since this thing is the worlds most expensive one litre media reactor at 370 dollars and i could find hardly any info on it i thought i'd give it a rundown.
so the idea with it is there are two tubes, and inner and outer. the media is stored in the inner tube with the inlet on the bottom for the pump and outlet up the top. water is pumped through the media then out the top of the inner tube then cascades down between the walls of the inner and outer tube to holes in the bottom.
the great part is you can slide the inner tube out the top so it separates from the main tube and pump for easy media replacement.
If your wondering, in order to slide the inner tube out in sump, you need 40cm of height between the top of your sump and the roof of your cabinet. If your like me and you have less then that, drop the entire reactor out of its acrylic holder and pull the inner tube out at an angle
activated carbon and GFO need a bit of cycling to get rid of the fine particles. on the old TLF reactors I used I just took the outlet pipe and let it drop into a bucket then turned the pump on until clear water was running. the downside of the minimax design is this isnt so easy. you either have to take out the whole reactor and put it in a bucket ( which defeats the ease of media removal purpose ), or do what i did, and stick it in a bucket of RODI water with a powerhead underneath it. if someone has a better way let me know.
Once back in, you adjust water throughput by twisting the handle on top of the inner tube, which moves the PVC bits either open,closed, or partway.
One thing that took me a couple of days to figure out, with media like GFO you need very low water volume through the reactor, but closing the two PVC pipes together made the pump incredibly noisy. after getting really pissed off i finally worked out you need to remove the little cover on the side of the pump ( nothing in instructions ) which dramatically reduces the stress on the impeller and quietens it right down.
then your done,
Worth 3 times the price of other reactors? probably not, your paying for the design patent, but, i'll be buying another one to run activated carbon as a love the small footprint of the reactor and ease of media change. i hated changing the media in a TLF reactor, and you do things less when you don't like doing it. these ones are nice and easy. one annoying thing is the sponge pads done have anything to stop them falling down, if they fall down between putting them in and turning the pump in, you have to pull them out and try again ( one fallen down in the last photo, i put two in for extra protection against a GFO storm in the sump )
hope this helps if you've been looking.
nice review!