jonnybravo22
03/13/2012, 10:30 AM
I added a large reactor of carbon to my system and am having some issues as a result. I have used carbon passively forever, and from time to time have run it in a joint reactor with GFO and had no issues w/ the carbon before.
This time i decided to leave out the GFO and just fill the reactor with carbon. i rinsed like always until clear. Woke up this morning to a take that is darker (all the normally transparent algae is black) and sump had overflowed with "skimmate" splattered everywhere in the sump cabinet.
http://i559.photobucket.com/albums/ss35/jonny_bravo22/IMG_1703a.jpg
that's not actually skimmate, that's carbon powder / dust.
So i dumped that (it filled back up again instantly);
What caused this? Well i had the flow through the reactor all the way up, so maybe that was it. I lowered it to halfway (where it normally is). The carbon is from the same container of carbon i've been using for months so i am not inclined to think it's bad carbon but i've never had this happen before.
Any issues I should be worried about? Somehow the water is clear even though the skimmer is pulling out black powder. For the time being i redirected the output of the reactor to flow into a filter sock first.
any thoughts are appreciated.
This time i decided to leave out the GFO and just fill the reactor with carbon. i rinsed like always until clear. Woke up this morning to a take that is darker (all the normally transparent algae is black) and sump had overflowed with "skimmate" splattered everywhere in the sump cabinet.
http://i559.photobucket.com/albums/ss35/jonny_bravo22/IMG_1703a.jpg
that's not actually skimmate, that's carbon powder / dust.
So i dumped that (it filled back up again instantly);
What caused this? Well i had the flow through the reactor all the way up, so maybe that was it. I lowered it to halfway (where it normally is). The carbon is from the same container of carbon i've been using for months so i am not inclined to think it's bad carbon but i've never had this happen before.
Any issues I should be worried about? Somehow the water is clear even though the skimmer is pulling out black powder. For the time being i redirected the output of the reactor to flow into a filter sock first.
any thoughts are appreciated.