To all that may know! I am looking having to rebed my carbon tanks here and was wondering how everyone is doing it. Previously we've always had a vendor come in and do the rebedding, but in this cost conscience age it was decided we should do our own now. We have the inductor to remove the old carbon but we are wondering how long the new carbon should be soaked before the carbons are put into a rinse cycle? I have heard that if you rinse them too soon that you will end up washing most of your carbon down the drain.
Any insight into this would be very helpful and appreciated.

Svh-biomed,

It's great to know that your taking the initiative to complete this task, your company is lucky.

Now, once you've replaced the gravel and carbon. Some installers recommend that you soak the virgin carbon for 4-6 hours. Then backwash the carbon until you get a normal ph (depending on your water supply, 6-8 ph), this may take a couple of hours. The flow restrictor should prevent any carbon loss to drain.

I hope this assists you.

svh,

Unfortunately it means an entire wasted weekend but this is what works well for us.

Rebed the carbon on Saturday right after the clinic shuts down letting the tanks fill very slowly with the control head in the backwash position. Once you start getting water going to drain, turn it off and let it sit over night with the timer unplugged of course. The next day start the water flowing slowly again gradually increasing the flow until it is full force. Once the water runs clear, turn off the water again and let it sit about an hour then put the tank through a complete backwash cycle.

Chuck

Thanks guys, I just wanted some input because the vendors we have used in the past have very different opinions on how it should be done. One says to let the carbon soak 12 hrs before beginning to rinse the other starts rinsing after about a 30 - 45 minute soak. It is looking like I will be spending a weekend here soon babysitting a couple of carbon tanks.
Thanks Again, its things like this that make this board so valuable to those of us in the dialysis world!

We actually purchase our carbon acid prewashed, it arrives sealed in barrels directly from the dealer, because of the prewash the fines are negligible and the pH "spike" is non existant. Of course this probably wouldn't work for smaller tanks, and you are not supposed to store it prewetted for any length of time, our four tanks are six feet tall and three feet in diameter..... that's a lot of activated carbon granules