REACTORS- Filtration for stingrays

[DIDYSIS]

Mine is and was running great. My air pump just blew out a diaphragm so I have a couple on order as back ups and one set from the manufacturer coming to replace it hopefully before my spares get here. Air seems to be a little better but you can make it work with a water pump. That size I would say about 1-1.25 cubic feet of media. I have 2 cubic feet taking up allot of a 125 sump.

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[DB junkie]

How is everyone doing with these reactors? I was thinking of having a custom one made from acrylic. Was thinking 4ft tall x1ft x 1ft. Any ideas on what plumbing should be and how much media it will hold. Air infused better then a circulating pump shooting the water up?

I love them. My little one is made from an acrylic 55. Big one is an acrylic 90. I just mounted the big 10" rubber diffusers into bulkhead fittings in the bottom of the tanks to eliminate any air lines in the tank. Used 2 diffusers in the little reactor, 3 in the big one.

Your 4x1x1 = 30 gallons. I'd try 2 cubic foot of K1. IF you're using a cheap knock off then it's anyone's guess how much.

Here's a good reference for media volume VS vessel volume - http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/2652/Clearwater-Low-Space-Bioreactor

You need LOTS of air. If you don't have it you can make up for it with water circulation. I prefer to use lots of air and falling water into the reactor to geta really good boil.

One thing you need to know is these things can go to hell with certain meds like Prazi. Will make foam, the k1 surfs the foam and dries/spills out. I'm still trying to figure out a way around it, and I believe the best way is to basically put the K1 in a bio tower with a drip plate so it just can't dry out. My current project is trying to combine a wet dry and a bio reactor.... I think the result will be full proof, and the best of both worlds- how do you make a wet dry better? Introduce lots of air. How do you make a reactor better? A drip plate making it impossible for media to dry out. How do you know it will work? Use both hybrid bio towers, and a conventional reactor..... lol

 

[ray777]

Sounds good guys. So having a tall reactor is not the way to go? DB when you say adding a drip tray so the media doesn't dry out where exactly are you putting it? Do you have a pic of yours you can post? where it shows the in and out part of the filter? This is going to go on a central system with two 6ft tall bio towers filled with mini bio balls. I want to see how it does and then maybe separate it to another system on its own.

 

[DB junkie]

A tall reactor will work just fine, and might actually be preferred over a big foot print and short height.

I used to run mine in plastic 55 gallon drums. I had small holes in the top to get media and parts into the drum, that sucked to deal with so I cut the tops off making them open topped. Then I added prazi one night before bed, checked on it in the morning and half the media was on the floor. Back to the drawing board.....

Prazi means under heavy aeration you'll make foam, the K1 will float on this and not only dry out but actually spill out of the container. Now a simple screen could prevent this, but it will still dry out. Now if you were to add a drip tray above the water level with water running over it then there's no way for media to dry out.

Bio reactors are designed to be used like a UV. They are supposed to be low flow, high contact time, so best to run them with an auxillary smaller pump in another loop off the sump. So if using on a central system could just drop a little 1-2K gph pump into the sump next to the return pumps and run already mechanically filtered water to the reactor then dump back into the sump. Several people have proven that reactors work fine with higher turnover as well, but the original intent was slower flow rates. IF you do use basically in the main sump you can benefit from taking the thousands of gallons per hour of turnover in a central system and drive all that through the reactor and get a really good boil, but all this turbulence will take the dead bio with it, so it's best to filter AFTER the reactor as well. I filled up a pot scrubbie wet/dry with dead reactor bio by feeding the tower with the reactor, and the scrubbies just kept all the crap in them.

IF you do add to a central system you will need to start removing the bio balls to get the K1 to seed right. I had to loose a lot of media before the reactors really seeded.

Also worth mentioning, the stuff doesn't boil right new. Might be best to media bag it and let marinate for a week in the sump before sticking it in a reactor and trying to get a nice boil.

I'll post some pics later tonight of mine so you can get an idea of how to deal with the strainers being a pain. The surface area of the strainer has to be huge or the suction will pull all the media to it and slow the draining.......

 

[vamptrev]

Best reactor container hands down. Its a little noisy because of the thin hard plastic but easy to drill for bulkheads and flat spots to fasten them. Im going to change out all my reactor containers with these. Also ive never had any problems with prazi foaming that much. Ive never had to unplug my reactors.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=551071


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[DB junkie]

Also ive never had any problems with prazi foaming that much. Ive never had to unplug my reactors.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=551071


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Are you using actual K1 media?

I'd guess you're probably not using as much air as some of us then, I know I'm not the only one that's had troubles with Prazi and reactors, but then again most use smaller air pumps.

I tried containers I can't see in. Won't run them again. Hell, I really actually enjoy watching a tank full of K1 boil...... Kind of like a lava lamp

 

[ray777]

Hmm lot to think about then. I thought the water came through the bottom and then out the top? Hence why I was confused on your drip tray idea. I have a acrylic guy so I think that's what I am going to go with. the reactor would have its own pump and or airstone. Not sure what to do. I really doubt I will need it with the massive bio towers I have.

 

[DB junkie]

Bio towers don't clean themselves..... Reactors pretty much do. Run the towers long enough without cleaning and I wouldn't be surprised if the rays eventually get a bacterial infection.

You can put water in through the bottom, I did this on my first few, BUT I couldn't find a way to efficiently keep the pickup screen free of K1, so I started dumping the water in from a few inches above the water level. This knocks the media down, air brings it back up. Draw water off the bottom and it's a lot easier to keep a screen clean since the media tends to float....

The 55 gallon I built I literally cut the overflow box out of one tank and glued it into the reactor tank upside down to pull water off the bottom. I then basically put a small screen divider in the tank to achieve enough surface area on the screen that the media doesn't really stick to it or at least not bad enough it can't be knocked off with a bubble bar.

 

[DB junkie]

Still trying to find some better pics of the upside down overflow box/drain on this tank, but here's a few pics to give you an idea......

 

[DIDYSIS]

My moving bed reactor has been going for months and is doing really well. Handles well over a pound of food thrown at it. Here is a close up of my media pellet and what they all look like at this point in life.




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