much-a-do about a Bio-wheel..

[stu]

I have a mainland Bio-Wheel 300 in my tank and am having all kinds of trouble getting bio-bag's for it (my local fish-shop is useless and takes him forever to get anything),
And at $24.95 a bag it becomes very costly to change both bags every month.
The Bio-Wheel it self works great I just get let down by the shop keeper.
As i understand it the bio-wheel does the real work with all the bug's ettc on it and the "rightsize" bag just has carbon in side it for removel of med's etc, so by rights I shouldn't need it at all and it's main job is to "pick-up" the bigger bits that the bugs can't eat.

so i should be able to replace the bio-bag with filter wool if I cut away the wool on a old bio-bag and remove the carbon and fit the new wool in it's place with a couple of rubber-bands and use that as a "pick-up" system insteed???

what do you think???

I also run a eheim 2026 in the tank. which is 146 ltr's.

:FS

[AquariumPro]

$24.95 A BAG!???? GEE WIZ!

I hope that is NZ dollars and please tell me what the current exchange rate is.

You are correct in the entire operation of that filter, but I'll bet that your Eheim is doing the bulk of the work. What I would suggest is saving the black plastic frames of the Bio Bag and re-using (rinsing thoroughly) the bags you have. You can use almost any cloth bag on those biobags. You may also consider buying the Bio Bags in large quantity from the US. Not sure what shipping would be but that would be a low-weight package and provided you don't buy too many, should be low enough in cost via USPS to ship to you.

[Nooboon]

Dave, you can roughly halve that price for US dollars. My guess would be that that still sounds expensive.

Here in NZ we pay more for everything because it is all imported and the cost of shipping and so many 'middle men' is all added on.

Also that price would probably include our 12.5% goods and services tax.

I bought media for my Eheim filter a while ago.
2L Ehfisubstrat, 2L Ehfimech, 4L Seachem Matrix, 4L Seachem Renew.
Obviously a little more than I needed but it cost me about $550 ($275 US). How does that sound?

[stu]

That sounds about right, we seem to pay about double US $ here and then you get the GST on top of that.

My Eheim P 2 cost me $590 and that was dirt cheap!!!!

I'll have the home made bio bags a go and let you know how I get on.

stuy..

[AquariumPro]

Nooboon:

Did you buy that filter media from the US or in NZ. That seems a little high, though if you bought that from the US, then shipping would have been a huge factor. However, all of that should have fit into a box acceptable to the US Postal system via Parcel Post, which should not have cost that much.

Holy cow! 12.5% GST? I do believe that beats most states in the US.

[Nooboon]

Yes the government here likes to pretend they don't tax us much but they have indirect taxes so they can keep the income tax down.

Anyway.... I got that media here in NZ. As usual they had to order some of it in for me specially (10 weeks later.......)

Next time I am going to get it through you guys. Any large purchases that aren't electrical will be coming from Aquarium pros.

[Nooboon]

Yes the government here likes to pretend they don't tax us much but they have indirect taxes so they can keep the income tax down.

Anyway.... I got that media here in NZ. As usual they had to order some of it in for me specially (10 weeks later.......)

Next time I am going to get it through you guys. Any large purchases that aren't electrical will be coming from Aquarium pros.
My main concern is the postage. I want to get some flourite in the future (can't get it here) but the cost of postage will be huge I imagine.