I would like to share a recent experience I had with a new piece of equipment. I installed a NYOS Torq media reactor with the 2.0 body on my newly set up 220 gallon aquarium back in February. The trigger sump I have uses the Triton method which focuses on utilizing chaeto to eliminate waste. However, I thought that with a new tank, chaeto not grown out yet, and putting a good size bio load into the system from the start I would also use a skimmer and a carbon/gfo media reactor so I wouldn't overload the system. This would give the Chaeto time to grow out.
The Nyos Torq has done a good job of pushing flow through the carbon and GFO media. The GFO media has been tumbling nicely (much better than my BRS two chamber unit). I installed the Nyos in February and then went on some business trips, personal trips, participated in the March INDMAS frag swap, hosted the April INDMAS meeting, etc. Unfortunately, with all of that going on....I did not keep up on the filter pad cleaning.
Well...I was on vacation last week, that's when all bad things happen to my tank (and no I had not cleaned the Nyos filter pads before leaving; ran out of time...). On Tuesday I got a message from my neighbor that my basement was full of smoke and water was all over the floor. Don't want to make a long story longer so I will just say what happened with the Nyos Torq if you do not clean the filter pads regularly.
Keep in mind that the 2.0 body is 21" tall....taller than the side of my sump/refugium.
With the filter pads in the Nyos blocked, the water pump kept attempting to pump water through the Nyos. It finally built up enough pressure to turn the Nyos into a water cannon which blew the top off the Nyos and along with the top came salt water, GFO, and Carbon pellets. The top of the Nyos only uses a rubber ring to secure itself via pressure and friction to the media chamber. It does not screw in. Major design flaw... Well I had water proofed the inside of the tank stand but a lot of that water hit the door allowing it to get out to the carpet (the bright side was that there was 2 inches of water at the bottom of a 6' long stand that did not leak out to the carpet). Unfortunately, I had also recently installed the new AI Hydra refuguim red light to support Chaeto growth and it was basically drenched in a waterfall of salt water. Yep, it is trashed. Also, the Nyos kept spraying water until the refugium was empty. This meant the 800W heater was no longer underwater and it melted/burned the plastic guard and bottom end cap (that is where the smoke was coming from) and then allowed water to get in the heater and short it out. My neighbor not realizing that the heater guard and end cap had melted added salt water back into the tank after he turned of the Nyos. It actually continued to work until Sunday night when Marcia and I returned from vacation.
The bottom line is that the Nyos works great IF you keep up on the filter cleaning. IF I use it again, I plan on cutting notches into the top of the unit and the bottom of the unit so that I can use fishing line or something to basically secure the top of the Nyos to the bottom of the unit to avoid this from happening again or maybe drilling a small hole by the o-ring to install a small screw.
This was my original post on INDMAS. After reading the reviews on hear, I don't think it was just the filters that caused this issue. This unit just needs a way to lock the top on. For those who have not had this problem since their o-ring seems to be keeping the lid on more securely...that may change over time so definitely keep an eye on how secure the lid is. The vibration of the unit and other mechanical items you may have installed could cause the top to pop off.
