Having Trouble Holding Carbon In Place In Reactor

[BigEZ77]

Hi All,

I have an Innovative Marine midsize Minimax reactor. The design of this reactor has two sponges below the media and two above, an upward flow and cannot remove the base. I have a 40G AIO tank and have it placed in the rear sump. I understand that carbon should never tumble and at the same time needs a fair amount of flow thru it. I only need to run an amount of carbon that fills about half of the canister in the reactor. So, I put my carbon in on top of the base sponge (after rinsing), then push the top two sponges down on top of the carbon. The issue is that the top sponges get pushed up off the carbon over time and then the carbon starts to tumble. So, I'm wondering if there's any safe product that would allow good water flow and I could pack on top of the sponges to fill the entire canister to hold them (and the carbon) in place? Or any other ideas that might work.

PS. An awesome idea for this reactor would have been to have a retractable rod with perforated discs on the end so the user could set the depth of the sponges and they wouldn't move. Just a thought.

Thanks,

Russell

 

[mitch91175]

I think you may have too much flow going through reactor. I would say leave the top sponge at the top of the reactor rather than pushing it down on top of the carbon then adjust your flow appropriately. Do you have a separate pump providing flow to the reactor or is it being fed by your return pump off of a manifold?

I prefer to have everything in my aquarium feed from my main pump for a few reasons.

1. Decrease electricity
2. Have more control over system flow through reactors
3. Cleaner installation

Lookup manifolds if you haven't done so already. On the manifold, usually you will have a valve to control the amount of flow going into whatever you have connected to it.

 

[homer1475]

Just plumb it backwards so the flow is down through the reactor, not up through.

 

[BigEZ77]

The pump is attached to the reactor (comes with reactor) and is only 92 gph so I wouldn't think it would be too much flow. However, I will try adjusting flow to the point that it doesn't tumble but I think this may be too little flow to really push it thru the GAC appropriately. Thx

 

[mitch91175]

Just plumb it backwards so the flow is down through the reactor, not up through.

Great feedback homer. If he has too much flow and detritus builds up in the reactor, wouldn't that cause it to clog quicker?

 

[BigEZ77]

Can plumb this one backwards unfortunately. Its an AIO reactor. Here's the link...

http://www.marinedepot.com/Innovati...rs-Innovative_Marine-0I10410-FIFRISPR-vi.html

I now have the flow to a rate that the top layer moves a little but doesn't actually jump up of the pile. Is this ok? Unfortunately I can't tune it any lower than that.

 

[mitch91175]

That will work for you with how you have it tuned. You only want the media to tumble slightly at the top which will definitely keep it from getting out of the reactor.

 

[BigEZ77]

Thanks. I was concerned about it moving at all because I've read that the carbon will break down and spread into the tank if it bangs into each other.

 

[homer1475]

You don't want carbon to tumble at all. Any tumbling will cause it to grind itself to dust which leads to a ton of other problems. You want it packed in tight, with 0 movement.

If you can't turn the flow down low enough so it doesn't tumble or boil at the surface, then pack the extra space with filter floss. You may need to change the floss a little more regularly, but you definitely don't want the carbon to move at all.

 

[BigEZ77]

Ok, thanks. How often does filter floss need to be changed? Is two weeks good?