TLF Phosban Reactor
 

I purchased one of these units (actually 2 of them - J&L had a package deal - 1 to run carbon and the other to run phosban) and it should arrive tomorrow. Will I be happy with their performance?

Mine always seem to partially plug after 14 days

when you close it, make sure the O-ring seats properly, or they will slowly leak.

Other than that, they're pretty decent things.

thanks for the tip shrimpchips!

Fencer, i heard about the clogging problem. Something to do with the sponge not being seated correctly (or something like that). A quick google search should find you the solution

I have two as well and they work great. :biggrin:

For the carbon one, if you're using larger pellet carbon like kent, you won't need the sponge on the bottom, I just use the one on top as I run them full out and don't want any rogue carbon pellets escaping. I find less sponges cut down on the detritus that gets trapped in there. I do use both sponges on the phosban one as it catches a lot of phosban bits that try to escape when I'm first flushing the phosban.

Make sure you restrict flow before the reactor, these things don't like to be pressurized. Everytime I've heard of one leaking its cause people are restricting AFTER the reactor... Which pressurizes it.

Makes sense.. Thanks Binare!

Christy... do you run yours in series (daisy chained is what they call it i think)? If you do, what type of pump are you using. The package from J&L (http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...ID=tf-reactor3) comes with 1 MJ400 and they say it will be enough to run both reactors.

If you run em in series, you'll basically have to shut both down to do maintenance on one. You'll also have a hard time getting flow right through both. They will both have the same amount of flow... Different media will require different flow. I'd tee off the pump, then put the ball valve on each outlet, then reactor after each valve. That way you can adjust flow independantly. Maintenance is also easier. Simply turn off the valve for the one you want to remove stopping flow to it, but leaving the other one running. Depending on your media, a mj400 may not be enough for 2 in parallel, essentially cuts the flow available to each one in half. I reccomend pre-filters on pumps feeding reactors as well. The sponge will stop pods n such from getting trapped in the reactors and rotting away inside... Kinda defeats the purpose of running them.

Thanks again, Binare!!

the box arrived this morning and it is all set up. when can i expect to see some results in terms of lowering my phosphates?

How you judging your results? Based on visual... Current algae bloom. Or based on test kit results. My hanna meter showed lower po within hours and continued to lower for days until saturation was reached. If its algae, you won't "see" results really until you remove and see a slower or even better no growth rate.

Also if your po is being leached from sand or rock. You'll see no results till either leaching stops... Or slows to below rate of absorbtion. Before you worry about phosphate levels and removing it, I'd worry about the source. Water changes? Water top off? Overfeeding? Frozen foods? Liverock, sand etc.

I always wondered how you are supposed to be able to "link" them together?....Like Binare said carbon requires 400-600gph and the phosphate medias require 300-400 gph..........I have two reactors and run them with separate pumps because I didnt want the hassle of trying to find all the little parts you'd need to chain them together properly..

Its actually less parts to run em in series, 6" of tubing, as appose to another pump or making up a manifold. I'm not sure what reactors you are using but my TLFs recommend somewhere around 80-90GPH I believe for phosphate media. You want just enough so it "boils". The lower your flow... The more contact time with the media, if you go to fast contact won't be sufficient, carbon of course can be a little higher, but I still wouldn't push more then 200-300gph through it, for the same reasons. Concept is similar to sump design and flow, why push a couple thousand gph threw a sump when your skimmer, refugium and chemical media may only process a small fraction of that. Just food for thought.

My two are daisy chained together off of the same unrestricted Maxi-jet 400. I run about a cup of fine lignite carbon in the first and a cup of rowaphos in the second. Both medias I change monthly. My 270gal system always has very clear looking water, phosphate is undetectable now after a year. Originally when I started running the two I would receive .75 on an elos phosphate kit. Only now after a year am i finally seeing the bryopsis in my system going into remission. Originally I had perhaps a square foot of bryopsis and now all I have are just two very small patches.

ok.. so i have been using this for a week and i am noticing a change... and not for the better. there seems to be an increased occurrence of green algae (fine dusting) on the glass of the tank. i am wondering if i did anything wrong. (2 reactors - 1 carbon and 1 phosban)


I did a couple of phosphate tests (API test)
Source water (out of tap) -2ppm
RO water -0 ppm (no color change)
Tank - .5ppm
water out of reactor - between 0 and .25 ppm (hard for me to read this color but to me looks closer to zero)

Are you using rowaphos or another brand of GFO? A theory I've heard is that rowaphos will release a little bit of iron into the water which if combined with already high phosphate can further aggravate an algae problem until the phosphate is significantly reduced... :sad: This may have been the case for me at first as I experienced what seemed like a worse algae problem when I started using rowaphos. In time the product seems to have done the job though. Like everything else in this hobby it require patients... and money.

It is RowaPhos. I did run it clear before putting the return (of the reactor) into the sump.

I know patients is the key.... very hard sometimes especially when i see my poor little Zoas barely open most of the time :cry: (this has to be because of the phosphate.. everything else checks out fine- although having said that my acan and candy cane are doing really well:biggrin:)