Are you tumbling your GFO?

LobsterOfJustice

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Wondering how everybody is running their GFO. When people first started using it about 10 years ago, everyone tumbled it in phosban reactors. At some point, people began worrying that tumbling the media was going to release fines and the recommendation changed to not tumbling or to tumble very slightly. What I'm noticing is that by the time I reduce flow to the point that there is very little tumbling, there is just a trickle of flow through the reactor. I'm wondering if maybe the phosban 150 reactor I'm using isn't optimized for running a decent flow rate through the media without over-tumbling. I just settle for some kind of middle ground where I turn the flow up a little even though I think it's probably being tumbled a little too much. I've thought about running the reactor in downflow so I can push more water through it without worrying about turbulence, but I'm not sure how much efficiency I'd lose from not fluidizing the media.
 
My reactor compresses the medium so water velocity isn't an issue.
 
This is why I give it a shake if the numbers rise. It doesn't take much.
 

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