Carbon Rinsing question

C

crash519

I recently purchased half a bucket of carbon in the last Phosban, Carbon, DI group buy. I new when I bought it that it was lignite, but I never expected it to be ground into approx. 1mm size. After rinsing this suff for about 15 minutes under running tap water, I cannot get it even remotely clean enough to run through my phosban reactor at only a trickle. It still started to make a black cloud with the valve only open just enough to flow out.

Did I completely waste moeny thinking this could be used in a phosban reactor? Under what circumstances could this even be used? I can't even get it clean enough for use in a fine mesh bag :evil:

Help!!!!!!!!
 
Fill up the reactor with 1.5 cups of carbon. That would be 50% full. Mine came with two mesh sponges, so I have one under the carbon, and one above it beneath the perforated plate at the top. I fill it up with RO water a few times, pouring off the dust fines. Then fill it up one more time and hook it up to your tank. By controlling the water flow through the reactor, you should be able to avoid blowing any black stuff into the sump.
 
Thanks, I'll give that a try. I think I was filling it up too much for one, but I can't believe this stuff is this fine. What do you use Marc?

Thanks for the info :wink:
 
To rinse my phosban and carbon, I take about 2-3 gallons of RO water and put it an an old salt bucket. Then I plumb a small Maxi Jet and pump RO water from one bucket, through the reactors, and into an empty bucket. I just keep running it through it until it runs clear.

I also use the two sponges as Marc does. I actually bought a few extra when I bought the reactors so I'd always have some.
 
I'm using some of the 'mystery' carbon I got from a MARSH Group Buy a year ago. Eric Borneman orders it by the pallet for the university, and we hobbyists benefit from that occasional order.
 
I usually put some filter floss above the top sponge in the reactor to catch any fines that might blow past the sponge. This usually helps a bit as well.
 
What I do is I put 1 and half cups in my phos-ban reactor, put in line after my phos-ban, turn it on and flushing it in a half gallon pitcher with tank water, after about 1 gallon its clean and clear, then I simply add new clean salt water back to the tank. Ive got two reactors chained together on one pump and I do the phos-ban the same way. Its real simple.
 
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