Spectrapure dual media reactor

SOGavity · Dec 11, 2025

About two weeks ago I set up a brand new Spectrapure dual media reactor. I put carbon in one side and GFO in the other. It worked great for the first couple of days and then the water flow basically turned into a trickle. As of this morning, there is no water coming out of the outlet hose at all, depite water looking to move through the carbon side. The GFO side basically does nothing. I haven't touched any of the "settings"... basically the valves haven't moved at all. I decided to a quick test and disconnected the hosing and running the eheim pump with just the hoses attached. It ran just fine, so there is nothing blocking the hoses and the pump certainly works. I decided to change out the media, and that didn't do anything either. Does anyone have experience with this brand or can tell me what's going on.

I should also meantion this reactor didn't come with sponges like it was suppose to. So I have the carbon in a media bag.

Rocks reef · Dec 12, 2025

You want the carbon to NOT tumble, just have water passing through it. The GFO needs to tumble gently. It is better to use two separate reactors so you can control the flow through them.