What do I put in my reactor?

[tdannhauser30]

I know there are tons of threads going over this but it seems like literally everyone is using something different. I have the 2 little fishies reactor on its way and I have some unwanted hair algea to get rid of. I want something to get rid of nitrates and especially phosphates so GFO seems like the obvious choice right??? Should I mix it with carbon too? How about Pureigen would that do a better job? Maybe a concoction of all 3? lol seriously though I dont know what I should put in this thing, input??

[Benny314]

What are your nitrate and phosphate readings at the minute?

 

Things like bio pearls won't reduce phosphate when it's out of balance (higher) than nitrate, you have to bring the phosphate down inline with the nitrate to then use something like pearls.

Mixing carbon with hard medias like phosphate removers is a bad move as the phosphate medias need to be tumbled fairly actively and they tend to smash up and powder the carbon which then escapes into your system any you get a layer of black dust on everything.

[tdannhauser30]

What are your nitrate and phosphate readings at the minute?

 

Things like bio pearls won't reduce phosphate when it's out of balance (higher) than nitrate, you have to bring the phosphate down inline with the nitrate to then use something like pearls.

Mixing carbon with hard medias like phosphate removers is a bad move as the phosphate medias need to be tumbled fairly actively and they tend to smash up and powder the carbon which then escapes into your system any you get a layer of black dust on everything.

 

well truth be told nitrate is pretty reasonable was at 10 but I did a water change two days ago, and I dont have a test for phosphates because everyone always says its pointless to test for them due to the fact that its normally all bound up in the algea. But im pretty darn sure Ive got phosphates Because I have the algea lol. So no to mixing them, then GFO over pureigen or some other chemical media as well in this casenario?? Ive heard pureigen is very good at removing organics and such.

[Benny314]

My system has always had quite high phosphate and it's never been an issue. I had a bit of a nitrate spike a while ago as I had been lazy with water changes (hoping my mangroves and macro algae in the sump would deal with things, I was wrong), so I did some fairly heavy water changes and got nitrate down to less than 10. Then the other week some of my SPS started to lose colour and growth stalled. I got phosphate tested at my LFS (I don't have a test kit for PO4 either) and it was of the scale (higher than 1.6ppm). I hooked up a fluidiser with some Phos80 (GFO) and within 2 weeks my SPS had coloured back up and growth has taken off. I had my water checked again after the reactor was running 4 weeks, new PO4 reading was 0.34.

So now I am debating changing over to bio pearls or just turning the reactor off to see if the mangroves keep up and seeing if my nitrate and phosphate stay in balance and low.

[seabass]

Purigen is really small, I haven't seen it used in a reactor (just in a HOB powerfilter or media basket). I believe the TLF reactor was originally made for Phosban (GFO), but it's possible to use some other types of media in it.

 

The only reactor I've seen to promote mixing activated carbon and GFO is made by BRS: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/index.php/video/index/view/id/18 You mix the two (typically more activated carbon than GFO) and pack it tight so that it will not tumble. It's mixed so that the GFO will not stick together (eliminating the need to tumble). However, you could still use that same reactor to tumble GFO alone, or to pack activated carbon alone if you wished.