Best DIY nitrate 'filter'?

[00rollins]

Fluidized bed filters will not remove nitrates. They are just bio filters. You need to do water changes to remove nitrates and or add live plants/algae scrubber


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I modified my post sorry was half asleep, but with the purigen yes the fluidized bet will remove the nitrites, and not act like a bio filter

And of course water changes will remove nitrites and is the best way. but using chem media in the fb works better than any other method of chem media use, charcoal, purigen whatever media

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[eklikewhoa]

I am using Seachem Purigen in a modified Media Rector(NextReef-SMR1) and coupled with large water changes I don't see the need for anything else

Planted refugium, Algae scrubber takes time and a photo period.
De-nitrator requires even longer time to establish and has the ability to nuke your tank in the event of a failure seeing as though the whole thing is a aerobic gas bomb.

A Fluidized reactor utilizing De-nitrate or matrix would be a better option than going with the De-nitrator if the claims Seachem makes are true, the media is suppose to be porous to the point where the deep insides become aerobic and form aerobic bacteria. So if regardless of where you put it allows for that then having it fluidized would be a double win IMO. This is my next project to do.

 

[Kaiden]

Sorry i missread the question and thought it was a nitrite issue
Either way tis is still good but any bio filter will remove nitrates, or water change no chem needed. How big is the tank, stock, and maintenance scheduale, how do you do water changes, are the nitrates in the tank or tap water you want to add, if tap water use prime,
Beneficial bactiria will turn the nitrates to nitrites


For nitrite and or nitrate removal to reduce the load on the bio filter heres the info on the fb just to add,
You can put anything in it, best with chem like charcoal or for what you r lookin to do purigen, sand will act as bio, to remove nitrites you must change water or use the purigen, to I like the fluidized bed because it is effective but you can add it to any filter, this is the one I bought with discription
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An awsome dyi wetdry, is http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=F0nAIuMMxUI

The tank is a 150 gallon with 1x Oscar, 1x small BGK, 1x Featherfin catfish and 5x SDs. I don't think that's overstocked at all, right? I usually do 1-2 50% water change a week. But there lies my problem. My tap water has a nitrate reading between 20ppm-40ppm as shown on the pics I posted above. I do use Prime as my water conditioner. I also have two big canister filters and two Emperor 400s running on the tank. Ammonia and Nitrites are always 0 so I know my biological filtration is sufficient. It's just the nitrates that I can't seem to control.

Water changes are the best way to get rid of nitrates as most people say, but with that much nitrates on my tap, it's practically impossible to get a 40ppm or below reading without doing something. That's why I'm asking for suggestions on which is an efficient way to reduce nitrates. So far, it seems the plants are winning the poll so I will get on making a sump for my plants this weekend. I'm planning to just use my 10 gallon tank and just dumping some golden photos in it. What kind of pump would I need on a 10 gallon plant sump though? Can you please give me some recommendations? Not sure how much GPH I would need for it. I've never had a sump before so this is all totally new to me.

@golcondorus: Have you experienced a pH drop when you added the photos on your HOB? Just asking because I used to have some photos on my 2 Emperor 400 too but I noticed that my pH dropped to 6 and there were some white thing that was floating inside the HOBs. Kind of like what you normally see in a vase with plants. I didn't really notice much reduction in nitrates too but that's probably because I only had a few because of the limited space.

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the input.

 

[Kaiden]

I am using Seachem Purigen in a modified Media Rector(NextReef-SMR1) and coupled with large water changes I don't see the need for anything else

Planted refugium, Algae scrubber takes time and a photo period.
De-nitrator requires even longer time to establish and has the ability to nuke your tank in the event of a failure seeing as though the whole thing is a aerobic gas bomb.

A Fluidized reactor utilizing De-nitrate or matrix would be a better option than going with the De-nitrator if the claims Seachem makes are true, the media is suppose to be porous to the point where the deep insides become aerobic and form aerobic bacteria. So if regardless of where you put it allows for that then having it fluidized would be a double win IMO. This is my next project to do.

I use Seachem Matrix on my canisters. But so far I haven't noticed any reduction from it. Would it be better if I use it on a Reactor?

Also, I've been tempted to use Purigen too but I've heard horror stories about regenerating it with bleach. Can you please tell me how you regenerate yours and how often you have to do it?

 

[eklikewhoa]

I use Seachem Matrix on my canisters. But so far I haven't noticed any reduction from it. Would it be better if I use it on a Reactor?

Also, I've been tempted to use Purigen too but I've heard horror stories about regenerating it with bleach. Can you please tell me how you regenerate yours and how often you have to do it?

Well with any aerobic filter or denitrator it takes several weeks to months before it establishes so that might be a reason why you haven't noticed it, also the amount of nitrate reduction is based on the amount of media in comparison to tank/fish volume. I have thought to use it in a reactor to keep it fluidized so it would work as a good bio media as well as an aerobic media based on the claims made for this product. Kinda applying the pond/fluidized bed filter method to the matrix media.

With the purigen, I normally don't regenerate since it's not that expensive when you compare to those that use carbon in their tanks. I normally run about a liter in my reactor for my 180g tank which is well stocked. I replace it when most of the media has tuned brown to dark brown.

regenerating is fairly simple, bleach till white, double dose on prime to de-chlorinate. I dried my purigen out between those two steps the last time I regenerated but to avoid any problems I just replace. I have enough invested into my tank and fish to not cheap out on media.

 

[Kaiden]

Gotcha. That makes total sense. I'm also feeling uncomfortable about regenerating, which is why I asked.

As for the Matrix, I used to have a 55 gallon tank with 1 Oscar in it. I was running 2 HOBs and 1 canister filled with 2L Matrix and some ceramic rings. I had this setup running for about 8 months or so. But since I just got a new 150 gallon, I've added a second canister and filled it with 4L (more or less) Matrix with some ceramic rings again. Do you think that should be enough Matrix for my tank/stock?

 

[eklikewhoa]

I'm probably the worst person to ask since I tend to view "overkill" as the norm.

my 180g has 2xfx5 with only bio-media, 30g wetdry that I added more bio-media to the drain chamber along with adding more bio-balls to the bioball chamber, Magnum HOT hanging off the wet/dry to polish the water and to feed back over the bio-balls to keep it that chamber flowing during water changes, SMR1 media reactor with 1L of purigen which also feeds back into the bio-ball chamber and a large air pump to kinda fluidize the drain chamber where the added bio-media is. Also have 2 Koralia evo 1400 for added circulation in the tank.
All this on top of 2x weekly 100% water changes which is done through a cubic ft. catalytic carbon filter.

My older set up was a 125g... 2xeheim 2262 filled with about 10g of eheim ehfi substrat pro, pro-clear 300 wetdry, added sediment filter which kept the wet/dry functional during water change and 2x Vortech Mp40w

 

[eklikewhoa]

btw, if you go with the planted refugium I have found that floating plants work amazingly for the purpose!

 

[00rollins]

In my previous post I mixed up the nitrite nitrate order, like I said before was half asleep, but up early for work now. Shoulda trusted my first judgment in the original post when I was awake, so nitrite to nitrate, the bio filter will do nothing formnitrate exept turn the nitrite into it.


So yea the fluidized bed / reactor w/ purigen is the best, and the media is reuseable, you can try using it in your filter it will work as well

Does the prime not remove the nitrates, from the tap water, it should, id use a bin to treat the water and let it sit for a day with an air pump to circulate and degas the water. If after prime use and ageing process you still have the issue then use a small hob on the bin with the purigen.


I can understand the issue with recharging as many people have had problems, just dont use acid buffer after the soak and give it extra time to soak post bleach treatment, they modified the directions due to the ph swing issue
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[Kaiden]

@eklikewhoa: Thanks for the suggestions! I believe my LFS has some water sprites so I'll stop by later to get some. In addition to that, I'm planning to use some golden photos and I'll probably move my amazon swords to the sump as well. That's about all I can put in it I guess. A 10 gallon tank doesn't really leave much room for anything else. But maybe I'll upgrade it to a 30-40 gallon tank when I'm more comfortable with it. This is my first sump so I'm a little intimidated by how it works. I'm planning to DIY the overflow by using a 1" PVC Pipe but still trying to research about what water pump I should buy.

@00rollins: No problem. I figured you just switched the nitrite-nitrate thing. Have you tried using Purigen? If so, how often do you usually recharge/replace it? Just wanted to have some ballpark on the 'maintenance' for it. Correct me if I'm wrong too but to recharge it, I just have to soak it in bleach (Like Clorox for laundry?) and then rinse/soak it in tap water with Prime? Won't using bleach have any ill effects? How does it cause pH swing though? Since adding Malaysian Driftwoods in my tank, my pH has dropped to 6 from 7. Would that cause my pH to rise or drop even more?

Thanks to both of you!