Re: Biowheels in planted tanks - Why Oh Bio-wheels?

["S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com>]

Diane said, in part:

> Does this mean that the biowheel in my Eclipse hood setups is
> competing
> with my plants for the ammonia from the fish?  I thought it just
> converted
> some of it to nitrates, which the plants can also use....although it
> sounds
> like roots and shoots have different opinions of the bioavailability
> of
> these two sources of nitrogen.
> 

If so, then it's just what the doctored ordered based on the success of
my Eclipse tank.  ;-)

But seriously, the worst that would happen, if the bacteria
out-compete, perhaps, is that more nitrate would need to be added to
compensate, but I don't find that result.  Do You?  But I don't add CO2
to my Eclipse tank.  So the plants don't consume N like they would if
they had more light and CO2.

Generally, perhaps, the plants outcompete the bacteria for nitrogen. 
Perhaps, as some suspect, Marineland Biowheels (the Pro 30, 60,
Eclipse, Penquin and Emperor types) have such a small amount of surface
area, once they load up with material) that they might be
inconsequential as biofilters.   I'm not sold on that latter point --
Marineland hasn't answered the question about surface area except to
say that Biowheels perform as they claim.  Hmmmmm

But aren't plants darned effecient at getting any NH4 & NH3 out of the
water?


Scott H.


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