Carbon Reactor
 

I'm wondering what everyone use reactor for your carbon. I am currently using TLF 150 for vertex rox 0.8 carbon. And I hate it. Everytime I replace my carbon air lift up black sponge inside of reactor and carbon will escape into the sump. Maybe I'm not doing right but I tried very slow flow for few hours to let air goes but still same issue. Do you have any better reactor or anyone point out what I'm doing wrong.
Thanks
Hiro

I made my own reactor for both carbon and GFO by converting old RO in series canisters. You can see this on page 2 of my journal (link below). These are very similar to what BRS sells. Very simple to unscrew a canister and refill the inside container (or remix), and clean the sponge filters without any carbon or GFO residue escaping into my tank. And it is fed by just a T off my return pump line, so no extra pump required. Works very well, and totally problem free. And dead simple...

I found the RO style canister reactors best, easy to replace media, no risk of media entry into the tank.

I think Reef supplies sells them.

rox can work it's way thru almost any sponge. if it's a sponge that won't allow the rox through i find it clogs quickly and also collects air pockets. rinsing this sponge is always fun as well.

now i toss my rox in a mesh media bag then place that in my BRS reactor and so far this works well. easy to rinse the media in the bag and nothing escapes the reactor. no clogging either.

Me too Walter, I usually run it in a media bag inside my sock. Seems to be easier to manage than any reactors.

Ya, I gave up on the TLF reactors too. As you said a real pain! It would just clump and clog and was a pain to refill. Like others, I just run them in a media bag now and massage the bag periodically. It's about ease of maintenance. I find media bags easier to maintain so I'm more likely to service them rather than yanking out a reactor, pump and servicing that.

I use to use only media bag but it was also had air issue and media bag was floating. I wasn't sure it's effective because half bottom was in the water and upper wasn't. I tied it to LR but again I wasn't sure it works. I am thinking to use BRS dual reactor but I don't want to see same problem.

Do you rinse the carbon before you use it? I believe it is recommended that you rinse it first. I rinse it in RO water until most of the carbon fines sink. They are filled with air pockets so that's why they float. They will sink once those air pockets fill with water. Don't rinse with dirty or tap thought. That will just end up filling those air pockets with dissolved organics and other water impurities thus utilizing your carbon before it even enters your tank :-)

Never thought of that good tip kien

I rinse about 5 min but tap water and then I do quick rinse with RO water. I still have air in the carbon maybe I should run the water more.

letting rox sit in ro water overnight (in advance) and stirring it a few times will cause almost all of it to sink.

in theory a quick rinse with ro water should be better than tap but there's water contact (and fast moving as well) for like 10 seconds. i highly doubt the carbon becomes used up to any detectable degree but i suppose it's possible.

They sell the Spectrapure dual media reactor, adjustable flow to each reactor, it's what I'd buy if I didn't just run carbon in a bag in the bubble trap of my sump.

I'll try RO style reactor and let carbon soak in RO water 24hrs. Just confirming before sit in the water I still need to rinse it right?

I just rinse (no overnight sitting), and then put it in the cartridge that sits inside the RO canister. I have a sponge at the top of the cartridge (outflow) and it does not plug.

I do have a 3 canister reactor, and the first one is just used for pre-filtering the water. But it does keeps the crap out of the carbon (middle canister) and GFO (3rd one) canisters.

The only maintenance I do is stir up my GFO every 2 or 3 weeks to make it last longer. And that is very simple and quick. Just unscrew the canister, take out the cartridge, shake it around and re-install.