And don't forget ladies hair rollers! The old-fashioned kind, that we used
to actually put in our hair at night and SLEEP on them! (ugh!) I found a
big container of them at Walmart that are perfect - water can flow through
in all directions and these actually even have tiny fiber brush-like media
on them, supposedly to help grasp the hair, but I'm hoping it will grasp the
bacteria! Light, cheap, and hopefully effective.
Sue

"zookeeper" wrote in message
...
Marc Tripp wrote:
I am working on building a 45 gallon bio filter. What I really want to
know
is: What is the best material for a bio-filter??? I have been reading
many
different opinions on this topic.

So what is the best material for use in a bio-filter? Lava rock, PVC
cut to
small pieces, Bio balls (way too expensive), or ... what??? ...

The best bio-filtering material is one with the most surfaces for
bacteria to grow on without becoming clogged or filled.

We use the strapping "tape" or plastic strips (~1/4 inch wide) that are
overlapped and heat-sealed to secure boxes or bundles or loose items; it
is embossed with a design that creates lots of little ridges and
cross-hatching. We get ours from the newspaper bundles from our boys'
paper route. It was a free, reusable substitute for filter "ribbon" or
Springflo. Check with your local paper delivery person; they --or their
mom-- might be very happy to give the strips to you. We leave these
loose, that way it's very easy to stir and rinse (with dechlorinated
water) to clear away debris from the barrel we use for mechanical
filtering. We use the other barrel filled with the strips as a partial
trickle tower, partial underwater filtering (we reduced the piping
leading back to the pond so that this barrel is always half full of
water).

Other small, light-weight plastic filter materials:
* plastic forks (get the least expensive, thinnest plastic)
* tubes from rolls of adding machine tape or adhesive tape
* PVC pipe (small pieces, or one ponder cut his PVC into 1/4-1/2 inch
spirals with a lathe and a blade set at a slight angle)
* dish "scrubbers" (typically orange/white, blue/white -- buy in bulk
from Costco, Walmart or on line)
* quilt batting or other nylon / plastic based "stuffing" or "filling"
(large cell foam)
* nylon window screening (easy to "swish" clean)
* Just about anything with holes, grooves, indented surfaces that water
can flow through without any impediment. Don't use anything that creates
"dead" areas where water can stagnate or other materials where the water
can create channels that bypass the filtering ability of the holes,
grooves, indents (Lego blocks, bottle caps).
* The other thing to look out for is that whatever material you use
can't have any built-in antibacterial or antimicrobial treatments (some
furnace filters, some quilt batting, some foam).

The finer materials (quilt batting, foam, window screening) can be used
as mechanical filters as well as bio-filters. If they are used as
mechanical filters, they might need to be rinsed more frequently than
other materials with larger holes, but it depends on your fish load,
debris load (leaves, algae, etc.), etc.

Any of these smaller plastic items can be put into mesh laundry bags,
then the bags placed in the filter. They're much easier to swish and
clean or hose off with dechlorinated water, and it's easier to create
layers that cover the entire barrel or box so no water goes around the
filtering material.

Determine how much filtering you need, price the different materials in
your local area to see which is most economical / easiest to clean for
you.
--
Kathy B, zookeeper
3500gal pond (Oregon)