucks. I can buy a whole new BioWheel 350 for $35. Just seems crazy to buy new parts when I could buy totally new for an extra 5 bucks.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Oh yea I hear ya there. I'd buy the new unit myself. The wheels don't really go bad, just need rinsed off once they've been in the system a long time.

 

[ReefNo0ob]

With the fish losses I had from a cucumber nuking my tank, I need to quarantine a large number of fish. So I picked up a used 55 gallon with a Marineland Penguin 350 Bio Wheel filter.....with no filters or bio-wheels. I'm not familiar with bio wheel filters, but do I need to replace them for a QT tank filter?

Either that or buy a couple bio blocks for inside the qt but i would imagine the bio wheels are cheaper to buy

 

[lion king]

You can put something like seachem matrix in the hob to house your bacteria. You can also throw in a bag of carbon, chemipure, or whatever for chemical filtration. You can also add a cut to size filter pad for mechanical filtration. Arrangement and water flow is important, if done correctly it can be super efficient. I created a diy basket in my hob ac70 that directs the water flow trough a filter pad, then up through a bag of seachem matrix, then through a bag of chemipure blue. It's a 40 breeder and ran awesome.