Bubble Magus ZF130 Zeovit Reactor 2.5L

So this thing will work and can get you into Zeovit method at a fraction of the cost but the bill still comes due in added aggravation. The holes in the bottom plate are too large and lots of small pebbles fall through. The entire reactor will have to be pulled and cleaned between each media exchange which is every 6 weeks depending on your system. Another reviewer for this product dropped a tip for getting a Sicce 0.5 to get a lower flow, this does work but just barely. On the most constricted setting of the pump it is still almost too much flow. Sometimes the little rocks get jammed between the bottom plate and side of the reactor literally jamming it and making it impossible to pump up and down until you get it broke loose. Lastly the top plate does not come off so loading the reactor is a huge pain, you can't just pour it straight in then put the top plate back on, this is probably the biggest con to this. I wish I had just bit the bullet and got the KZ reactor, it was 100$ off on BF. The pros are low cost and small foot print with pump mounted under reactor, the cons are everything else. I actually cut some filter pad and put it on bottom plate even sewing the pad back together where I cut it to slide it around center post and it worked great for the first week but the more days I pumped the handle gradually more and more rocks found their way past into the bottom of the reactor.

Purchased this reactor due to price and space limitations in my sump. Very well packaged. <br> The design is different than the picture. There are support plates to elevate the reactor and the pump goes under reactor without the PVC piping. I actually like this design better (smaller footprint). I purchased a Sicce 0.5 to replace the oversized pump and it attaches perfectly to the reactor with the supplied fitting. Biggest complaint is that there is not an internal cylinder to contain the stones and small pieces break off and get below the bottom support grid. It will be a bit difficult to remove the stones when the time comes, but for less than a third of the cost of the KZ reactor I cannot really complain. The overflow piping is metric (25 mm) so you will have to deal with that if you want to modify it. It is all just pressure fit (no glue).