Emperor 280/400 Biowheels

What is the general consensus on the biowheels that come in these filters? I have searched through the forums and there seems to be a lot of back and forth on the issue. In my 15 gallon I have a sump full of Chaeto but still have about 15 ppm of Nitrates showing up and wonder if the biowheel could be contributing to this? I have about 20-25lbs of LR and 10lbs of LS. I perform 10% weekly water changes and only have a Maroon Clown and Royal Gramma in the tank (few snails, (2) hermits).

Thanks!

 

these are hands down the best there is for hang on back biological filtration and the carbon/floss cartridges are affordable and easy to change out. the only downside to these filters is that (in my case atleast) it is impossible to keep them from spraying salt everywhere, i stopped using mine and went completely unfiltered about six months ago but if i ever set up another tank i would definately run one again until i was confidant the system was ready to run on its own.
as far as yor nitrates go, yes, the biowheels work very quickly but can still only break down the wastes that are present,i'd cut back a little more on feeding

 

I never found the biowheel to be much of a nitrate factory in my old tank.

Is your chaeto growing steady?

it sound like everything is ok so Not sure what would be contributing to your nitrates other than feeding. Also I have read (in the never ending debate about water changes threads) that to properly rid nitrates via water changes it is more effective to do larger less frequent changes rather than smaller regular changes. there is some math to support this that i am in no way able to explain or show but it made sense to me. So maybe look into doing water changes every 2-4 weeks at 20-25%.

 

i removed the bio wheel from mine. then pulled the spary bar out, put a test tube cap from my test kit on the tube the plushed it back in. got rid of the wheel and the "spray". i eventually would only use it to put a bag of chemipure in once in a while. in hindsight it wasnt something that i would buy again. i would get something cheaper if i was just going to use it as a "HOB reactor".

 

Thank you for the feedback. I will cut back on feeding to 2-3 times a week and try the large water change. Thanks for the advice!

 

The biowheel was awesome in my old FW tanks, I never had a problem with high nitrates in them.

It was on the penguin series filters though, so there was no spray bar. I'd imagine a spray bar would be a gigantic headache in SW.