Ut Oh! What the heck happened to my reactor?!?!?!?!

[swimmatte]

So...... I run a separate BRS Dual Reactor on both of my tanks, with GFO in one chamber, and Carbon in the other.  I was out of town all day yesterday at a swap with Richard, and didn't check my tanks when I got home last night.  This morning I came down stairs and almost every frag in my frag tank was covered in brownish looking hair algae that looked like this:

 

 

There was also a weird brownish film on the glass around the entire waterline ring.  I looked in the sump, and my filter sock was completely clogged and was a brownish orange color.  I checked the reactor and it too was completely brownish orange.  After taking off the Carbon chamber, this is what I found:

 

 

I pulled everything out to clean it out, and this is the sponge:

 

 

Below are my questions:

 

1.  Can this harm anything?  There's nothing but about 100 zoa frags and a lawnmower blenny.

 

2.  Any idea what could have caused this? There was no algae on Friday, and everything looked fine then as well.

 

3.  I run less than a cup of GFO, and about a cup of Carbon in my 40 gallon total volume frag tank, and about twice that in my 70 gallon  total volume display. Is that the right amount?

 

4.  I know you're supposed to tumble GFO, but not Carbon.  Unfortunately to tumble my GFO, I need to slightly tumble the Carbon.  Is that ok?

 

I'll follow up with any additional questions as I try to clean this up.  Thank you in advance!

[corsi1330]

Looks like dino's. I am not 100% sure! but others will chime in. If they are dino's your best bet is to go lights off for a couple days.

[swimmatte]

Dino's? Diatoms? If so, it's definitely not diatoms.  This is something to do with the GFO/Carbon for sure, and I'm guessing the sudden algae explosion was do to the GFO/Carbon releasing all the crap it had stored.  The algae isn't as much of my concern as the fact that my reactor basically exploded.

[monkiboy]

looks like the GFO was tumbling too much and you got the fines in your output. no you don't want to tumble carbon. use two foam pads to prevent tumbling carbon in higher flow. some folks install a valve between the dual reactors to avoid this with the GFO first then valve then carbon. also you gotta be careful with the cheaper stuff as it breaks down in a tumble easier but also requires less flow than the high capacity (more expensive stuff). depends on what specific GFO media you are using.

[AlanM]

Is that algae he is seeing actually some kind of iron oxide dendrites from the abraded GFO?

[Cliff Puckstable]

That sucks man. I really did not like the BRS dual reactor when I used it on the old 150. I hope you figure it out. Good luck.

[swimmatte]

I've got the algae under control.  Just pulled every frag and literally took a scalpel and cut the algae off.  I think Marco nailed it with the Carbon tumbling too much.  Question, can I put the gfo and/or carbon in mesh media bags then put those bags full of media in the reactor?  

[DCReefer1964]

In addition did you pre rinse your reactor setup before putting it back in service ? GFO can release some nasty stuff if not rinsed. Are you running the first Gen media reactor with the old school media canisters?

[swimmatte]

In addition did you pre rinse your reactor setup before putting it back in service ? GFO can release some nasty stuff if not rinsed. Are you running the first Gen media reactor with the old school media canisters?

 

I rinse my GFO and Carbon before putting it in the reactor and both reactors are less than one month old.

[Orion]

I had this same algae pop up in my tank 3 months ago.  It's now gone...

Here is what I did -

 

- Manual removal every time I saw it.

- Cerith Snails help.  They will eat it. 

- Increased Water Changes from 10% a week to 20%

- Slowly increased the amount of GFO and Carbon in the reactor.  Used the BRS Calculator as a starting point, and then each month  I added more Carbon and GFO.

 

I think a combination of all the above got rid of it.  Good luck, not sure if there is a quick fix for it.

[Orion]

Also, I use a different reactor than you do.  So I don't believe it has anything to do with the type of reactor you have.

[s2nhle]

I had this same algae pop up in my tank 3 months ago.  It's now gone...

Here is what I did -

 

- Manual removal every time I saw it.

- Cerith Snails help.  They will eat it. 

- Increased Water Changes from 10% a week to 20%

- Slowly increased the amount of GFO and Carbon in the reactor.  Used the BRS Calculator as a starting point, and then each month  I added more Carbon and GFO.

 

I think a combination of all the above got rid of it.  Good luck, not sure if there is a quick fix for it.

+1 water change and increase the amount of GFO.  Also, what out for the GFO brand.  Not all GFO are created equal.

[AlanM]

What GFO is the good stuff?  Is phosban considered low budget?  Is the only good stuff the high capacity BRS stuff?

[swimmatte]

I use the regular GFO stuff.  

 

I emptied and cleaned the reactor really well then added new media, and let it run overnight.  Everything has cleared up and seems to be back to new.  I'm going to monitor the reactor closely, but I'm wondering if I was just tumbling too much.