phosban reacyor questions

[reb]

I started running a 2 little fishies phosban 150 reactor about 2 months ago in my 65 gallon reef tank because my phosphates were too high. I origianlly had the ball valve open about 1/2 way and the flow was great. Over the last few weeks I have had to open the valve all the way and now its all the way open and the media is barely tumbling. I have checked and I don't see anything plugging it. My flow coming back into the tank is high, its just the media isn't really tumbling much. I can't seem to find anything telling me how to know when to change the media or replace the sponges.

 

[snakeblitz33]

Take the pump off and check it.
Take the unit out and turn it upside down and shake it.
Put it back on.
Replace every three to six months.

 

[ClaptonsGhost]

Did you get it fixed? I had the same problem. I don't have a pump pushing water into it, the water from the return flow pump is diverted into it. At first I, too, was getting some good tumbling, then after a day it slowed down considerably to almost nothing. My LFS guy claimed there were too many bio-pellets in the reactor (nowhere near 1/3 of the tube though as I've seen on youtube videos), so he took a bunch out and it started churning away again. Two days later, again, drastic weakening of the flow through the reactor. I've cut the return flow a bit so more water goes through the reactor and that helps a bit but it's still nowhere near the churning effect I see in youtube videos. The fact that it started off strong and then gets weak after one day is what concerns me.