Frustrated with BRS media reactors

[PirateLove]

About a year ago I purchased the BRS mini reactor $40 for my 42 gallon. Ran it with the cobalt pump that it came with and it worked for a few days until I noticed the water was barely flowing out. So I figured the mini was too small and just bought the deluxe $70. Same thing going on. The line out had a strong stream going until I checked it today and it is about half the pressure. I am using 12 tbs of carbon and 4 tbs of gfo.

Does anyone else have problems with these reactors? I am tired of paying for products that do not work.

 

[mikenam]

No issues with my BRS Carbon reactor. I use the filter to prevent the media from clogging the outlets

 

[Lsufan]

I have one of the mini's & I have one of their dual reactors & I like both of them. I have no problems with the mini but on the dual reactor I would have to turn up the flow a little because it would slow down over time when I have gfo in the first cartridge,but that's kinda expected once detritus & bacteria starts getting built up.

Have u tried running it with just carbon? If I had to guess it is probably something to do with mixing the two together. I would try it with just carbon & see how that goes. If it works fine then u may need to do something a little different when u mix the two together. With them mixed together I would expect to have to turn up the flow every now & then but u shouldn't have to do it every day or two

 

[Rakie]

So the product works fine, you run it for an unknown amount of time and suddenly flow is slowed significantly.. Your thought it "The product must be broken"?

It's clogged dude.. Clean it. Pump too. Replace Carbon every 2-3 weeks with 3-4 TBS carbon and some filter media taking up the rest of the space -- Your mini reactor is fine, your tank is pretty small, it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[kozmic]

+1 with the others...

No problems here with my BRS dual reactor, running GFO/carbon. I run the BRS bulk GFO and BRS ROX 0.8 carbon, replace GFO/carbon and rinse out the provided sponge filters, monthly. I did also add an inlet sponge pre-filter for the MJ-1200 pump that catches any detritus/etc before entering the reactors that also gets cleaned/rinsed each month too, so perhaps that helps my setup.

 

[lespaul339]

They clog over time. It's just the nature of the beast. Just think of it as regular tank maintenance . I have to clean mine out every once in a while because of restriction too. All I do is pull the cartridge, and clean the bottom part out where the slots are, and done.

 

[hkgar]

They clog quickly because of the very small venting.

 

[oseymour]

The reactor is fine, if you don't use filter socks or feed heavy or have very dirty water or your tank gets fed a lot or an overstocked tank, the carbon is going to get clogged easier.

It's self regulating, as the media gets clogged, it's needs slower flow and more contact time to work.

I have a mini that I run carbon in and a full that gets carbon/gfo mix sometimes, it performs exactly as you described, after a few days it gets clogged.

 

[kozmic]

Btw... my tank is no where near "low nutrient" levels, so I would suspect that my success using the BRS dual reactor is directly linked to:
1) using a filter sock as the first stage into my sump
2) placing the dual reactor pump (MJ-1200) and return into the second chamber of my sump
3) cleaning the reactor and changing media monthly
4) using pre-filter sponge (pic attached) and cleaning monthly

I have never had my dual reactor "clog" (not even the one time I got lazy and went an extra 2 weeks before the monthly media change and cleaning).

My first recommendation would be to use the pre-filter sponges if you are not... they are like 11.99 for two (including shipping) on eBay, and changing them takes like 10 seconds, then just rinse the one you swapped out for the next change. I only do this once a month, but if you are not using a filter sock in your sump, then you may need to change out / clean the pre-filter sponge more often (weekly?) in a medium to high nutrient system. :thumbsup:

 

[Stevenrickard]

Ran into the same problem but it was totally operator error... I was putting way to much GFO in thinking a little extra meant better performance. In reality, it just crapped out and wasted twice as much GFO. Stopped eyeballing it and started sticking to the recommended usage based of the calculator on their site. Everything works great now, when I see it start to no adjudicate as much as I'd like, turn up the flow a little bit and all is good. Once at full force, if it starts to trickle, I know it's time to swap out and add a new batch.