Ceramic Noodles or Bio Balls

[skozzy]

I am having a go at making a new sump. And at this stage I have a question.
I want to use a small amount of noodles or balls after the pre filter
(sponge), and after choosing the style to go for the next question is should
they be fully submerged, or 50/50 or not at all ?.

At present it would be 80% wet and 20% dry.

After this stage it will go to my skimmer then to the mangrove section.

[Boomer]

I would use the noodles, as sooner or later you will end up with some type of fauna and
the noodles would be a better place for them to live.

--
Boomer

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"skozzy" > wrote in message
. ..
: I am having a go at making a new sump. And at this stage I have a question.
: I want to use a small amount of noodles or balls after the pre filter
: (sponge), and after choosing the style to go for the next question is should
: they be fully submerged, or 50/50 or not at all ?.
:
: At present it would be 80% wet and 20% dry.
:
: After this stage it will go to my skimmer then to the mangrove section.
:
:

[Craig Kaplan]

I have bio-blocks in the "wet" section of my sump. These stay
submerged all the time. The "dry" portion is filled with bio-balls and
the water drips from the drip tray through the bio-balls. Then it is
pulled through the bio-blocks into the reservoir and pumped back up
into the tank. This setup has been working well since 1990 (14 years).
My aquarium store owner recommended the bio-blocks in the "wet" section
and it has turned out to be a good thing. Originally, I had a DLS
spool in the dry section. After a few years, the DLS media started to
clog which caused some dead areas. In sections, I replaced the DLS
with bio-balls and that has solved the problem with dead areas blocking
the flow. The only tradeoff is that now during a power failure it is
more critical that I find a way to resume some flow of water over the
bio-ball media. It dries out much faster than the DLS spool would. I
have an APC UPS on the pump which will handle short duration power
loss. For longer outages, I have some battery operated pumps and keep
fresh batteries handy. Once, I had to manually pour water into the
tank causing water to spill down the pipe into the sump in order to
keep the bio-balls wet. Fortunately, I was able to get through that
without any damage to my filter.

I hope this helps.

ck



In article >, Boomer
> wrote:

> I would use the noodles, as sooner or later you will end up with some type of
> fauna and
> the noodles would be a better place for them to live.