One gallon of a popular brand of bioballs has approximately
160.82 square feet of surface area per cubic foot. A cubic foot
of Marinepure 1.5” spheres has 98,000 square feet of surface
area in a cubic foot which is around 600 times the surface
area. It seems almost impossible that a single Marinepure
sphere has the same surface area as 1.5 cubic feet of bioballs but frankly a bioaball is plastic and can’t touch the
interconnected porosity of Marinepure. For example the
interconnected porosity of a single teasoon of activated
carbon has the surface area of an entire football field (57,600
square feet). The power of Marine Pure is the combination of
surface area and interconnected pores. Other medias don't have the combination of interconnected pores that allow for
flow through the media. This combination provides an
opportunity for the biofilm to spread out and be thin. All
biofilms are made of bacteria that live grow and die. This live
cycle process is called biofilm sloughing or shedding.
Biomedia that has relatively low surface area or poor flow through will produce a thick biofilm. Thick biofilm's produce
brown floc which can cloud the water or accumulate
downstream in the filter system. The biofilm that grows on
Marine Pure spreads out...a thin biofilm. As the natural
shedding occurs it does not produce floc. Bacteria die as
individuals rather than in larger patches...