DIY Coil Denitrator

[vanilla__gorilla__]

I made a sulfer Denitrator about a month ago. I took step by step pics so if it works I will make a post about it. it is a dual chamber reactor with pure granular elemental sulfur in the first chamber and calcium and carbonate in the second chamber.on all Denitrators the flow is very important!

 

[sitporn]

I'm interest the coil denitrator too and I found this site http://2hot2cool.com/4/afishianado/afishian.htm

I'll do it when I'm done my tank setup.

 

[L.BelcherII]

It's finished and set-up. Just have to wait for some beneficial bacteria.
about $35 in parts, two hours of build time, and 24 hours for the glue to cure. I'll post some pics when I can.

 

[mylesroberts]

I have a Sulphar de-mitrator made by koralin I found that these are the easiest to maintain and have a good effect the bacteria feed on the sulphar and when the sulphar is consumed you add more sulphar pellets all you need to do is make sure it has a constant flow of water ie- check there is no gas inside if so use the bleed valve on the top of the device the only problem is they can , in not checked , produce hydrogen sulphide so I keep checking it every day and if I see any gasses drain the unit

 

[L.BelcherII]

I've actually changed this on the new set-up. I have a mini powerhead providing flow through the denitrator. It draws water out of the end of the sump and drops it back in at the beginning.

This is all from my old set-up.
This is the side view of my sump overflow box. I just drilled a hole in the bottom of it and added a valve with a quick connect.

zoomed out view

Bottom view with scrubbie and a helper. The yellow hose inside is the 50' coil that is where the ozygen would be stripped by bacteria. Then the water would enter into the main chamber full of scrubbies, where other bacteria would eat away the Nitrates.

Just a side view of the whole thing, and Sophie.

Top view, with cap on. Just drilled a two holes in the cap. Middle one connects to the yellow hose inside (water in). The other one is water out.

All of this was gravity feed, the filter return goes back in the top of my sump.

 

[mikeandannie]

Very nice build, I really like the setup but I got confused inbetween old setup and new setup so I was wondering which way it is ran ? Also what size pcv? and is that auto air line hose if so good idea, whats the ID of the hose, how tall is pvc without caps, again very clean build i hope it works out good for you..any leaks yet?

 

[blowupcavs]

yes a denitrator is a good idea but adding sulpher to it is a bad idea. as was you dont understand is that what comes out the other end is pure sulpuric acid(forgive the spelling)it has a ph of less than 1! i have done test at my local shop well working there and it is so scary you need a computer to dose the right amounts of buffer and thats in a salt water tank, well if you keep adding bufferto the tank the water parments(and again with the spelling) will crash.i think the denitraror idea is a good one(i am thinking of trying it out as well)but leave the sulpher to the ready made saltwater one like aquamedic.

 

[L.BelcherII]

Figure 1 is the way it used to be, and Figure 3 is the way it is now.

With the set-up now, I get the cleanest possible water, and return to the area of the sump where there is the maximum capability of removing anything bad that comes from the denitrator.

No sulfur at all in my system, just scrubbies. I used 3" pvc cut to 3' long (end caps not included). Don't bother trying to used threaded pvc caps, because the system pressurizes and the threads can't handle it in the long run. My set-up now is completely glued.

I had it in service for over a year on the old tank, and it worked great with no problems. I was doing WC once a month purely for waste removal, and Nitrates never got higher than 10 ppm.

 

[mikeandannie]

great results, thx for confirming that for me, also when you turn tank off and sump fills, does the coil start to back drain and if so do you have check valves? I made a paint pic of how mine will be setup do you or anyone see anything wrong with it?

Thx for all the info so far

 

[L.BelcherII]

I'm sure a check valve can't hurt, but I don't have one. The main concern is once you get the denitrator going you don't want any air at all to get into the system, otherwise you have to start again from scratch.

Your design looks like a great set-up all in all.