Chemical filtration can be an important tool for maintaining water quality in a reef aquarium and these days most reefers use some sort of flow through media reactor for use with GFO, activated carbon or aluminum oxide medias. With so much water already flowing through our sumps we use a slightly different method and prefer to employ chemical media placed in a mesh bag in an area of water flow for much easier removal and replacement without the need for any additional reactor or pumps to run them.
There hasn’t been much discussion of the various ways to optimize the use of mesh bags for chemical media filtration which is why we perked up when Maxspect took it upon themselves to explain why they selected a specific material of their new Mesh Media Bag. A fine bag with a 100 mesh and 150 micron pore size retains the most media but restricts water flowing through, while a 400 mesh bag with a 37 micron pore size retains the most media but also severely restricts the ability of water to flow through it.
It’s for this reason that Maxspect specifically chose to go with a 160 mesh bag and 100 micron pore size that has a balance of media retention and water flow through for wherever you want to place it in your filtration system. We know it’s super fancy and it makes your sump look more ‘fleshed out’ to have a dedicated media reactor with all the fancy bells and whistles but it sure is a lot easier to work with a mesh media bag so we’re pleasantly surprised to see Maxspect giving this underrated accessory for chemical filtration some much deserved attention.
