Bioballs vs ceramic rings vs biocells

[Lilthuglet]

I've been looking at extra biological filter media and I've seen quite a few options, balls, rings and honeycomb like cells seem to be the major type. Anyone got any advice on which is the best for building up good bacteria?

 

[Fisch]

Where would you plan to put the additional media. I myself look into the addition of it to my canister filter, and leaning towards Eheim Substrate plus instead of ceramic media. I am curious about the responses to your question.

 

[Lilthuglet]

Where would you plan to put the additional media. I myself look into the addition of it to my canister filter, and leaning towards Eheim Substrate plus instead of ceramic media. I am curious about the responses to your question.

I'd be putting it inside the body of a hang on the back filter along with two sponges, and probably not the carbon filters that come with unless required. It has quite a large 'bucket' section where the filters and sponges live, one on each side, and quite a large empty middle section that looks ideal to pop a couple of handfuls of ceramicy thingies in.

 

[AvalancheDave]

MarinePure released a "study" which, if you read between the lines, says that even the media with the least surface area/volume is more than enough. So the main considerations should be clog resistance and longevity.

I switched back to the original bio balls that came with my filter after using K1-esque media with more (but unnecessary) surface area.

 

[JayAlva]

what type of filter?
i like seachem matrix or biohome biogravel. the biogravel being that you can fit alot of the small pellet sized sintered glass into the relatively small space of a hob. matrix is nice but ive had a container come back with more rock than the pumice style rock. i read it depends where you buy from.