Same reactor carbon/GFO tumbling??

Pola0502ds · Apr 10, 2016

Does anyone tumble Rox Carbon and High Capacity GFO? It has always been my understanding you should not do this but the guys at avast marine came out with the spyglass reactor and insist it is okay to do. Is it? If you do tumble and the carbon and gfo break down into fine particles, what will that do to your tank? How bad is it? And if it is okay and you do tumble, how much flow and tumble should there be? Right my gfo sits at the bottom and only the carbon tumbles. Im afraid to turn the flow up to make it tumble more and have the carbon or gfo break down.

twilliard · Apr 10, 2016

I have the spyglass and true have to be careful running carbon.
I made a modification to the spyglass that allows a higher volume without the harsh breakdown of carbon.
The way I have it set up, yes you can run both without turning to dust

Downbeach · Apr 10, 2016

You do not want the GAC tumbling due to the fact that the fines from it has been shown to be a cause of HLLE.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blo...ted-in-inducing-head-and-lateral-line-erosion

On the other hand the GFO needs to be kept fluidized (tumbling) to prevent it from forming a solid block.

Mrx7899 · Apr 10, 2016

If you mix the carbon and gfo equally the gfo doesn't need to tumble Cuz the carbon will stop it from clumping together

Reef Junky150 · Apr 10, 2016

Also wasting carbon as it tends to last longer then gfo.

Pola0502ds · Apr 10, 2016

I don't have the room for 2 separate reactors.

Pola0502ds · Apr 10, 2016

twilliard said:
I have the spyglass and true have to be careful running carbon.
I made a modification to the spyglass that allows a higher volume without the harsh breakdown of carbon.
The way I have it set up, yes you can run both without turning to dust

Care to explain?

twilliard · Apr 10, 2016

Pola0502ds said:
Care to explain?

I will try my best without pictures! (Would have to pull it out)
Without this mod I found the carbon will produce a lot of dust and if the volume is too low the carbon gets stuck around the ball.

What I did is I took the ball out and took the top screen and pushed it all the way down the neck right to the taper.
Then I put filter floss on the top to contain the carbon.

The dust issue is gone with no media stuck around the ball or in the pump.

zoomonster · Apr 10, 2016

Just a thought regardless of the method... I always run the output of my BRS GAC/GFO reactor through a filter sock. No matter the sponges in the reactor and no matter how well rinsed GFO and GAC fines will end up in my sump and tank. Maybe even that's not good enough. I only keep two tangs, yellow belly regal and purple. The purple is flawless but been struggling with lateral line on the regal.