NextReef MR1 Dual Reactor Build

Well I have had a couple waves of nutrients in my tank the past 6 months. This is due to me trapping a few fish out and having to do a little heavier feeding for new adds to get them acclimated to the tank. So I thought I would add a little fire power to my mechanical filtration. I was running to separate reactors on my system already but they were very small and thought I would up the anti and go big. So I replaced my little Via Aqua reactor and my Two Little Fishes Phosban reactors and purchased 2 of the NextReef MR1 reactors.



I purchased a Mag 3 to run these reactors, some 1/2" flex tube, a 1/2 Y, and a half inch female threaded to barb for the Mag, and two of the Two Little Fishes 1/2 ball valves . By the way this order was purchased from Marine Depot, there was a few hiccups with the order but Marine Depot's customer service is top notch and they handled it with flying colors. I ended up running Two Little Fishes NPX Biopellets in one reactor and GFO in the other. I just plumbed this all up today and got everything up and running. Took me about 45 minutes to put it all together and get it up and running. Hope you enjoy. ;D

The Goods


This is what I used for the bio pellet reactor. You put this on the bottom plate of the reactor so the biopellets do not fall through. Got this at a craft store, its called a "Knitting Guard". Got an 8 pack for $2.


Bottom inside of reactor with additional screen inserted.


Reactor with biopellets. I took it a little easy on the biopellets at first, did about 3/4 the recommended amount. Other reactor will have GFO.


Up and running!!!


Better picture to show flex plumb job. Pretty simple stuff.


Close up of the reactors. Biopellets have some clumping, called Marine Deopt, they said its normal for them to do that for a couple of weeks. I also read online its normal, I guess I could have soaked the pellets to prevent this... :-/

 

Looks good Travis, nice and simple should serve you well.

 

Thanks John. Yeah I wanted to keep it simple as can be. I was thinking about hard plumbing about 75% of it and then going from that to barb, with a piece of flex to the reactor. Then I realized, I'm lazy and I will only hard plumb a tank when I have my own house.

 

Looking good man, I dig those reactors.

 

Thanks man. Yeah they are pretty sweet!!!

 

Those are really nice reactors from the looks of them.
Great writeup Travis and k+ for the craft store screen find! 8)

matt

 

Travis thank you so much for the write up I also have the same reactor and I just ordered some Bio pellets this weekend. The question I had for you is why didnt you run the black sponge on the bottom of the Biopellet reactor instead of buying the knitting guard?
Something wrong with using a sponge in the bottom and one on top?

Thank s!

 

Very nice additions! Those are one of the best reactors out there IMO. I would think that after a 6-8 weeks of running the pellets, you could faze out the GFO. And maybe run carbon in it. GFO can get real expensive in the long run.

 

I probably could have used the black sponge, I was just a little nervous of pellets getting below the sponge and becoming stagnant down there. I have really nice flow in the biopellet reactor, so I think I would have been fine though.

Thanks Matt!!

Yeah I'm planning on doing that down the road, converting the second reactor to carbon. I just left the gfo in while the biopellets mature.

 

How is the pellet movement in the MR1 reactor? Maybe a vid?