Description
Biotope Sintered Glass filter Beads are a biological filter media that should be placed in the middle of the filter chamber, it is not recommend that these beads are used as a pre-filter as they will quickly clog due to their size and shape.
Biotope Sintered Glass Filter Beads are suitable for Marine Aquariums, Tropical Aquariums and Coldwater Aquariums and Ponds.
Biotope Sintered Glass Filter Beads are a highly efficient filter media both mechanically and biologically.
Mechanically it is critical that the water is processed correctly throughout the filter, firstly the water passes through the course media, Biotope Sintered Glass Tubes (the pre-filter), this process is important, secondly the water passes through the biological media, Biotope Sintered Glass Filter tube can be used as a pre-filter and also the biological filter, the pre-filter should be about 20 percent of the total volume, if also using the tubes as the biological filter then this percentage needs to be increased to a minimum of 75 present.
For greater biological surface area, Biotope Sintered Glass Beads should be used as the main biological filter media, these Beads per volume provide approximately 50% increase in surface area.
Why do Biotope Beads provide a 50% greater surface area than Biotope Tubes? they are both made of exactly the same material (sintered glass), its simple, the answer is in the application.
Biotope Tubes are primarily designed as a mechanical prefilter, the first stage of breaking down organic loan, their function is to pre-filter water and reduce filter maintenance by removing large dirt particles and secondly as the first stage of the biological process.
Biotope Beads are primarily designed as a biological filter and secondly as a mechanical filter to trap and convert finer organic matter.
It’s the size and shape, less sintered glass is needed when making the tubes per litre than the Beads. therefore, there is less sintered glass per litre of filter area then with the Beads.
For example, take our 700ml tub of Sintered Glass Filter Tubes, the weight is 400g compared this to the Sintered Glass Filter Beads weighing 600g, this is a 50% increase in material and also a huge increase of total surface area.
When deciding on the 12ml size of the Beads 3 aspect were on considered
- Filter maintenance, how often the filter would need cleaning.
- Mechanical benefits, trapping fine particles.
- Sustainable water flow.
We found larger Beads would retain good water flow but less effective mechanically, finer Beads clogged easily and could restrict water flow and would require additional filter maintenance.
We concluded that the 12ml Beads would be the perfect size, they maintained good water flow while also trapping dirt particles with less clogging.
Biotope Sintered Glass Beads are packaged and distributed in Australia by Aquaforce Pty. Ltd.
