JBL Micromec - Sintered glass filter balls for biological degradation of pollutants

The quality of the filter material largely determines the effectiveness of an aquarium filter!

Most aquarium filters are already equipped with sponges as filter media. Sponges actually have a fairly large surface area that, over time, will be colonized by bacteria that are useful for breaking down pollutants.
To increase the efficiency of a filter, the sponges can be replaced by a special filter medium made of sintered glass (JBL SintoMec and JBL MicroMec). The sintered glass medium has a surface area approximately 10 times larger than the sponge and therefore offers even more space for bacteria to break down pollutants in aquarium water. In the automotive sector, this would be called "tuning" = more performance!

What is fritted glass?

If you melt (sinter) very small glass beads, you get a large piece of glass. But if you first mix the glass beads with salt, the resulting piece of glass will be furrowed by the salt. If it is then washed, an infinite number of small channels will be created in the glass. JBL sintered glass filter media therefore have a gigantic (internal) surface area that can be colonized by bacteria that break down pollutants.

Nitrate degradation:

Nitrates are only degraded to nitrogen gas by bacteria in the absence of oxygen and in the presence of carbon (C). This process (denitrification) can take place under ideal conditions inside the JBL SintoMec and JBL MicroMec sintered glass media.

When is the JBL MicroMec useful and when is the JBL SintoMec? For smaller filter volumes, the smaller JBL MicroMec media is best suited due to space constraints. For larger ones, among other things due to the higher water flow rate, a coarser media with holes, such as the JBL SintoMec, is more suitable. The finer material of the JBL MicroMec could clog up more quickly.