Spyglass reactor

[AVAST Marine]

It can be rinsed in the reactor by using the procedure in the manual but this is how I do it: Dump my gfo in a 5 gallon bucket and fill with water. Swirl around a bit. Pour off 95% of liquid. Add to reactor. This is the fastest and easiest way I have come up with and been doing it like this for years. That said, now I use rox .8 carbon and AIO biopellets, both of which are much better medias and easier to rinse (I don't rinse either but don't tell anyone that).

 

[solitude127]

It can be rinsed in the reactor by using the procedure in the manual but this is how I do it: Dump my gfo in a 5 gallon bucket and fill with water. Swirl around a bit. Pour off 95% of liquid. Add to reactor. This is the fastest and easiest way I have come up with and been doing it like this for years. That said, now I use rox .8 carbon and AIO biopellets, both of which are much better medias and easier to rinse (I don't rinse either but don't tell anyone that).

Thanks for the reply. That makes a lot of sense.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Reactors arrived yesterday. These are awesome!!! I had given up on Purigen because I could never get it to tumble properly without it escaping the reactor; Spyglass fixed that problem. I ran GFO in a standard NextReef reactor before and had accepted mediocre tumbling w/ moderate channeling. Spyglass solved that problem as well.

Now to figure out how to make room in sump to replace the rest of my reactors...

 

[bsstover]

I have noticed that my media (1 liter worth) is not tumbling much at top of the media with the syncra 1.0. It is all in one pellets. Is it possible I need a stronger pump (1.5)?

 

[AVAST Marine]

Reactors arrived yesterday. These are awesome!!! I had given up on Purigen because I could never get it to tumble properly without it escaping the reactor; Spyglass fixed that problem. I ran GFO in a standard NextReef reactor before and had accepted mediocre tumbling w/ moderate channeling. Spyglass solved that problem as well.

Now to figure out how to make room in sump to replace the rest of my reactors...

Love it!

 

[AVAST Marine]

I have noticed that my media (1 liter worth) is not tumbling much at top of the media with the syncra 1.0. It is all in one pellets. Is it possible I need a stronger pump (1.5)?

You don't want the AIO to tumble hard, just keep moving enough to prevent clumping. There is a good video on our site showing the tumble with AIO and how it should be moving. So if you have the Medium size Spyglass yours should be moving correctly at the recommended rate. You're using the black plastic top screen right?

 

[bsstover]

You don't want the AIO to tumble hard, just keep moving enough to prevent clumping. There is a good video on our site showing the tumble with AIO and how it should be moving. So if you have the Medium size Spyglass yours should be moving correctly at the recommended rate. You're using the black plastic top screen right?

Yes I am. It's tumbling well at bottom but not at top. It is definitely not tumbling like I see in your video. Do I need to have this set up in the "full recirculating mode" to get this to tumble like in your video? Thank you.

 

[AVAST Marine]

Yes I am. It's tumbling well at bottom but not at top. It is definitely not tumbling like I see in your video. Do I need to have this set up in the "full recirculating mode" to get this to tumble like in your video? Thank you.

Can you take a quick video? Going to full recirc does tumble the media more though for sure since the pump doesn't see any head pressure. The design with the cone bottom has more velocity in the cone so you will see more tumble action there, the media at the top is constantly exchanged with the media in the bottom (you can watch the top pellets fall in what looks like slow motion) so again, tumbling just enough to prevent clumping is the goal with this media.

 

[bsstover]

I have converted to full recirc and really do not see all that much tumbling of the media. I'm just wondering if I need to upgrade to a larger pump? You can see there is decent tumbling at bottom, but none through middle to top. At the top you can see the water coming out showing that flow is moving through just not turning the AIO pellets. I threw some white pellets in there too so I can see if it is tumbling.

 

[AVAST Marine]

Oh yeah, that's not right at all. Just to verify, you do not have the fine mesh screen inserted in the bottom of the reactor right? Can you lift the reactor off the pump with it still on and then reseat it, when it is lifted can you put your hand in the outer chamber and feel a strong flow from the pump? Sometimes a pump can get air locked and this usually fixes it. If this doesn't resolve it then you need to check to see if there is something stuck in the intake or impeller of the pump. Something is definitely wrong though.

 

[bsstover]

The only screen is the one at top. I can unseat and reseat and see good flow. As seen in the video the water is rushing out the top so there is plenty of flow up it just isn't tumbling the media.

 

[AVAST Marine]

If there was plenty of flow the media would be tumbling

Can you remove the volute cover and make sure there is nothing stuck in the pump restricting the flow? Also check the output nozzle on the pump. I'm 99% sure you have a errant biopellet or two in the pump and it is restricting the flow.

 

[Mirya]

Newb here who has never used a media reactor before, so I realize the error is probably going to be between the keyboard and chair, but this is what I'm running into...

I have the small Spyglass with the nano Sicce pump that I want to run ChemiPure Blue in. I inserted the small stainless steel mesh disk into the cone nozzle. I left the stainless steel mesh in the top screen assembly. Dropped the weighted ball into the inner chamber. Added 5.5 oz of rinsed ChemiPure Blue. The reactor is sitting in approximately 9" of water. Started the pump up with the valve fully closed. I've been slowly opening the valve. It doesn't take hardly any flow to get the white pellets to fluidize, but I can't find a spot that gets the black pellets to fluidize that doesn't blow the white pellets out of the top of the inner chamber (yes, they fit through the mesh in the top screen assembly). I've tried swirling the inner chamber a few times to kick start things. That just made even more white pellets get blown out the top of the reactor. I have disassembled everything a few times and made sure no errant pellets made it into the pump. What am I doing wrong? Do I need to build a stand so the reactor is in less water?

 

[AVAST Marine]

All you need to do is to add the foam disk into the top media plate. It should sit under the stainless disk in the top o-ring plate assembly. This is for all resin medias like the chemipure blue. You are right though, it doesn't take much flow at all to get this media moving, you just need that extra layer of top filter material to prevent the escaping media and then you can turn up the flow enough to prevent the resin material from escaping.

 

[Mirya]

OK thanks!

Installed the foam. Tumbling seems a bit more controlled now. The black pellets still aren't completely fluidized (when I adjusted the valve to do that, all the white pellets went up to the top of the chamber), but I'm going to let it run for a few hours to see how things settle out.

 

[AVAST Marine]

Glad to hear, this video shows how we expect this media to tumble using the nano pump in the small reactor. We had a full 11oz container of the media in for the test. The carbon will move and slowly fall exchanging itself constantly and the resin should bubble above it. You can see the valve position as well. If you notice that the resin is migrating to the top after a day of running, lift it up while keeping the pump on and let the resin settle, then put it back on and se if it settles down a little. One thing we noticed in our testing is the resin in the Chemipure Blue is not a very consistent particle size like the purigen media is or the po4-x4 so it takes a little longer to get it dialed in.

 

[Naiad]

Sorry if this was already answered but can you mix media in this reactor?

 

[AVAST Marine]

Sorry if this was already answered but can you mix media in this reactor?

Sure can!

 

[bsstover]

If there was plenty of flow the media would be tumbling

Can you remove the volute cover and make sure there is nothing stuck in the pump restricting the flow? Also check the output nozzle on the pump. I'm 99% sure you have a errant biopellet or two in the pump and it is restricting the flow.

Ok so I'm back from vacation. Have taken everything down and no errant media in the pump. Put back together and flow is same as in video. It tumbles well at bottom but nothing at top. Worth trying the larger size pump?

 

[AVAST Marine]

Ok so I'm back from vacation. Have taken everything down and no errant media in the pump. Put back together and flow is same as in video. It tumbles well at bottom but nothing at top. Worth trying the larger size pump?

Yes, this is most definitely a pump issue. We tested this exact setup with aio, med, 1.0 and it worked perfectly on our test tank but the video clearly shows that there is a flow problem on your tank. Please contact us through the contact form on our website so we can get a ticket going for this and get you setup with an exchange. I do want to test your pump here before determining if you need a larger pump or you simply have a defective one.