Seachem Matrix Bio Media
The Seachem Matrix Bio Media is the best biological filter media for those looking for the ultimate performance. This is a highly porous solid with one of the highest surface areas in terms of coverage. It will make your tank completely clear and ammonia and nitrate free.
MORE INFOIf you have a fish tank, pond, aquarium, or reef tank, chances are you have run into the problem of filtration. Maintaining these things is a lot of work and ca be very annoying. With the help of the best biological filter media, you can hopefully help your home aquarium stay clean. You want to filter your aquarium to remove excess food, chemicals, waste products, and decaying matter.
Generally speaking, you can have mechanical, chemical, and biological filter media. Most of the time, you use mechanical filtration coupled with chemical or biological filtration. Mechanical filtration process usually acts as the first state of filtration. They all involve cycling the water in your tank through a filtration media and spitting out the clean water back into the tank.
Biological filtration helps break down harmful chemicals in your water tank, and break down ammonia and nitrates. There are thousands of micro organisms living in your aquarium and you to filter out the debris, break down dying organic waste, and recycle nutrients. They can in many forms such as ceramic rings, foam, pellets, balls, and stars.
With the help of the best biological filter media, you can help maintain low levels of ammonia and nitrite. It provides a stable environment for your fish and a safe and stable place for bacteria to live on. These biological filter media are designed for bacteria to form stable colonies so that they don’t mess up other areas in your reef tank, aquarium or pond.
When looking for biological filter media, you should look out for ones with high surface area so they attract the most bacteria. Additionally, you should look for ones that are easy to clean and remove. Finally, look for biological filter media that can remove nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia.
Best Biological Filter Media Reviews
- Seachem Matrix Bio Media
- CerMedia Marine Pure Block Bio Filter Media
- Fluval Bio Filter Rings
- EHEIM Substrat Pro Biological Filter Media
- CNZ Bio Filter Media Kits
Seachem Matrix Bio Media
The Seachem Matrix Bio Media is just one of those products that is known to work. It is without a doubt one of the highest surface area filter medias out there. The Seachem Matrix is an extremely high porous inorganic solid around 10mm in diameter. Despite being small, each liter of Seachem Matrix yields the surface area of 170 liters of ping pong balls or 700 square meters.
Another selling point is that it is completely inert and doesn’t break down, so they don’t need to be replaced. The direct result of all of this is a crazy good control of ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and a completely clean tank without having to do any work.
Seachem takes great pride in their product and the sound engineering behind it. In fact, they are so annoyed at companies like Eheim Substrat Pro and JBL MicroMec for artificially boosting their surface area measurements that they decided to do an official study on this subject. Their findings are of course that any way you measure, the Seachem Matrix Bio Media is clearly the winner by at least 10 fold.
Regardless of the technicalities, we had to see and test for ourselves as well as poll users. This stuff is leagues above any filter we have ever used, including those cheap ceramic rings. The Matrix clears your aquarium in no time and works for longer than most competitors. And as a cherry on top, it is priced cheaper than most products out there. This is without a doubt the best biological filter media for the value.
CerMedia Marine Pure Block Bio Filter Media
It should be no surprise that the CerMedia Marine Pure Block is one of our top recommendations. Although this biofilter media block is quite pricy, it is the best biological media filter in terms of ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate removal. This unit is designed to provide deep anaerobic zones that allow for the removal of nitrates in passive systems. We would recommend you use it in sumps or in extra large filters.
The selling point of the CerMedia Marine Pure Block is that it can substitute for a live rock in a reef tank and look more natural. Furthermore, it can improve upon deep sand beds or live rock. It also helps reduce nitrates more efficiently without harming the environment too much.
This biological filter block has a huge surface area and an open flow porosity. Keep in mind that you have to give it a proper rinse under tap water to remove loose particles and remove chlorine. IN terms of performance and keeping your tank clean, this thing is a beast. It can take care of a 200 gallon reef tank no problem. Additionally, you can just leave it in there for a year or so without replacing it or rinsing it again.
Fluval Bio Filter Rings
If you want the best biological media filter that is cheap and effective, the Fluval Biomax Filter Media might just do the trick. These are bio filter rings that should be set and replaced every six months or so. The Fluval Biomax marine filters comes in 13 different sizes and types. We tried most of them and like the Bio Filter Rings the most. Of course you can check out their other filter media products, if you like.
The selling point of these rings is that they allow water movement throughout the media to ensure optimal contact time. Also they offer more capacity than its competitors and present a great environment for beneficial bacteria to grow. Like with most biological filter media, they help reduce ammonia and nitrite. The great thing is you get all of this at such a nice price point.
So far, we have not had a huge problem with these in our test tank. The water remain clear after a few weeks or usage. We asked some long term customers about this product and they all say that it works well. Since they are quite cheap, you get up going through a box pretty quickly on larger tanks. Out of all of the types of bio rings out there, the ones from Fluval seem to absorb more and work better.
EHEIM Substrat Pro Biological Filter Media
The Eheim Substrat Pro is the best biological filter media if you want reusable spherical beads. Eheim is a solid German brand that has been in the aquarium accessories industry for a while. It has a solid reputation and makes quality products. The Eheim Substrat Pro is one of their flagship products in terms of biological filter media.
These are highly porous pearl shaped sintered glass that give a high bulk density. This is because the pearl shape commands some of the highest surface area to volume ratios. In other words, it covers the most amount of surface area for bacteria to attract while taking up the least amount of space in your tank. This leads to a very dense colonization of bacteria.
The Eheim Substrat Pro is great for fresh and marine water. Many users like it because they can easily be rinsed, cleaned, and reused. You can do this every 1 to 3 months. These beads can reduce peak nitrite loads, which allows you to maintain the biological filter media less often. You can replace these beads every 3 to 6 months. Overall, the Eheim Substrate Pro has a great open structure for water penetration and bacterial colonization. It performs very well and is priced very reasonably.
CNZ Bio Filter Media Kits
If you can’t decide between mesh media bags, bio balls, or ceraic rings, why not get all three? The CNZ Bio Filter Media Kit is your perfect answer if you are indecisive. This combo kit includes a carbon mesh media bag, 50 bio balls in one bag, and 500 grams of ceramic rings in on bag. If you were to buying everything separately, it would come out to be a lot more.
In terms of media placement, we suggest you use trial and error and adjust accordingly. You may try to filter with just one of the three products first and then add or remove other products later if you need more or different filtration.
This biological filter media kit definitely gets the job done properly and gives you flexibility. It removes odor, colors, toxic compounds, nitrates, and organic pollutants like none other. We really like the fact that you can mix and match various biological filter media to achieve your desired effect.
