The Puffer Forum

Has anyone else used these for Brackish tanks? Before even getting my tank I read some reviews about this filter and saw that it was good, except with salt. People said that it would crust up, clog up, and need a lot of cleaning with salt. Well when I started the brackish tank, only a few weeks later I saw that the reviews were partially correct. Mine did crust up a bit, but it didn't clog. Was it because of the current and splashing? I had crusty old salt on my hood as well. Had to clean around the filter every week to keep nice and clean.

Has anyone else had this kind of experience with Penguin Bio-Wheel filters in brackish tanks? What about in Marine tanks? Was I doing something wrong to get so much salty mess?

Several of us continuously recommend against bio-wheels on BW tanks due to salt spray issues. Same goes for air stones. Not worth the hassle IMHO.

Canister and HOB filters are not needed on most SW tanks except maybe short term for water polishing or when using carbon. Live rock and a good skimmer and maybe a deep sand bed and/or refugium are all that is needed on SW tanks.

Yay! I'm not the only one. Airstones? Do they get crusty too? Mine used to get sorta sticky and their tubing would turn a 'brown-ish' but..

Air stones will eventually clog in all tanks. The issue with using air stones on BW and SW tanks is that the bursting bubbles blast salt everywhere. You think you have a crusty buildup with a bio-wheel? Try using an air stone in the same tank and you'll really begin to see a buildup!

I really dont have a problem with my bio-wheel 350 in my FOWLR tank. just scrape the salt off the hood when i do a wc

I try to minimize maintenance requirements as much as possible. IMO, the benefits of bio-wheels on BW tanks is outweighed by the additional maintenance. I'm not saying they are bad for the BW tank, just not required and something I would not use.

I dont see what you mean by high maintenance. The salt just wipes off the gaurd with a damp towel. Work done.

I have an Eclipse III hood on my F8 tank... the way the lid is set up it keeps the salt spray from the bio-wheel to a minimum. I get more creep from the powerhead agitating the surface of the water.

I've got a Penguin 350 biowheel on my SW tank (used to be BW) and I've never had to clean the cover because no 'spray' is coming off the wheel. I used it without a protein skimmer for several months and I had no problems with water quality. I've since added a skimmer and I've got a ton more salt 'creep' coming from the area around my CSS than anywhere else.

MP

I've had tons of SW spray from HOB filters, not just Bio-wheels. IMO if you don't mind cleaning the crust go for it. If you want to save yourself some time just go with a canister.

I only use Bio-Wheels on all my tanks, I have very little mess

perek wrote:I only use Bio-Wheels on all my tanks, I have very little mess

I use canister filters on all my tanks that have a SG above 1 and I have no mess at all! Only mess that I have is not caused by the filter but evaporation or the puffs splashing water onto the lid.

About 2 weeks ago the Bio-Wheel filter in my freshwater tank broke and I got new one, I don't know how new it is to the market as my old one was 3 years old, but this one has a cover over the the wheel that drops down so there is about a half inch gap between the wheel cover and where the water comes out. Any salt build up would be on the wheel cover and the lip where the water comes out wouldn't it? The new one also has 2 groves in the bucket part so you can have two filters in it at the same time. Which is good for puffers as they do require over filtration. In my opinion (but I am not an incredibly experienced fish keeper like pufferpunk) this would be a great filter for puffers and the clean up of salt crust would be easy and minimal wouldn't it?
My F8 is in an Eclipse tank at the moment, and I would love to find a regular canopy that would fit it, as I find that the salt build up on the canopy and down the side of the tank is just ridiculous and it's a lot of work to keep clean, and I would like to get a new Bio-Wheel filter for the tank as well, to help keep the water cleaner.

I have used an Emperor 400 on my 80g tank from fresh water to full marine over the course of 6 months raising the SG and finally replacing it with live rock. There was little salt build up, but it was not excessive and didnt hinder the filters ability to spin and didnt make a mess. Of course it didnt look like new, but same thing happens with mineral deposits on FW tanks.

Currently I have a aquaclear 300 on the fuge of my 80g reef, I use it to run carbon and phosgaurd. It works perfectly, no salt spray, only problem is that it gets clogged very easily by the algae I harvest.