Looking INSIDE Filter Media for Aquariums and Ponds

Hello there, welcome back. In this video I'm going to be taking a look at various filter media, but also inside various filter media as well. Now in order to see inside the media, to get a really close-up view of it, we're going to be using a USB microscope. This one is a pretty good one. It's not hugely expensive. I'll put a link to it in the video description. This has actually got a built-in light. So it plugs into your computer, you can bring it up full screen, and you can see right inside the media, you can see the structure of the media, and whether it's going to allow water through, how good it's going to be for bacterial colonization. Now this thing is going to be instrumental in showing you that some medias are very good, some medias aren't so good, because surface area is very, very important. It's not the be-all and end-all of a filter media, but it is important. Now before we get going and actually take a look inside the media, I'll just take a minute to explain what the different types are made of and I'll try not to make those smash cut edits so that you know I know what I'm talking about. I see lots of videos out there where it's just chop, chop, chop, chop, chop and you know they're either reading from a bit of paper or they've just copied somebody else's idea. Now when I've been researching different sorts of media online, there has been some companies posting microscopic views of their media, but unfortunately it's taken with an electron microscope which is zoomed in so far that you can't make any sense of the picture whatsoever. You can zoom in and take a picture of polished steel. And the surface of it would look like the Himalayas if you zoomed in that far. Now for the purpose of this video we're only going to be zooming in to 300 times magnification. Believe me that is enough for you to see exactly what this media is going to do in its various forms. If you zoom right in to the molecular level it means nothing, absolutely nothing. Basically what we're looking for when we're looking at the media under a microscope is This is a huge variation in pore size, tunnel depth. Rough structure of the media, so we've got a massive surface area, but we've also got an accessible surface area, and it's that accessibility that is super, super important. Carbon has more surface area than all of these medias combined, believe it or not, but carbon is not used as a biological media, it's used as a chemical media, because the pore sizes My eyes are so small. Sucks stuff in and locks it away. We did that with this media. We'd be replacing it every six to eight weeks. This stuff should last for years. So you're looking for a good structure that'll allow bacteria to grow on it, but it'll also allow dead bacteria to be flushed out of it. So you want big tunnels, small tunnels. You want tunnels that go around corners. You want a rough structure, variability of structure, pore size. You want it to look right. Hopefully I can show you what looks right and you can make your own mind up about which one will do the best job. Okay let's just take a look at what we're going to be looking at and inside today. The first one is something called scoria. Now that is a volcanic rock and you may be able to class it as pumice. I'm not sure. I tend to call it red pumice. But most people in America would know that as simply lava rock, used in a lot of landscaping projects and also for barbecues as well. This here is white pumice. That's also a lava rock. This is a particularly porous piece. As you can see, millions of little holes in there. Very, very light as well. That is a good piece. Unfortunately, not all of it is good. That's a dense piece, so it does vary in its density and its structure. The next thing we'll be taking a look at is something called Alpha Grog. Now that's a created ceramic media. I'll go into the properties of that later. But that is basically a man-made version of scoria. All the next ones are Chinese media. If you've been on Amazon or eBay, you'll have seen this stuff all over the place. This is a really big piece. That's meant to be used for shower filters, koi filters and so on, and also in sumps. It looks great. Wait until you see inside of it though. before you rush out and buy it. Comes in a variety of sizes and designs, different colors. Um, Yeah, it's all made of exactly the same stuff. It's just different colors. Next thing we'll be taking a look at is some of the various forms of BioHome products. We've got the Porous Gravel, which is called BioGravel Ultra, Maxi Ultimate, New Shower Media, BioHome Ultimate, and Mini Ultra. And we'll discuss the properties of that later on. And the last thing we have is something that looks a little bit like lava rock, but this is another man-made thing. This is actually called grow stones, and this is used in the horticultural industry. Very, very porous, very, very light, but will it make a good media? Okay, that's basically how we're going to look in the media. I'm going to break all the media open, so what you're going to be looking at is the internal structure of the media, not the outside. It's going to be at maximum magnification as well. That's our first one. That's the scoria. You can see it's got loads of bubbles inside it. Those bubbles generally aren't accessible. So you've got very, very little accessible surface area in there. I was surprised at that because the outside of it looks very, very good. That's the one you would know as lava rock. Yeah, that's not a bad view. Just a white pumice looking down onto it. It's looking straight down the tunnel as you can see. Although a lot of it is sealed, there's quite a good variation of pore size and tunnel depth. Now this is the alpha grog. It's very difficult to focus this because we've got almost like lumps of meteorite all joined together. But you can see there it's got a decent roughness to it. It's got some extremely deep large cavities. It's not as porous as the other types of media, but it is a pretty good media. You can see that blackness, a lot of it is sealed and that reduces the porosity. Zoom out a little bit, and you can see that it has got a lot of external surface area. Internal surface area does let it down. This is actually a broken piece. This is the yellow Chinese ceramic media. It's got a little bit of discolouration off there, just like some of the other media. That's actually off the red version of this. And when you look in there, you'll see it's basically just made from dust, ceramic dust. Very, very small particles. That makes a very, very weak structure. And a lot of these little holes that you think go places are just bubbles. See, a lot of that doesn't actually go anywhere. The problem is it's so soft, it just disintegrates. It doesn't last five minutes. And that's illustrated by the red one. The red version of that Chinese media is absolutely atrocious. I mean, you can see the tunnels just don't go anywhere. Basically just bubbles in a dust media. This is a bit more difficult to zoom in because it's a very rough structure. But this is Biohome Ultra. Just try and keep your eye on the bits that come into focus. So at the moment, come down here, that's the bit that's in focus. We've got a good variability of pore size, a very rough structure, very deep tunnels. Focus out, you can see that's replicated up here. Tunnel, rough structure. It's totally different to the media which I showed before. And this one is looking straight down the broken end of a piece of BioHome Ultimate. That one expresses exactly what we want to see in a media. Huge variability of pore size, deep tunnels, a very available surface area. What more to say about it? A picture says a thousand words. Lastly, we've got growth stones. That's actually got a very interesting structure. It's quite a soft media though, so I don't know how long it'll last. And we've got the pH issues as well. I don't know enough people who've used that to make any sort of judgment about it. But the structure of it, Okay, now on to a different sort of a demonstration, and I didn't want to do this in the house because I would have made a hell of a mess. This is basically just going to show you how tough or how soft these different types of media are. First up is the scoria. That's the natural lava rock. Now, I've already smashed this piece from a bigger piece, and I had to use a hammer. I couldn't smash it with my hands. I'll be able to smash this, I would imagine. Yeah, but it is very, very tough. Unfortunately, that toughness comes from much of the structure being bound together, being very, very solid. Therefore, it hasn't got much available surface area. Hard-wearing, long-lasting, but not too effective at supporting aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. Next one, white pumice. That's the other volcanic rock, and this is a solid lump of it. I haven't smashed this one previously with a hammer, and very, very hard. I cannot smash it. There we go. I'm not sure if it'll come out on the film, but you may be able to see lines going across it that way. I'm just looking at the viewfinder there. That's generally the way that all the tunnels run. They seem to run one way, which is very, very strange. Very hard, good structure, will support aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, but you do have that problem with the high pH. Great for koi, not so good for most of your tropicals. This one, I think I'm going to have a problem breaking. This is the Alpha Grog. This is the really, really hard ceramic media. It's not very porous, but it is extremely hard wearing. I'm not going to bust my fingers. That is very, very hard. But unfortunately, it just hasn't got the porosity to support large amount of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria for full cycle filtration. That is the reduction of nitrate. It's a bummer because that is really, really cheap stuff. Then we've got the orangey red Chinese media. This one on the face of it looks a little bit more porous, but it's exceptionally soft. You can just basically reduce this to dust and that is what it's going to do in your filter. Dust in the wind. Then we've got a sump stroke shower filter media. Chinese one. Very, very light. Feels good. Those lines. Goddamn time wasting, sons of bitches. SONS OF BITCHES! Won't last five minutes. Next up, we've got the largest Chinese one, which again is made from that crappy ceramic dust muck. This one's actually made a little bit better than that previous one, so I think I'm gonna have a problem breaking this. Although it did arrive broken. Yeah, it's difficult. The dust and crap coming off that. I'm just gonna throw this in my pond. It might do some good. So we've seen this new shower media. This, I just cannot crush this. This is sintered glass. It's rock hard, very crush resistant so when you're stacking it up in a shower filter it's not just going to compact and break. Very hard wearing, very porous etc. It's really strongly bound together and because it's in the ball shape you cannot snap it. If that same structure was in a stick form you would be able to snap it. Although it would be crush resistant it would snap. Like that, it's pretty much indestructible unless you've got a hammer. Then we've got Biohome Ultimate. This is our flagship media from Biohome. Very crush-resistant, but it will snap. It will snap. We've made it harder than it used to be and still maintain the porosity, but it will snap. There you go. Because it's made of small particles joined together, as I say, very crush-resistant, exceptionally porous, good variability of structure. Aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, full cycle filtration, etc, etc. But it will snap if you need it to snap. You don't need it to snap, it's going to stay like that for years. Lastly, we've got the grow stones, which as far as I know is another sort of sintered media, which is exceptionally light and exceptionally soft, unfortunately. No effort whatsoever to reduce that to dust. So while I don't know anybody who's used it long term, I do think it may have a place in an exceptionally slow flow trickle filter. It's a possible one. If anybody's got any experience of using this as a shower media or any other sort of media, let me know, please, and also let me know about the pH use as well. That's the one I'd like to know more about. Well, I've managed to cut my hand in two or three places, smashing up and grinding up that crappy media, but hopefully that will allow you to have seen... how tough or how brittle some of the different types of media is and that's something to factor in because the tougher a media is the longer it's going to last but that has to be balanced with the amount of available surface area. Alpha grog that is very very strong but it it's got almost no porosity at all i think the porosity is somewhere between 24 to 26. the biohome is 50 plus so it's like twice as porous equally as hard much more useful less useful So many factors to take into consideration, it's not just about how hard a media is or how light it is, how fast the water goes through it, what the surface area reading is, it's down to all those factors combined and balanced out to create the perfect media. Now I am going to go into surface area, how it's calculated, what it means, how important it is etc etc in a different video because it is worthy of a video all by itself. But I'll just leave you with this. The filter media that I've shown you today, which will give the highest surface area reading, is actually that crappy Chinese stuff because it's basically made from a dust and when surface area is calculated you put a set size of media in a hydraulic press, crush it, spread out the resulting powder, that is your surface area. So if you make something from very, very fine dust, it's going to give an immense surface area reading. Whether that surface area is accessible or not, but if you make something, say, from different sized sand grains, like sintered glass, although much more of that might be accessible, it could be a hundred times better as a media, it wouldn't give such a high surface area reading. So surface area isn't everything it's cracked up to be. So there you go. Let's take a look at media and also inside media. Hope you found this video useful. If you have found it useful, please by all means share it anywhere online. Put a comment in the comment section and I shall see you next time. Thanks for watching.