DIY phosphate reactor?

[iamdickie]

anyone have plans for a DIY phosphate reactor?

im looking for one to run phosban in

[Geoff]

ok, how big is Phosban? i guess i need to take a peek at this stuff. from what i have seen a Phosban reactor is just a place to hold the stuff. it should be a pretty simple build. the hard part is finding a sieve that will keep the Phosban from being swept through the reactor.

G~

[Krux]

good old fashion filter floss holds it in place. wanareef built mine for me, you can see if he has plans, or what his source was for it.

[wanareef]

Geoff

It's about the size of coffee grinds and smaller.

The design is simple - just like a calicum reactor but smaller. The feed water needs to continue to the bottom of the unit then be able to rise up through a "plate" with holes, floss, media then more floss another "plate" then back out to the tank. The material is 4" acrylic with 3/8's" flanges.

[wanareef]

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2003-...16/sump811.jpg This is a pix of Krux's cabinet. The phosban rector is that little "thing" on the far right. You can just see that clear tube for directing the water to the bottom and then the plate.

hth

[Geoff]

do you have to see into it, or is the acrylic just for looks?

G~

[tdwyatt]

Hi Geoff,

I made mine with plain PVC and a grid of eggcrate covered with filter media bag, but I am going to remove the filter media bag stuff and just put the Phosban directly into the bottom of a longer reaction chamber (like about 24" verticle by 2" ID pvc) and valve the water supply into the reactor at the bottom. In this manner, the reactor media will "bubble" arund as the sand does in a fluidized sand chamber, and by making it 24 inches tall, the valve can be used to control the rate at which the water moves the Phosban, so that it will not be blown out of the rector. You may want to go with a 3" ID pipe if the 2" loses its Phosban medium. The larger the diameter, the less there is an issue with the water current pushing out the reactor medium. I am using a mag 3 to drive water out of the sump through the base of the rector and then allowing it to return to the sump through a clear flexible tubing attached to the top of the reaction chamber with a barbed fitting tapped into a "cleanout" plug (needed to replace the media through some port with a waterproof seal). Dont forget to use teflon tape on any threaded joints. Place the uptake pump at the water entrance to the sump, and the discharge side at the pump return.

might be easier to use the 3" stuff and use a small commode flange and adapter at the base to allow for a base for the reactor (heh!! the more I talk about this, the more I think I am going to redo the one I have... )

I only have this running as an experiment on one tank now, but I think I am going to make one for all the systems.

hth.

[Krux]

happened to have mine apart, so i took some pics for you.


here is the entire reactor. the top is held closed with thumb screws which i took off, it is fed with a minijet 606 via regular ro type tubing. same tubing returns to the sump



here is a shot of the unit from the top down. you can see the top, followed by the top media retaining plate.



basically the water enters through the top, travels through the top plate through the tube to the bottom, where it then travels back up through the bottom plate, through the media, and out through the top plate back into the sump. it is a lot simpler than i can explain it.

basically the goal is to use the floss to keep the rowa from blowing away, while allowing you to have a high enough flow rate to fluidize it.

[Geoff]

Tom- i have given up on using the closet flange adaptors for the bottoms of my PVC concoctions. the knockout ones all seem to eventually leak at the knockout point. i just use the rubber caps now. they provide a nice flat surface. that is unless they are under a lot of pressure. i have not had one leak on me yet.

maybe i am missing a true solid closet flange somewhere.

G~