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Regenerating activated alumina
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millsu2 View Drop Down
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Joined: April 26 2014
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    Posted: January 27 2015 at 3:57pm
Activated alumina can be regenerated by running a 2 %hydrochloric acid, 2 % sodium hydroxide, or 1 % sulfuric acid solution through it.

Has anyone tried this, and if so did you run in to any problems? I know it's fairly cheap to just replace the stuff, but I love saving money wherever I can so I can have more money for other things.
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Pete Moss View Drop Down
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Never heard of it, but I wouldn't want to risk messing up the quantities and dosing my reef with something like hydrochloric acid.

If I had a chemistry lab in my garage I'd be all for it though haha

Edited by Pete Moss - January 27 2015 at 4:11pm
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About 8 years or so ago when I used it, that was the thing to do. I don't use it anymore (it was shown to leach and cause dangerously high levels of aluminum in tanks.)

You can regenerate granular ferric oxide, which is a better option IMO. I haven't done that yet, but I do regularly recharge my DI resin. Saves me a ton of money with similar chemicals.
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Mark Peterson View Drop Down
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Points: 21436 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 28 2015 at 3:38am
I recall hearing about that study. Not all AA is created equal. I have experienced the difference. For that study, is it known which manufacturer's AA was used, how much was used, etc.?

I don't regenerate AA for two reasons. 1) because it's almost as cheap as Activated Carbon and 2) my previous experiences with regenerating other media were not cost effective. 

If the reef aquarium uses pollution control/export via Macroalgae growth and harvesting, AA lasts a fairly long time. We can tell when AA is depleted because it turns a dark tan color (I believe that bit of useful information is conveniently missing from the standard product packaging.) I use only 1/2 cup of AA in a media bag for my 200 gal coral farm.

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millsu2 View Drop Down
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Points: 46 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote millsu2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 28 2015 at 3:31pm
I decided not to bother trying to regenerate it. I have what is needed to do it, but I decided it isn't really worth the time. I do plan to continue using AA instead of GFO since it works so well and appears to be safely used by many, but mostly because I don't have a reactor to put the GFO in.

I didn't realize that DI resin could be regenerated. That would probably be worth the effort. I stopped using it a long time ago because all it was too expensive to keep replacing just to remove 6 TDS. 6 TDS isn't much, but 0 is better if it's cheap to achieve! If only I hadn't thrown all of my resin away... 
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