Re: Biowheels

[Stephen Boulet <stephen at theboulets_net>]

I can see how a theoretical 9.x miles of surface area could decrease due to 
filming (defractalizing?  ;)

I seem to recall a series of articles (in TFH?) comparing the method with 
others. Other than being one of the best (if not the best) method they tried, 
I don't remember their conclusions.

-- Stephen

On Sunday 21 April 2002 02:48 am, you wrote:

> From: "S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>
> Subject: Re: Biowheels
>
> Stephen Boulet said, in part:
> > I thought that the big advantage to the biowheels was not that they
> > had gobs
> > of surface area, but that they were exposed to atmospheric oxygen,
> > allowing a
> > much larger bacterial colony than if submerged.
>
> Well, surface area is a part of it.  If the pleated polyester wasn't
> porous, it wouldn't do much good.  The water becoming a film (which
> requires a surface area, allows for high oxygen "absorbtion" and
> surface area is where the biofilms go to set up housekeeping.  So a lot
> of surface area is good for biofiltering.  You could run the water down
> large broad sheets of material but he size is impractical.  Marineland
> has claimed a phenomenal surface area for the media in Biowheels --
> which has baffled those that couldn't think of the material as porously
> fibrous ;-) . . . Although Roger suspects that, when they load up with
> biofilm, they clog up, becoming much less porous.