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View Full Version : My DIY "Inline" Media Reactor


gillmanjr
01/05/2017, 09:49 AM
First of all, hello everyone. I am new to the forums and fairly new to the hobby as well. When I was younger (in high school) I had a small tank in my room but have not kept fish since so its been about 15 years!

Anyway the reason for my post is I am in the process of my first custom build. I have decided to go with a freshwater Chiclid tank to start. Its a 50 gallon corner tank (Clear for Life acrylic pentagon) and I have already refinished a stand that I bought for it. I am now in the process of building a custom acrylic sump which will be about 14 gallons. Being a corner stand the space I have is extremely limited for the sump so I am doing an "L" shaped sump with a 12"x12" main section in the center that will house a fluidized moving bed of K1 media. I will post pictures of the whole build as I work my way through it.

This particular thread is about an idea I have for an "inline" media reactor that I want to use to house Seachem Purigen. I have already sketched out the design and bought all the necessary PVC to build it. I wanted to get some input from the forum on this. I have not seen this done anywhere and cannot find anything like it on the internet. When I have time I will upload a sketch and also take photos of the components, but this is the basic design in writing:

There will be a 3/4" to 1/2" 'T' off my return pump. The 1/2" line will have a ball valve and swing check valve and then will gradually open up to a 2" clear PVC section that will house the Purigen. The 2" will be threaded on for removal and changing of the media. The check valve is to prevent the media from backing up into the pump and sump during a power outage. After the 2" clear section the pipe will reduce back to 1" and have a barb fitting for hose discharge back into my sump inlet. The most difficult part of this is containing the Purigen on the discharge side. My plan is to use a reducing bushing (2" to 1") and modify the bushing so that I can make the 1" go all the way through the bushing (inside the 2" pipe). This will allow me to glue a bulkhead strainer onto the end of the 1" pipe, then I can cut come sponge filtration to fit inside the 2" pipe. This will be installed horizontally, not vertically like most media reactors, but I believe it will work if the flow is adequate. The reason I am doing it this way is because of the space constraints that I mentioned, there is literally nowhere for me to put a vertical media reactor inside the stand.

What do you guys think of this design, do you have any other suggestions?

RobZilla04
01/05/2017, 10:21 AM
I'm no expert but I believe your set up should work. Only suggestion I have is to install a ball valve on the return line above the "T" so you can regulate some additional pressure forcing water to the horizontal line if needed. Just my .02.

gillmanjr
01/05/2017, 11:31 AM
I'm no expert but I believe your set up should work. Only suggestion I have is to install a ball valve on the return line above the "T" so you can regulate some additional pressure forcing water to the horizontal line if needed. Just my .02.

Yes I didn't include the details of the rest of the return piping but I am actually putting a 3/4" gate valve in the return to the tank.

My only concern with this setup is I don't think my pump is going to be adequate for this. I got a used Rio 1700 pump when I bought the tank, I was planning on using it but its only a 640 GPM pump and there is going to be 3 feet of head of it which probably means around 400 GPM of actual flow. Subtract the flow through the media reactor and I'll probably be looking at 300 GPM of total filtration flow through the display tank. I'm not an expert on fishkeeping but based on my research that isn't going to be adequate for a 50 gallon cichlid tank. Thoughts?