Depending on the level of phosphate vs. organics, one may become saturated before the other is ready to be discarded. That's the only drawback I can think of.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't mix phosban and AC in the same fluidized bed?

After looking at a magnum 350, it apears that the water flow goes the wrong way to be effective. The phosban reacter acts like a fluidized bed. The canister AC holder would hold the media to tight, and if you put it in the outside of the holder I think that the media would sink to the bottem with the water bypassing it.

Im I looking at this backwards or upside down? I would like to build a phosphate reactor and would like to see how others did there diy set ups.

pistonfister wrote: This looks like a good price. I would just buy one but I wanted to make one with an extra chamber for charcoal.

Could you just "piggy-back" two together?  One for phosphate and one for AC?

Jon/Bruce,

AC would be just fine in a fluidized bed or media vessel. You'll have some powdering initially, but it'll settle just fine. I prefer coconut shell for metals removal, bit for the application the adsorption should be fairly equal.

Just remember, the more media the better with AC. Looking at that little reactor, you may want to use a larger canister filter because that's all it really is anyway. It would be better to use a multiple pass (polishing) system where you are cycling water through the media faster than you are discharging the filtrate. In other words, as an example have a 300 gph pump cycling water through the media but only discharging 50 gph.