Eheim Substrat Pro?

Does anybody use Eheim Substrat Pro Biological Media? I will post a picture below with what the product looks like. But my main question is how many gallons is one of these bags of Biological Media balls good for? The box says 1440G is that 1440G of water volume? And would that be for one bag or both bags?

 

I love this media, but hate how its so expensive. I have around 4L of this media in my sump, and I do find it holds a healthy amount of bacteria for denitrification (I find it does not possess enough area to facilitate anaerobic conditions for nitrate > nitrogen gas, but it could simply be due to the flowrate of my sump).

I honestly just recommend to fill up enough of your filter with this as you can (leaving room for mechanical or if needed, chemical filtration).

 

What do you mean it does not possess enough area to facilitate anaerobic conditions? For nitrate to nitrogen gas?

 

most people perform water changes to reduce nitrates but you can also colonize denitrifying bacteria to convert nitrates to nitrogen naturally as it occurs in nature. I think our Australian friend is just saying that this media seems to lack the appropriate surface area for this

IMO its more about introducing the denitrifying bacteria to have it colonize in the first place rather than an issue of surface area. but I actually advise against colonizing denitrifying bacteria anyways. I did that in my planted tank and now I can't ever get my nitrates above 5ppm even if I dose 2ppm daily LOL. pretty bad idea unless you have like a cichlid tank or something

edit: It is an excellent filter media lol. I forgot to say that. It will do a good job. It means that the whole box is good for a 1440g pond

 

most people perform water changes to reduce nitrates but you can also colonize denitrifying bacteria to convert nitrates to nitrogen naturally as it occurs in nature. I think our Australian friend is just saying that this media seems to lack the appropriate surface area for this

IMO its more about introducing the denitrifying bacteria to have it colonize in the first place rather than an issue of surface area. but I actually advise against colonizing denitrifying bacteria anyways. I did that in my planted tank and now I can't ever get my nitrates above 5ppm even if I dose 2ppm daily LOL. pretty bad idea unless you have like a cichlid tank or something

edit: It is an excellent filter media lol. I forgot to say that. It will do a good job. It means that the whole box is good for a 1440g pond

Why would having no nitrates be a bad thing? Haha the biological media is going into an FX6 for a cichlid tank but I will be setting up an FX6 for a planted aquarium and now I'm wondering should I use this stuff for that tank as well?

 

Why would having no nitrates be a bad thing? Haha the biological media is going into an FX6 for a cichlid tank but I will be setting up an FX6 for a planted aquarium and now I'm wondering should I use this stuff for that tank as well?

You can use it for both. You have to go out of your way to establish a colony of denitrifying bacteria so don't worry. It's bad for my planted tank because my nitrates are always limited and a lot of plants need a nitrate level between 10-20 ppm to thrive

 

My old media was from a Ehiem pro filter. I have had no problems from it. I put it in my 407.

 

I use it in all my canisters. Ehiem and Sunsun.


No complaints on our end.

 

Hemikyle , your box contains 2 liters of products weighing 1440 grams. It's a quality sintered glass media, very porous.

It's made in Germany, so they use metric system for measuring weight and volume.

The included foam sponges in your FX canister will colonize a tremendous amount of beneficial bacteria.

I would suggest to add the Substrate Pro in the center of the bottom basket.

Consider buying a sheet of 30ppi foam from Amazon from the brand Aquaneat. They sell 2" thick sheets of 20ppi and 30 ppi foams. A layer of 30ppi foam in your middle basket will catch a lot of fine muck, without clogging like layers of filter floss will. It will act as both a mechanical and biological filtration media.

I use their 20 and 30ppi foams in my filters.