BRS GFO Carbon Reactor and...?

[y-not]

Hey folks,

I'm soon to be installing a GFO & Carbon reactor on my 66 gallon and my son's 29 gallon tanks.
Currently, in the 66g tank, I've got about 70 pounds of live rock. In the 29, there's maybe 25 pounds.

In both tanks I have a bag of purigen and a bag of carbon.

Once the reactors are in, is there still a need to have those bags?

I'm thinking not but...I'd still like to get a more experienced opinion.

 

[ringo®]

If you're running carbon in the reactor, there is no need to have it in a seperate bag.

 

[picoreefguy]

i would continue running the purigen but since you will be running carbon in the reactor you can ditch that bag. and in case you didnt know you can actually regenerate purigen by soaking it in bleach and then in ro water with prime or alpha.

 

[y-not]

Picoreefguy;939987 wrote: i would continue running the purigen but since you will be running carbon in the reactor you can ditch that bag. and in case you didnt know you can actually regenerate purigen by soaking it in bleach and then in ro water with prime or alpha.

Yeah, I was thinking that the bag of carbon would be overkill and yes, I knew about regenerating the purigen.

I'm sort of looking forward to getting the reactors setup and running.

For those that are running GFO reactors, is there a break-in period? Or does it pretty much start working once the water is moving through it?

 

[ringo®]

No break in

 

[mikesmith34]

I know you probably know this so forgive me. But be sure to run your water through the reactor until it runs clear before recirculating it into the tank water. You will be happy with the reactor BRS sells. Built like a tank

 

[joseayes]

Mikesmith34;940093 wrote: I know you probably know this so forgive me. But be sure to run your water through the reactor until it runs clear before recirculating it into the tank water. You will be happy with the reactor BRS sells. Built like a tank

I would normally give the new carbon a wash with the water that I will be taking away with the water change, no siphoning the gravel, just filling two 5 gallons of WC and then I would use a pump to rinse the new media with this water, helps you save new water, no using water from the sink faucet (chlorinated) and give some use to waste water, I don't think carbon would absorb much from rinsing and doing this.

When I was using the BRS reactors I went to have some troubles, media will clump inside the inner chamber, avoiding "fluidity" of the media, I had it with the recommended pump but couldn't do much, my reactors were connected in line, water will go out of one and then go inside the other one, I have seen another similar reactors where they started to use "Wye" adapters to the incoming water followed for a two separate inline valves and this last one will give you a lot more control of the flow and using different type of media on both without having to mixing it or having only one single way flow trough the chambers