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- Marine Park
I've always daisy-chained my carbon reactor into my phosban reactor so that one pump can run two reactors. I place carbon first and my GFO second so that the flow is lower on that reactor. People usually counter my advice and say that they like a separate reactor/pump for carbon so that they can place more flow through that reactor. I'd like this thread to explore which is better.
In my thinking, while carbon is harder than most GFOs and can tolerate more GPH, that doesn't mean that more GPH is being processed. For example, if I had 100 gallons of "dirty water" would I be better off:
Running the 100 gallons through carbon at 100 GPH
or
Running the 100 gallons through carbon at 1 GPH
Surely the water would come out cleaner if slowly pushed through the carbon. The more surface area the carbon has and the length of contact time that the water has with this surface along with the ability of the carbon to pull in "dirt" will determine it's cleaning ability.
Similarly, most GFO manufacturers recommend 80-90 GPH for their GFO but again I think less is more. Personally I use around 90 because it causes the GFO to "shimmy" a bit. In my mind the "shimmy" prevents channels from forming and the vibration constantly exposes different sides of the GFO to water. I usually shoot for the lowest flow that will cause a "shimmy".
I think much of the misconception with carbon came from the Fresh Water filters where a high GPH was a good thing. For our purposes I think we would want our carbon/GFO reactors to be more like Britta filters than the Freshwater filters that process 300 GPH through the carbon.
In my thinking, while carbon is harder than most GFOs and can tolerate more GPH, that doesn't mean that more GPH is being processed. For example, if I had 100 gallons of "dirty water" would I be better off:
Running the 100 gallons through carbon at 100 GPH
or
Running the 100 gallons through carbon at 1 GPH
Surely the water would come out cleaner if slowly pushed through the carbon. The more surface area the carbon has and the length of contact time that the water has with this surface along with the ability of the carbon to pull in "dirt" will determine it's cleaning ability.
Similarly, most GFO manufacturers recommend 80-90 GPH for their GFO but again I think less is more. Personally I use around 90 because it causes the GFO to "shimmy" a bit. In my mind the "shimmy" prevents channels from forming and the vibration constantly exposes different sides of the GFO to water. I usually shoot for the lowest flow that will cause a "shimmy".
I think much of the misconception with carbon came from the Fresh Water filters where a high GPH was a good thing. For our purposes I think we would want our carbon/GFO reactors to be more like Britta filters than the Freshwater filters that process 300 GPH through the carbon.
