BIOHOME FILTER MEDIA - BEST FILTER MEDIA AVAILABLE

Hello, I'm Richard from Tyne Valley Aquatics, also known as Pond Guru, and in this video I'm going to show you the media in the BioHome range of sintered glass filter media. So this is the range of BioHome filter media, starting on the top at the left. This is the standard BioHome. It's a very small, light media, perfect for external filters, sump chambers, overhead filters, small internal filters that have a compartment for media. Basically anywhere where you would have filter media, this will do well and it's very versatile as well because it can be broken up. Break it into really tiny pieces to get it into very small filters. This next one here is BioHome Plus, now structurally it's exactly the same as the ordinary BioHome, but it has an extra ingredient in it, giving it this red colour, and that ingredient contains a heck of a lot of trace elements which helps this media to set up with bacteria very quickly. This one's suitable for all the filters I mentioned with the ordinary BioHome because in effect it's the same, but it does have that added ingredient. This next one here, this big fella, is BioHome Ultra And this structure is actually a little bit different from the BioHome and the BioHome Plus. It's much more porous and for the size of it, it's very light. This one's perfect for koi shower systems, for use in sumps and large external filters. Now this one here has been especially manufactured for me. These two, very good for external filters. This one... This one was the most porous and I actually felt this one was the best, but it wouldn't fit into external filters very well. So I had the manufacturers make this to my specifications. It's basically the same mix as the BioHome Ultra, but in a small pellet, and that is ultra-porous. That is excellent. I'm selling quite a lot of that, because people have come to realise that, especially for externals, this is the daddy. It's excellent. Now, this one here, it looks a little bit like a very similar product from Eheim, and in fact it can be used in place of that product from Eheim, but this one has the added bonus of being able to be used in a moving bed filter, so this one is actually buoyant. And when you put it in a moving bed filter, agitated with air, it moves just like K1 and Helix, but it has a massive surface area. There, I've actually broken a piece so you can see inside it. It's like Maltesers. And as this is moving in a moving bed filter, the outer edges get scrubbed off, opening up all these pathways. It really is a very unique media. And although this one is primarily designed for use in a moving bed filter, it can also be used in an external. No problem. One thing worth noting for the Biomotion is this white stuff here on the outer surfaces of the media is montmorillite clay and what it does it gets scrubbed off as this media's wearing away and it conditions the water. So there you've got a very good mix of excellent quality sintered glass media. Small media which can be broken up even smaller for use in externals, the internals that that have a chamber for the media. Overhead filters, hang-on filters, sumps, trickle towers, all sorts of filters. Then you've got the big lad, Ultra, which is suited to shower filters for koi. Big external filters, sumps, that's a really good, large, porous media. Then you've got Biomotion. which is the only sintered glass media that can be used in a moving bed filter and this can actually be added to an existing moving bed filter that's using plastic media and it just boosts the surface area. Then you've got Biohome Mini Ultra which is my personal favorite because it's it's made to my specs and that's ultra porous and small enough for use in almost any filter. Very popular one that. They will come with some filter starter balls and these are basically live bacteria in a gel ball. Just add that to the media basically just chuck them in, in the filter. They'll dissolve over a period of a week or two and it'll help to colonize this media extremely quickly with good bacteria and these can also be bought in packs of 50 separately just check out the link in the bottom of this video and go to the eBay page Now for a quick wick test, I'm going to use this stuff in here, which is very blue, this is actually a fish treatment, I think it's WS3, and anybody that's used that knows that it really stains the water, so hopefully it'll stain the media. I'm not just going to repeat the test that I've seen for the likes of Seachem Matrix, where you get some dude and he dips it in, it goes three quarters of the way in the liquid, and then he goes, ooh look at that, it's sucking it up very quick. I'm just going to dip the very tip. of these medias i'm going to test into this very blue liquid and that will give a true wick test. This one is the standard BioHome, it's fair going up, bearing in mind there's only the tip of this media in the blue stuff, it's fairly absorbed that very quickly. This is BioHome Plus, one's going up pretty much the same speed as the ordinary bio home, after all it is almost exactly the same, just got a few more added trace elements, gone up there quite quick as well. This is BioMotion, Starting to creep up there. It's not exactly flying up. You can see that the internal structure of that does have a hell of a surface area, but it's not exactly sucking that up very fast. It's taking it in a little bit. This one is the large version of BioHome Ultra. Again, just the tip's going to go in here. Get in there. That's a big lump of media, and you can see how that's absolutely devouring the blue stuff. Look at that. All the way to the top. That's actually now heavy with liquid. And last but not least, BioHome Mini Ultra. Dear me, that absolutely shot up that. Far and away the quickest. In fact now I've got that all over my fingers and again that's gone heavy with liquid as well. Well both versions of the Biohome Ultra media showed phenomenal results. They literally just sucked it up. It was almost like they were sucking the liquid through a straw. That media is extremely porous and even the other Biohome products are very porous indeed as well. The BioMotion didn't suck it up as quick because it actually uses an agent in there which hardens it. That's because it's a moving bed media and if it's bumping together it doesn't just want to break up like ordinary ceramic or sintered glass media would and that obviously retards how quickly it can suck the liquid up. But as you've seen from the inside of that media it does have a huge surface area inside it. Here's an example of how much media you get when you buy it in a specific quantity. That's the ordinary BioHome, that's a kilo of it, that equates to roughly one litre of media, that's the BioHome Plus, again because it's fairly similar to the ordinary BioHome, one kilo equates to approximately one litre as well. Now because the BioMotion is very light, I don't sell this per weight, I sell it per volume, and one litre of this equates to approximately 430 to 450 grams. That's the BioHome Ultra, and that's a kilo of it, and that equates to about 1.25, 1.3 litres maybe. If you stack it in very neatly, it won't equate to quite that volume, but there's quite a reasonable amount of media in there. And lastly, the BioHome Mini Ultra, that's a kilo of that, and that equates to between 1.25 and 1.4 litres, depending on how you pack it in. Weight wise this one takes up the most space. Now sintered glass media isn't a new thing, it's been around for years, but these particular media are very good, very long lasting, but like all good filter media they do need a good level of foam filtration before them. So if you had them in an external filter or an overhead filter or a sump or a trickle tower, Coarse, medium, fine foam, followed by the filter media, very important, that increases the life of all the media, make sure it's always working at its most efficient, and it means that after six months or a year, you're not going to be throwing this stuff away because it's clogged, it's got a massive surface area, and that surface area needs to be protected, that's protected by your levels of foam, that's very important, you should easily get two to three years out of this if it's well protected. Now this bio-home media is made ultimately of sand whereas a ceramic media would be made of clay. Now the process of making sintered glass media and ceramic media is pretty much exactly the same. You mix up your media, put it in a kiln, subject to very high temperatures and then take it out and it's hardened. So with sintered glass media you do that with sand, with ceramic media you do that with clay. Sintered glass media does have a ridiculously big surface area, although there'll no doubt be people argue against that in favour of ceramic media, in my opinion, and also a hell of a lot of other people in the know. Sintered glass media does have the most surface area. This stuff sets up extremely fast with bacteria as well, because of this huge available surface area and the fact that it does, it sucks water in. It also creates a hell of an environment for bacteria. It almost sucks them in as well and gives them a lovely little place to live. This sets up very quickly. You're talking 14 to 21 days in most circumstances. That's very quick for a media to become nicely established with bacteria. So there you have it. That's the BioHome Media in all its forms explained. If you're watching this on YouTube, there'll be a link in the description below. And if you're feeling that way inclined, feel free to share this on your Facebook pages, forums, basically anywhere on the internet where you think people might benefit from looking at this media. It is excellent media. Thanks for watching.