Nano-Tech Bio-Spheres are a new form of biological media from an unlikely player, Maxspect. Better known for their lights and water pumps, Maxspect’s new NanoTech BioSpheres is billed as an ultra-high surface area media which cuts down on the volume of biomedia actually required for efficient nutrient cycling.
Most of the high density biomedia in the aquarium hobby from Cell-Pore and now CER Media have been a kind of ceramic with innumerable bubbles of empty space for water to pass through. These NanoTech BioSpheres are actually the inverse, looking more like tons of tiny little beads glued together into larger balls, but their exact composition is unknown.
One thing we can say for certain is that the NanoTech BioSpheres are much harder than the buttery soft CerMedia pieces, which can be crushed with a simple squeeze. This means that the new Maxspect media should last a lot longer, and won’t break down leaving specs and pieces in the sump.
This type of arrangement is not like the classic BioChem Stars which have been around for over two decades, but those consist of a star-shaped piece with small plastic beads glued together. This arrangement ensures generous water flow through the media and Maxspect claims that each ball contains 54 square meters, or nearly 600 square feet of surface area!
This means that each package of Maxspect Nanotech BioSpheres with 20 balls each is roughly equivalent to 20 kilograms or 44 pounds of live rock! The build of these new types of aquarium biomedia was actually borrowed from waste water treatment so these balls made up of tiny little spheres already has a proven track record of effectively reducing nutrients.
I for one am excited to see more emphasis being placed on dedicated biomedia something the Aussie reefers seem to be pretty keen on already. Instead of using heaps of expensive and unwieldy live rock and loads of sand in the aquarium, these new solutions for biological surface area can help us regain more space in our aquariums, and accumulate less detritus for better long term stability, and healthier animals overall.
