GFO Reactor or HOB

[bcarl77]

Hi all,

I have been dealing with high phosphate and the resulting hair algae growth for the past 2-3weeks. I reduced my feedings and stopped feeding dry, and limit the frozen food. Also religious 5g weekly WC.

Anyways I am using a repurposed 17g rimless for my reef. I was running Phosguard and switching every 2 days and got the phosphate down to 0 (per Hanna). I wanted a better long term solution so I wanted to run GFO. I placed the GFO in an old Aquaclear 30 in a media bag mixed with GAC. After 5 days the phosphate is at .04.

Now here is the question, given the limited space (see pictures) would it be better to run a BRS mini reactor and mount the canister to the back of the cabinet. Would the tubing and fittings allow me to get away with this? I think we can all agree this would allow better performance out of the GFO. Given the limited space, I am open to all other suggestions.

 

[mtraylor]

Reactor would be allot better, but you are pushing it for room. Have you thought about external overflow and sump to give you a little more room for filtration? You would loose the 2 hang on filters and get better filtration below but then you would need some additional flow in aquarium. Just a thought. Would be an investment though.

 

[Steved350]

I ran a mini reactor on mine and it worked wonders. The only issue is the amount of GFO you can put in it and still tumble. I went with carbon and GFO mixed to get the benefit of both.

 

[bcarl77]

Reactor would be allot better, but you are pushing it for room. Have you thought about external overflow and sump to give you a little more room for filtration? You would loose the 2 hang on filters and get better filtration below but then you would need some additional flow in aquarium. Just a thought. Would be an investment though.

I have thought about this. The original goal of the tank was to repurpose my high-tech planted tank set-up into a nano reef, with "limited" investment LOL. I will eventually be upgrading to a red sea reefer, so the goal was to only buy the equipment I could also use with that tank, so I am not buying things twice. For a sump, I would need a new stand (current one wouldn't be able to house it), sump, plumbing. That would easily cost north of $500, which I rather just put into my upgrade.

I ran a mini reactor on mine and it worked wonders. The only issue is the amount of GFO you can put in it and still tumble. I went with carbon and GFO mixed to get the benefit of both.

Did you plumb it into a sump? or try a HOB style? Was it more effective than a previous method of using GFO?

 

[Steved350]

This was in a IM40. It had a sump in the back so I just ran a maxi jet from there up to the reactor and then back to the tank. It did take care of my phosphate issue and i didn’t have to run two to be able to use carbon too.

 

[mtraylor]

I ran a mini reactor on mine and it worked wonders. The only issue is the amount of GFO you can put in it and still tumble. I went with carbon and GFO mixed to get the benefit of both.

Great idea.

 

[mtraylor]

Oh ok. Yeah that would be a waste of money that could be used on the aquarium you are going to have.

 

[bcarl77]

Anyone have some suggestions on the best way to plumb it. It looks like people recommend mounting above the water line so in my case it should be on the wall? That tubing is really rigid and ugly, I would need a way to secure the tubing so there is no chance of the return line getting moved and dumped on the floor.