Mixing Gfo and carbon?

[Scotty Fraiser]

I have been mixing about a cup of carbon and a cup of Gfo in a nextreef reactor. It's a 110 mixed reef with a 35 gall sump. Is this a normal practice to mix the two? Will it cause any problems? I just turn the flow up till I get a good simmer.

 

[Jtisle506]

I wouldnt, both need different flow rates or wont be optimized correctly. If you keep the reactor at low flow like GFO is supposed to be used the carbon wont run efficiently, if you run it at huger flow like carbon needs the GFO will grind down and will release into the tank. Imo just run GFO.

 

[Dary421]

I have actually be using a reef octopus bio pellet reactor to run both carbon and gfo at the same time,...brs has a dual cylinder setup that runs both media in a separate cylinder using a very small pump to run water thru both of them ,.. I used this for a while but really didn't think this setup operated as efficiently as advertised so that's when I decided to use my bio pellet reactor instead,.....it's been running flawlessly for about a year and a half now and by using a larger pump I can easily dial in the right flow rate that is a nice compromise between the two different media.
You might have to experiment with what carbon / gfo works best in your particular setup but for me I really like running " my" setup this way

 

[Terrance]

If you will use gfo/carbon, then try to maximize their potential by using them effective. 2 different reactors are best.