Who is regenerating their gfo?

[wade]

Unfortunately the advanced aquarist site was not working yesterday so I never to to actually start the lie process.

 

They are upgrading servers. It should be back and faster soon.

[Origami]

Here's a spreadsheet that I downloaded from somewhere that may help (it has instructions), Paul.

Regen GFO.xlsx

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Here are the pics of me cleaning the gfo with ro water.

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

I ran 30 gallons through it, can't remember what they recommended but I think I doubled it.

 

Then I let it dry out some.

 

Tested phosphates in out anemone tank and just using a bag floating in the hang on back skimmer they dropped a decent amount in 12 hours so the process seemed to work well! All the corals in the tank looked normal as well.

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

If its all the way dry when over home I will weigh it and see if there was much loss. I don't believe there was at all, mainly from me being messy. They whole process was painless except worrying about the lye but it seems it was WELL worth it and I don't know why more people don't use this method. I will be adding this in reactors to our other two systems this week

[Origami]

Great job, Paul. Just remind people to be careful with the lye. It's as caustic as muriatic acid is acidic. But, with proper equipment, handling, and safety precautions, the risk is very easily managed.

[Origami]

Paul, I just found and ordered 16 pounds of food grade lye from essentialdepot.com for under $32 (through shipping). I'll use it on a variety of things, but thought that I'd pass on the online source.

[Manny]

I read a translated japanese article a year or two back that discusses gac regeneration. Turns out you can regenerate gac using the opposite steps as gfo. Lye first then acid. acid dissolves a bit of gfo though. If you have both mixed, maybe you can try the gfo steps and it may help gac as well

[wade]

I can't imagine GAC re-activation is quite as effective due to the nature of the chemical bonds.  It is generally created by high temp, high pressure oxidation of all the extraneous junk.  I'm guessing it'd largely work, but is it worth the cost?

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Paul, I just found and ordered 16 pounds of food grade lye from essentialdepot.com for under $32 (through shipping). I'll use it on a variety of things, but thought that I'd pass on the online source.

Sweet! Thanks, that makes this process for me a no brainer! The setup I made is capable of regenerating probly up to 15 pounds at one time.

[Manny]

I can't imagine GAC re-activation is quite as effective due to the nature of the chemical bonds.  It is generally created by high temp, high pressure oxidation of all the extraneous junk.  I'm guessing it'd largely work, but is it worth the cost?

 

Here is the article.  I haven't re-read it, but I remember it saying something like 95% regeneration for GAC:

 

http://www.ijcce.ac.ir/ijcce/ArticlePPDF/20092849.pdf