How well does the BRS 2-stage reactor work for you?

[MMreef]

I've had this reactor for several years now and after the first year of use...it got retired to the shelf because I was terribly dissatisfied with it's performance. Fast foward a few years...I recently setup my new 120g aquarium and I thought I'd pull the reactor off the shelf and give it another run. It got cleaned thorough, all the little fins on the top/bottom of the canisters were cleaned out, fresh media, etc. About 5 days later, the fins in the canister were completely and totally clogged up again. When I removed the canisters, they stayed completely full, there was absolutely no water flowing in or out of them. Instead of shoving it back onto the shelf, or worse, the trash...I decided I would go ahead and try improving some of the flow into the canisters by removing some of the fins in the top/bottom of the canisters. Has anybody else had this problem with this reactor? I understand there is going to be maintenance, but my gosh, I refuse to break this thing down every 5 days and scrub it with a toothbrush just to keep it working properly! Anyways, once the flow into the canisters wasn't so restricted I immediately noticed a huge difference! It works wonderfully now! Not sure why I didn't do this years ago.

 

[moseley75]

Following. I've been considering getting this reactor b/c of my limited space. If this happens with the dual reactor does it also happen to the single ones from BRS?

 

[FDAWG]

I had that same reactor for about a year and it would clog every week. I ended up replacing it with 2 singles and now maintenance is done only once a month.

 

[MMreef]

I had that same reactor for about a year and it would clog every week. I ended up replacing it with 2 singles and now maintenance is done only once a month.

How do the single reactors work differently then the double? My canisters are what clog up, the tiny little fins in the top and bottoms are very very very small and the smallest of debris clogs them up. I wound up breaking some of the fins out of the top/bottoms and it seems to work sooooo much better now.

 

[moseley75]

How do the single reactors work differently then the double?

I was wondering that too.

 

[Hakim0861]

They work pretty good for me. Like Mmreef said they do clog, but whenever I change my GFO and carbon out I take a wire brush too it and clear out the debris. After a while you'll prolly have to change it out (like I did) because debris from the GFO get caked onto the fins. Overall I'd def buy it again and would recommend it.

 

[Paulday]

Use the foam that came with it when u bought it if I don't have they sell the replacements on brs website

 

[Peter Blue Reef]

I can vouch for the quality of my water after using the dual reactor. However, I've had a couple of leak incidents because I didn't tighten the canisters enough. I was afraid that I would break something. So, I put on my angry face and a few beers and a pot of coffee later I torqued it down as far as it would go. No leaks. A couple weeks later I went to change out carbon and GFO only to find that I crushed the fins on the canisters. Needless to say, I no longer have flow issues.