Beads/balls In N2 Fusing Together.

[TinyBubbles]

I was speaking to a chemical retailer at a party and mentioned the need to replace my N2 cartridge. She told me I should be able to get atleast another month out of it. I mentioned that I had been told that they don't last as long when you use dichlor for daily dosing. She confirmed that the beads will fuse together fairly quickly in this situation. I checked my N2 over th weekend and in fact, the beads on the top half where stuck together in a solid piece and the the ones on the bottom were still loose and separate. I wondered if one of the chem experts on this site could explain what causes the minerals to fuse together and how this changes their effectiveness. I flipped mine over for the time being, reasoning that the loose balls would do more good up top, since that's where they originally fused.

[B0Darc]

I was speaking to a chemical retailer at a party and mentioned the need to replace my N2 cartridge. She told me I should be able to get atleast another month out of it. I mentioned that I had been told that they don't last as long when you use dichlor for daily dosing. She confirmed that the beads will fuse together fairly quickly in this situation. I checked my N2 over th weekend and in fact, the beads on the top half where stuck together in a solid piece and the the ones on the bottom were still loose and separate. I wondered if one of the chem experts on this site could explain what causes the minerals to fuse together and how this changes their effectiveness. I flipped mine over for the time being, reasoning that the loose balls would do more good up top, since that's where they originally fused.

If you charted your water chemistry on a graph over time, it would appear like a wave with hills and valleys, as items like chlorine got added and then dissipated. The chemical used to encapsulate the "minerals" is made to dissolve slowly over time, releasing the minerals. The rate of that reaction is tied to that graph of other chemical concentrations like chlorine. Meaning at any given time the beads may dissolve more quickly than others. In their more soluable state they are likely to be "stickier" and glom together ("glom is a technical term meaning "to glom together" ;-)

They stick together at the top because of boyancy combined with the glom-itization factor. I doubt it affects the functioning much although it may reflect the natural aging of the product.