Review on 🔵 AQUATOP MR-20 Multimedia Reactor: Advanced Filtration System with Built-in Pump by Jennifer Jenkins

This reactor works fine. Mechanical sponges are terrible and need cleaning every few weeks. The capacity sucks as the device is a lot smaller than you think. I manage to squeeze in about 1 liter of pond matrix and now that I've changed the fill to 1.5 matrix units. What many say about the pump is true. It is not suitable for fluid bed filtration. I'm opening this thing wide right now, filled with a factory foam matrix placed 4 inches above the substrate to reduce foam clogging, and I'm probably getting about 40 gph from a 120 gph pump. What I can say is that the exhaust filter bag fits so that those who want to use a carbon based medium can use a freshwater system that cannot properly use a protein skimmer. You have to use a different pump and clean the outlet port every few days but I can see it working despite everyone else saying the carbon carrier in the reactor cannot be used in a fresh water system. The sock collects bioslag from coal just as well as a sock with a fine filter. Even while I'm working on the matrix I'm getting biofoam build up and cleaning the sock every few weeks. ALLOW CARBON WITH THIS SYSTEM! Because the mechanical filtration for it is so bad that if you dose charcoal, in 2-3 days that reactor will clog and you won't have any flow. Then you have to take it apart, clean the media, sponges, case, etc. and do a full cleaning to get it back in order. I know because I tried using sugar in my tank when I used it after not seeing any real results in speeding up heterotroph reproduction. All I have is a massive biofilm that I need to remove from every part of my body. Its reactor may work for some but it seems to be just another part I have to service on my setups with no useful results and I monitor and record the water permeability in all my tanks on a daily basis. For salt systems this is too low and for those thinking how I use it in freshwater I have yet to find a way to use it that is generally different. I still give this 3 stars because it's not the product's fault, I didn't achieve what I wanted. It works as expected despite being smaller than you can imagine. Again not their fault. I'm still playing around with it, trying to find a useful setting that really improves. Any tank, but I haven't seen any results yet.