Based on the initial results, my advise would be post more to this thread. My hypothesis is there is a direct correlation to doing this and nitrate reduction ;-) Sorry man, I'm no help but couldn't resist. BTW, I will be testing my water soon after two months with Matrix - I don't expect that it's helped my nitrate levels.
Anaerobic Bacteria
- Thread starter jaws7777
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Based on the initial results, my advise would be post more to this thread. My hypothesis is there is a direct correlation to doing this and nitrate reduction ;-) Sorry man, I'm no help but couldn't resist. BTW, I will be testing my water soon after two months with Matrix - I don't expect that it's helped my nitrate levels.
Could be possible man what sucks is i just picked up a crap load of purigen to run on this tank. Now im scared to touch anything. Lol
Always interested me too a few other members and i have been toying with a bunch of different methods, its been fun tinkering but striking out suck lol
Here are some relevant links.
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/fwsubwebindex/fwbiofltfaqs.htm
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/denitrator.16813/
https://www.arowanafishtalk.com/for...ator/page2&s=52cea245f0b948bb9e83f89570617c5d
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showt...30e88d0331de91a3eb51020&t=595109&pp=25&page=2
After having read about this a little, I think whoever told you 50gpm does not know what he is talking about. They are measured in drips per minute, not gallons. Sand denitrators, coil denitrators, aquaponics like me, ATS (Algae turf scrubbers) likemarkstrimaran - there are plenty of systems that work. A friend of my fathers told me that he saw a tilapia farm in Israel that used a pit of sand as bio and denitrator in a closed loop system with no water changes! This stuff can be done, just keep at it.
Here are some pics of my 10g no WC overstocked tank.View attachment 1267329
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Thx for the links will read them later on tonight (kids smh) i was reading up on the coils and even saw a vid where a guy showed 0 nitrate out of the filter but high nitrates in the tank. Im skeptical on the coils with large tanks or high bio load. I would think larger fish would out produce what the coil could filter.
Seachem listed the 50 gph all over the place with the denitrate. I thought lowe wpyld be better but they disagreed.
What are you running in your 10 gal ?
Mark was a huge help on this thread. Its probably one of my favirote threads...was kind of like us vs the nitrates lol
Def will keep posting here hopefully some fresh eyes will catch something im missing.
One more comment too. What is the placement of this in regards to your other bio media??
The reason why flow and such matters is oxygen needs to be gone, which has been well established in this thread. However no one has mentioned that oxygen doesn't just magically go away if you flow slowly - it is consumed by converting ammonia to nitrite to nitrate.
So if you put this filter AFTER you already fully converted to nitrate, there is no chemical reaction left that will suck up oxygen. So make sure this filter is before any other bio conversion so it has a feed of ammonia.
The reason why flow and such matters is oxygen needs to be gone, which has been well established in this thread. However no one has mentioned that oxygen doesn't just magically go away if you flow slowly - it is consumed by converting ammonia to nitrite to nitrate.
So if you put this filter AFTER you already fully converted to nitrate, there is no chemical reaction left that will suck up oxygen. So make sure this filter is before any other bio conversion so it has a feed of ammonia.
This is a great observation. In deep bed UGF conditions, (the ones people sometimes get intentionally, but more often unintentionally) the bacteria at the bottom only gets access to the water after it's been depleted from the upper layers.
Ooh a denitrate thread. I think these common systems aren't quite done right, this is more commonly done by the saltwater guys but a professor at a local university has done it on freshwater aquariums with great success and can run at a higher flow rate than these typical systems. Most of my information is from research though
The common way is a coil type reactor with it's own pump running. Between 50 and 200 feet of tubing is coiled inside a canister type setup, and water is first passed through here before getting down to the bottom and flowing through densely packed media such as pot scrubbies or ceramics or whatever picks your fancy.
Theory is that water passes through the pipe in a controlled manner and nitrifying bacteria processes ammonia and nitrite as per standard, but at the same time consuming o2 in the water. By the time this water reaches the more dense media it is depleted of oxygen and contains nitrate from this filter and your other bio media. Now the anaerobic bacteria has an environment to thrive and multiply consuming nitrate at a good pace before the water flows out of the top into the tank with less nitrate.
I'd say this way is more productive given you can create more flow with low o2 water, which equates to more nitrate being consumed, compared to the trickle in other systems.
How I understand the professor did it is he chained it in a DIY canister filter system, with a few canisters then the nitrate coil and it has large effects and can be a game changer for large tanks. This way you get best efficiency in aerobic and anaerobic conditions
Now a few other things, this is important:
-These filters can take up to 6 months or more to cycle
-A little sugar at the start of the pipe can help speed this up apparently
-Warning: These filters may produce trace nitrites when cycling
-Hydrogen sulphate may be produced as a byproduct, extra aeration before ejection from the filter can help dissipate this potentially harmful substance.
I'll try and get more information from the professor when I meet him in the next few weeks
Hope this helps!
The common way is a coil type reactor with it's own pump running. Between 50 and 200 feet of tubing is coiled inside a canister type setup, and water is first passed through here before getting down to the bottom and flowing through densely packed media such as pot scrubbies or ceramics or whatever picks your fancy.
Theory is that water passes through the pipe in a controlled manner and nitrifying bacteria processes ammonia and nitrite as per standard, but at the same time consuming o2 in the water. By the time this water reaches the more dense media it is depleted of oxygen and contains nitrate from this filter and your other bio media. Now the anaerobic bacteria has an environment to thrive and multiply consuming nitrate at a good pace before the water flows out of the top into the tank with less nitrate.
I'd say this way is more productive given you can create more flow with low o2 water, which equates to more nitrate being consumed, compared to the trickle in other systems.
How I understand the professor did it is he chained it in a DIY canister filter system, with a few canisters then the nitrate coil and it has large effects and can be a game changer for large tanks. This way you get best efficiency in aerobic and anaerobic conditions
Now a few other things, this is important:
-These filters can take up to 6 months or more to cycle
-A little sugar at the start of the pipe can help speed this up apparently
-Warning: These filters may produce trace nitrites when cycling
-Hydrogen sulphate may be produced as a byproduct, extra aeration before ejection from the filter can help dissipate this potentially harmful substance.
I'll try and get more information from the professor when I meet him in the next few weeks
Hope this helps!
I read an article some time ago where a guy did a similar denitrate filter. Will see if I can eventually find the link. But I believe he initially ran it through a VERY fine (like 10 micron?) Filter before being pushed through the media at (if I remember correctly) around 20 gph.
Because I have never tried a nitrate reactor, I can't make a valid comment,
But I have heard, the flow must be excruciatlngly slow, thru many yards of tube to create an anoxic enough environment too work.
I have tried a deep sand bed over a DIY plenum with some success, although because I keep cichlids almost exclusively, just as the redux was beginning to make a dent, some cichlid would dig down to the fabric of the plenum, which would provide too much water movement, adding enough oxygen to stop the process.
My favorite way (other than plants) is to use a protein skimmer, as someone else stated.
aAlthough the fractionation process does "not" directly remove nitrate, it removes nitrate precursors from the water column before they are metabolized to nitrate, along with other undesirable elements.
Again, in the video of it working on my fresh water pond, you can see the organic carbon being removed, and falling to the ground, as opposed to back in the water.
koi pond fractionation
and on my tanks, I 1st used a DIY counter current model.
On the counter current version, I let foam dribble into plastic bags, which were emptied sometimes twice daily.
But I have heard, the flow must be excruciatlngly slow, thru many yards of tube to create an anoxic enough environment too work.
I have tried a deep sand bed over a DIY plenum with some success, although because I keep cichlids almost exclusively, just as the redux was beginning to make a dent, some cichlid would dig down to the fabric of the plenum, which would provide too much water movement, adding enough oxygen to stop the process.
My favorite way (other than plants) is to use a protein skimmer, as someone else stated.
aAlthough the fractionation process does "not" directly remove nitrate, it removes nitrate precursors from the water column before they are metabolized to nitrate, along with other undesirable elements.
Again, in the video of it working on my fresh water pond, you can see the organic carbon being removed, and falling to the ground, as opposed to back in the water.
koi pond fractionation
and on my tanks, I 1st used a DIY counter current model.
On the counter current version, I let foam dribble into plastic bags, which were emptied sometimes twice daily.
