[koisplash]

Quote: Originally Posted by An Ly my friend made his DIY filter and just use a lot of hair curls, can buy at the 98cents store, not sure how effective but his ponds seems to be pretty clear, and his water quality is good with 0 ammonian and nitrite. An

An Ly, Hair Curls? i would have never thought about that, that is an interesting idea, thanks

Quote: Originally Posted by bekko I love bottle caps. They float and in an aerated filter they will catch some air and push up through the media doing a good job of mixing. We have a recycling program that surcharges 5-cents for plastic bottles at purchase and a 5-cent redemption at the recycling center. However, you have to remove the bottle caps before turning them in because it is a different type of plastic than the bottle. Therefore, it's easy to scrounge bottle caps and the guys at the recycling center will save them up for you if you slip them some cash on the side. You can also buy shreded plastic. They chop it up all those plastic bottles so it is more compact for shipping. Still, I would rather have more kaldness if I could afford it. -steveho pki

Steve, I wasn't sure how well they will be mixing, so i'm glad to hear that it's working for you well. i inquired at city of guelph recycling (near me) and they said the caps are too small for their equipment to sort them so they just go to the landfill (how sad). so I hope to find a recycling center similar to the one you wrote about where they recycle caps, i 'll try to slip some cash

Quote: Originally Posted by JasPR when it something that is plastic, small and collectible not an ideal filter media? When it is plastic forks, plastic army men, plastic shipping strapping, PVC pipe chips, bottle caps, styro peanuts ------- etc. etc, The reason is-- surface area is only ONE of the needed parameters that makes 'bits of things' suitable for biofilm cultivation. Beyond pure potential growing area, you need: void space non packing properties/characteristics non trapping properties Keep looking! JR

thanks for your reply JR,
Ok, plastic army man haha

I thought that caps would be good enough to give a good bang for no buck
i realize that caps are not the perfect structure for maximum SSA, and have potentially problematic properties as you mentioned such as "packing" or "trappng", i am curious to explore how much of a role these properties will play with in a well mixing filter , (Bekko said they mix fairly well), and if they become an issue, they might.

I'll have my eyes open, thanks

Quote: Originally Posted by MikeM Yeah, what JR said. And, to get the same overall surface area alone, you will need twice as much filter space... there went your savings.

Mike you are right it will take almost twice the amount of space, that might be an issue.
How about Plastic-Caps vs Bio-Balls, they have very similar SSA, (144 vs 160)sqf/cf
with Bio-Balls not being that cheap.

I'd like to introduce one more criteria when it comes to choosing filter media, how environmentally respectably is the media? Plastic-Caps being 100% recycled material