Siporax

[Scaperoot]

   We just picked up a box of 15 MM, 10.2 oz Siporax for our 40 breeder. The hope is to get away from using the replaceable cartridges. What's the best way to transition? The filter is a Marineland Pengin Bio-wheel power filter (50-75 gallons, 350 GPH). If we place the bio rings in a media bag, along with a piece of filter pad, how long before we can remove the original cartridges for good? I'm reading that it could take up to 8 weeks for a bacteria colony to get established. Any concerns with these particular rings? The owner of the fish store (ACO partner) convinced us that these work better than the ceramic ones. 

[Lennie]

I used to have normal siporax in old my blood parrot tank years ago. I currently have a mixture of Siporax mini and matrix as biomedia in my 29g. I have personally not faced any issues before.

How stocked is your tank?

 

[Scaperoot]

We have about 40-50 fish altogether, including Platy fry (a dozen) that were born 2 weeks ago. We have a couple mollies, several Platys, some cherry barbs, various Corydoras, about 10 Cardinal Tetras, a few Nerites, and one large mystery snail. 

[Flumpweesel]

I generally find that filters reseed pretty quickly in an established tank (bacteria live on everything). I would change the filter media but not so a water change & glass clean for a couple weeks if your schedule allows. 

Obviously keeping an eye on things for going iffy.

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/8/2023 at 9:43 AM, Scaperoot said:

We just picked up a box of 15 MM, 10.2 oz Siporax for our 40 breeder. The hope is to get away from using the replaceable cartridges. What's the best way to transition? The filter is a Marineland Pengin Bio-wheel power filter (50-75 gallons, 350 GPH). If we place the bio rings in a media bag, along with a piece of filter pad, how long before we can remove the original cartridges for good? I'm reading that it could take up to 8 weeks for a bacteria colony to get established. Any concerns with these particular rings? The owner of the fish store (ACO partner) convinced us that these work better than the ceramic ones. 

The media is generally good.  I would recommend looking at the "show us your filter mods" threads for inspiration on setup.  @TeeJay has one that he might be able to share some photos with on his setup.

Foam first, coarse pre-filter, medium+fine in the HoB itself.  Whatever cartridge was in the filter you can just toss that in the tank and let it stay near the input flow path.  Second to that wring it out in a bit of tank water and then pour that into the filter box once you mod it with the new media.  Parting that, you can dose in some bacteria in a bottle if you run into any issues.

Mechanical --> Biological --> Chemical

So you'd have the prefilter and the internal foam pads.  After your foam you have the rings.  If you ever need to run carbon or purigen or phosguard it would go following the rings / ceramic media.

[TeeJay]

I personally stopped using bio medias in my filters other than sponges. I just feel the give way more surface are for bb to grow. So on my penguin I bought the penguin pre filter sponge marineland sells and took out the media basket and use the sponge instead hooked to the pump and inside the filter. They I used 2 course sponge squares in the main cartridge compartment. They wanted to shift forward and rub against the bio wheel. So I used a piece of latchhook "board" and cut to the size so it would set into the cartridge slot closest to the bio wheel. It keeps them held in place well. Then I took off the strainer basket and put a med size co op pre filter sponge on the inlet.

[nabokovfan87]

@TeeJay does that marineland one have a hole all the way through?  I think ima need to see how that fits on the Tidals.

[TeeJay]

On 3/8/2023 at 6:32 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

@TeeJay does that marineland one have a hole all the way through?  I think ima need to see how that fits on the Tidals.

What the marineland square prefilter. No it does not 

[Scaperoot]

Thank you to everyone for the tips. Greatly appreciated.