New Blue Life Resinator - First Impressions

If you are near Union City any time soon, and are really curious,
I have an electronic phosphorous meter you can borrow.
(More accurate than the normal phosphate meter)

 

Cool! I probably won't be down there for a couple weeks, but maybe I could grab it from you at some point to see how my phosphates are looking. I always just judge based on general observation of the tank since the test kits tend to be so inaccurate.

 

I totally forgot to get a reading at the 24-hour mark but I did get one tonight at the 48-hour mark and my readings went from .31 ppm to .20 ppm for phosphates. We'll see what things are like at the week mark.

 

Now were you running any phosphate removing products before installing this?

 

Yeah, I was running a GFO reactor prior that has been running for ~2.5 months and I hadn't changed the media since it was installed. The last readings I measured, prior to installing the Resinator, were .31 ppm (09/10), .23 ppm (08/25), .21 ppm (08/02), .59 ppm (07/26), and .03 ppm (07/04).

 

Hmmm that's odd. The first 0.03 reading, right after you installed the thing, to be expected. Then shoots up to .59, then down to .21 even though you didn't change any media, .23, goes up to .31, now it's back down in the .2 range.

At this point I would almost put fault at your phosphate reader (at least for that .59 value)

 

It was probably a span where I didn't do any water changes at all, between 07/04 and 07/26.

 

Alright that might have something to do with it too

 

I don't have any numbers for you guys, but my tank is still looking good. The water is looking very clear and I'm not seeing any weird algae growth. All my corals look great, no shock from switching media. The little reactor is still running very well, so I'm pleased so far.

 

Just an update that I just measured my phosphates and got a reading of .38 ppm. Since last reading, I cleaned up my skimmer, powerhead, and my AC110 which acts as a fuge. Cleaning up the AC110 stirred up a lot of detritus so it would probably explain the high value in phosphates. Of course, there's always the assumption that I'm not getting accurate readings as well but I always just use them more of a guideline anyways. I think as long as it's trending downward, that gives me a pretty good idea that what is hooked up is working as long as my water changes are fairly regular.

 

Well there's no "magic" in it, the science is there it uses resins that absorb phosphate, so it's not like it's trying to claim magnets help the water get clean or anything. And like you said kicking up a bunch of debris could have spiked the phosphates, because they were no long bound up in layer in your fuge and were everywhere in the tank.

But what the hell do I know, it sure as hell ain't chemistry

 

How does this reactor differ from the BRS in-line filter? They look very similar to me but it's hard to tell from the picture.

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/refillable-inline-di-cartridge.html

~Charlie

 

Now that you point that out, its basically the same. I just never thought to use a DI canister as a reactor. The other difference is the media. I like Blue Life's phosphate resin since its dust free and doesn't clump the way GFO does.

My tank is still looking very good. Water is clear and no signs of algae. It seems that the new reactor is working at least as well as my old BRS reactor.

 

I'm suspicious that Blue Life's phosphate remover is just an aluminum oxide product like Kent's phosphate sponge or Seachem's phosguard. If it's a whitish color, that's almost certainly what it is.

Their website says "Rapid adsorption twice as fast as GFO" and they recommend running a half dose for the first 24 hours in order to not strip all the phosphate out of your water too quickly. Like GFO and other aluminum oxide products, it looks like it binds the phosphates out of the water very quickly and you shouldn't see phosphates on a test kit, unless the media is already exhausted.

 

I would guess the Phosphate remover is iron based because they claim it can be regenerated easily.
Aluminum Oxide cannot be regenerated. Only GFO can be regenerated sortof-easily.
Perhaps the 2X rate claim is somehow based on surface area increase or something?

Side note : I do tend to get worried when there is too much guessing involved like this.

Still like the container though. Time for me to spill water again changing my BRS this weekend.

 

Well if it is stripping much faster, I haven't noticed any negative effects on my corals, and I really think I would considering I have a bunch of LPS, anemones, and clams that like to have some phosphates present. I am however using half of the media that it takes to fill the canister, but that is still much more media than I was using before. Everything looks very happy and healthy and I am honestly not observing any differences in my tank vs. when I was running the BRS reactor. Makes me think its about the same level of efficiency in a much smaller piece of equipment with less mess. That alone makes me happy!

 

It is funny, I look back rather fondly at my old sock method.

I had 4 simple media socks in a row in the sump.
I put carbon, and a bit of GFO in each one.
Every week, I would take out the oldest, shift the other 3 left one, and put the newest on the right.
Super simple and pretty foolproof, although not the best flow through the socks.
With the fancy new setup, I get water everywhere, procrastinate because it is a hassle, and so on.

 

Doh. You are probably right. Their website says to regenerate it with saltwater with a high specific gravity, which threw me because I thought you had to regenerate GFO with lye. I went back and googled it and it seems like RHF says that salt can displace the phosphate from GFO, so the saltwater regeneration makes some sense (except for the fact that it's sitting in saltwater in our tanks).

So, someone needs to take a magnet to this stuff and let's see if it's iron oxide. Also, how big are the pellets? I hate GFO because it makes a mess. If they've solved that problem, I will empty my wallet...

 

I just tried to check if its magnetic and it doesn't seem to be. I ran my Mag-float over some of the loose media and nothing happened. Maybe that's not a strong enough magnet though.

They're tiny little beads, but seem WAY less messy than GFO. That's one of the main reason I handed my money over. Let me get a photo of some of the media in my hand for you guys.

 

Here's a quick video I took of the media. This is the mix of the phosphate and organic scavenger medias.