who all has media reactors ? and how do i hook one up ? im thinking of using one of my maxi jet 1200 power heads i have....something along the line of a phosban reactor 150 or so ...
media reactors
- Thread starter rob1984
- Start date
I've used them. Not bad but not all that impressive either. You are basically adding an externally driven canister filter to your set up. They require the same maintenance as a canister filter. You get very similar benefits to a canister as well and if you have all the parts then go.
You plan on putting the media reactor in the tanks or external?
You need to plum the water into the canister from the maxi jet using tubing, not familiar with maxi jet power heads but I'm assuming it has pre-filter capabilities. You can save space and tubing by hanging the reactor off the side of the tank if it's a small one otherwise just place it under the tank. Plum the return line. Keep the media in a bag to speed up cleaning and avoid the mess if you are using a pass through reactor. If you want maximum media utilization go for a fluid bed filter type reactor. Some are just pass through canisters.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vertex-zf-30-zeolith-media-reactor.html
You'll need to adjust your flow so that the media is constantly churning but not blowing out the top.
You plan on putting the media reactor in the tanks or external?
You need to plum the water into the canister from the maxi jet using tubing, not familiar with maxi jet power heads but I'm assuming it has pre-filter capabilities. You can save space and tubing by hanging the reactor off the side of the tank if it's a small one otherwise just place it under the tank. Plum the return line. Keep the media in a bag to speed up cleaning and avoid the mess if you are using a pass through reactor. If you want maximum media utilization go for a fluid bed filter type reactor. Some are just pass through canisters.
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/vertex-zf-30-zeolith-media-reactor.html
You'll need to adjust your flow so that the media is constantly churning but not blowing out the top.
im thinking of something along the lines of a phos ban 550 or the 150 model .... and adding some clearmax to filter my phosphate/nitrate's out... my tap water has 20ppm nitrates :O andlarge fish in my 140g isnt very good for long term when they get bigger
think there bout 4"x15" or so for the 550....and yea the maxi jets i can just have on the top of the tank or bottom to get water sucked and blown outof the reactor, do the pumps go on the output side of the reactor or the inlet side ?
If the pump has to be submerged then on the input side, pushing water through the reactor. Most of the fluid bed units Ive worked with are setup that way so any random media does not get into the power head and fry it. I haven't had much luck with the absorption media but I know plenty of people rave about them.
What other type of media is there ?? I wanna be able to do the cheapest/suffecient way possible defintly not made of money here ...
so would i almost be better to maybe just add additonal fluval fx5 on my tank with phosphate remover in one tray and nitrate remover in another tray ? and then just bio media in the last tray ?? or is a reactor a better way to do this ??
i just have to get my nitrate down, coming outta my tap at 20ppm isnt cool especially with such large fish and africans/mbuna's in my tank i have....
i just have to get my nitrate down, coming outta my tap at 20ppm isnt cool especially with such large fish and africans/mbuna's in my tank i have....
Probably not the best person to ask. I gave up on the filter media pretty quickly and switched to RO/DI which isn't an option as per the other thread.
would be alright if the entire house ran on a RO unit but that be very expensive to accomadate everything here as well as changing 90% of my water weekly in the 140-150g tank here .... and it isnt my house so i cant make the call to do that
You could also set up a drip system. Just constantly drip RO water into the tank and get an overflow system to take away the excess. It's mechanically involved but will give you the water purity you need. There are a bunch of threads on that topic here. You can either divert some waste water to get the minerals or you can toss in a few scoops of Seachem products every few days to prevent de-mineralization. You'll have to test initially till you get a feel for how the system behaves.
the other thing i DO have here is some type of filter someone told me it would be great for a "drip system" i use to fill my tank up with water it suppose to filter out chlorine and such....<br><br>basically i hook up my python emtpy the tank and then attach the hose when i go to fill it and take the other hose (output) of the filte ri have and fill my tank up... now maybe i could get a filter that goes inside of it that will filter out phosphate and nitrate when i fill my tank up ??