If you love your Two Little Fishes Phosban reactor, don't read this

[five.five-six]

I received a TLF phosban reactor for Christmas with which I was none to pleased. the first thing that was apparent to me was the elbows, did not fit and would be prone to leaking, this was confirmed within seconds of powering the pump. I decided to do a little experiment to see just how tight they fit as apparently there are many who think these things are just great. I connected the elbow to the reactor lid a and affixed a bucket to the elbow with a ziptie then proceeded to fill the bucket with sand to see just how many pounds of pressure were required for this to fail



I tried this with both elbows supplied with the reactor and coincidentally they both failed at 4 pounds 5 ounces which happens to be 3 ounces less than is required to pull the trigger on my kimber custom carry II



obviously this needed to be fixed, I tried zipties and they helped a lot, though to be effective they had to be pulled very tight which contorted the elbow, this combined with the fact that my sump is very crowded with my newly acquired ASM mini-G I decided to manufacture a pair of U tubes. the first step was to fill them with sand so they would not collapse when the radius was applied



Once the tubing was filled with sand and packed tightly I plugged each end with some crumpled paper and applied heat with my heat gun. if you do not have a heat gun, this step I do not know what heat or time to use, you would have to play with it but you could probably use an oven. when using heat gun, I needed to be careful to keep the heat moving so as not to burn or excessively heat one area. once the tubing was "floppy soft"



I formed a radius, in this case I used a glass. the tubing needs to be held in place until it cools, It helps to "over radius" it as it tends to relax its radius about 10% after cooling. Spraying the tubing with water while on the former helps to speed up the cooling



Here is the finished tubes installed, I may add zipties, but they fit tight enough that they are no longer necessary




The next thing that was not ready for prime time was the pads or sponges. The holes in them were simply too corse, and with no manipulation, GFO would fall right through



After taking the picture, I was surprised to see that this much had fallen through, by simply picking the pad up



Instead of waiting to order a new set of pads that may or may not be better, I decided to make my own. The foam I had available was moderately finer however I decided to cut the pads twice as thick. I used your every day snap n sharp razor to cut the foam off like slices of bread



I found that it was best to error on the side of too big as it is easy to go back and trim to fit with a set of scisors. I used the red disk as a template to cut the foam circle

[five.five-six]

once that was done, I thought I may want to sue the reactor in sump, and since the label was made of paper, I did not want it polluting my tank, besides, we are getting to the point where it is not really fair to call it a a TLF phosban reactor any more, so I attempted to peal the sticker off but this was an exercise in futility as it had gotten wet for a few minutes and had already begun to deteriorate and just sort of fell apart as you tried to peal it leaving lot of glue residue



This was easily fixed with a little zap from the heat gun, again being careful not to apply too much heat to any one spot for too long a time, once heated, it came off like a debutant's bra on prom night



Another little deficiency that needed addressing was that the top plate and tube did not seal at all, it was actually so loose that you could spin it when resting on the bottom tube, this was fixed with 3 1/2 wraps of teflon tape



And here you can see my finished DIY reactor installed. Notice that the hose was trimmed to length so that the pump rests on the sump floor and the ball valve is on the input side as the original instructions state that the reactor will leak of the output is restricted

[saltwaterfishlover]

I like it a lot.
I have the original version and think this may be a good mod for efficiency.
what material is the black tubing you used to make the U tubes

[five.five-six]

thanks, I am very pleased with it after the mods.

the tubing was just some stuff my LFS gave me pretty standard stuff, just black. this technique should work with most any tubing, I originally learned it as an electrician laying underground. if you needed a weird PVC bend, we would just take a stick of PVC, fill it with sand, put it in a stick of bigger metal pipe, then stick the bigger pipe over your exhaust pipe and let your truck idle, go eat lunch and when you were done the PVC would be flexible like a hose

[juliovideo]

five.five-six .......,huge change !! ,me pleases his philosophy on the sticker





juliovideo.






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[RicGio]

The instructions said to install the valve on the inlet side of the reactor since it would leak if installed on the outlet. (back pressure)) . Since it was designed to sit/hang in a sump would it matter if the tubing or cover leaked a little. No, IMHO. My problem with the unit is that the coarse foam filter clogs very quickly and the bottom one is a bugger to get out to clean. I think the fine foam will clog even quicker.

[maxima k2]

Hmmm, 5.56 nice job on the reactor. Any chance that you are an ARFCOM member?

[Acrylics]

Originally posted by maxima k2
Any chance that you are an ARFCOM member?

I'd bet on it, perfect name

James

[five.five-six]

as they say a caCCW.com, "I decline to state"

[reefer4sho]

hey 556 how mechanically inclined are you? j/k
hey bro let me know about the skimmer i sent you a pm and left you a message on the cell.
nice job on the reactor!

[five.five-six]

Originally posted by Acrylics
I'd bet on it, perfect name

James

and i thought it was my reference to the trigger pull on my 1911 that gave it away.. I am sort of confused as at arf.com my user-name is filefish but since i live in the PRK the gun laws or hoops you have to jump through, are so very specific and very complex, that LEOs and DAs do not understand them that guys are getting arrested every week for perfactly legal guns I spend a lot more time on calguns.net


reefer4sho, I got your message, and that pump is just way loud, I have been playing Dr. Pumpenstine. i don't know if I will post my mods as they will be fairly specific to me. my biggest issue with the mini-G is the micro bubbles, and since using a skimmer rated for 75 gallons in a 7.5 gallon reef is not just venturing into the land of way too much overkill but probably falling off the edge, i am going to play with a smaller pimp and possibly recirculation. anyway it was a great deal on the skimmer and that milli I gave you should take off like a rocket

[reefer4sho]

sorry for the hijack, the skimmer will need to go through another break -in process, as when it was on my setup it dumped micro bubbles for a almost a week and then just stopped.

good luck and happy new year!

[dots]

Preach on my 'brotha.......I hate that P.O.S. more than anything, for each and every reason you stated. Considering I am having P04 problems and want to finaly get another reactor for just carbon.....I'll buy two and get some practice in with the HK P2000 with this el crapo.

Just wait until it won't seal right and leaks.......

[five.five-six]

Originally posted by reefer4sho
sorry for the hijack, the skimmer will need to go through another break -in process, as when it was on my setup it dumped micro bubbles for a almost a week and then just stopped.

good luck and happy new year!

I made the skimmer reticulate today that will be another break-in, I think I am going to get a different pump all together and mesh mod it