How fast should nitrate accumulate?

[predatorkeeper87]

Oh absolutely. I do not recommend it. Unless you have a wastewater treatment operators license. Then the tank needs to include a method of mass filtration.
A robust population of micro predators. Good water chemistry parameters. With the process done in complete darkness.
Adding sugar on a regular basis to keep nitrates low. Without having met some basic prerequisites is asking for trouble.
In my case I had 30 gallons of recent water changes. Removing any more would have decimated my routifer, daphnia colony.

so you have a daphnia colony in your tank? and they stay alive? in an aquarium designed moreso for fish?

 

[markstrimaran]

so you have a daphnia colony in your tank? and they stay alive? in an aquarium designed moreso for fish?

I had some in my sump. Before my huge water change.
I looked closely today with the filtration turned off. Lots and lots flashlight illuminated protozoa swimming around. Looks too me like.
The bacteria are getting are getting slaughtered.
Should have a dozen daphia hatching soon. Too throw into the feeding frenzy.

 

[predatorkeeper87]

I had some in my sump. Before my huge water change.
I looked closely today with the filtration turned off. Lots and lots flashlight illuminated protozoa swimming around. Looks too me like.
The bacteria are getting are getting slaughtered.
Should have a dozen daphia hatching soon. Too throw into the feeding frenzy.

interesting.

 

[markstrimaran]

The largest are the planaria at about 3/16". They don't last very long out of the gravel. If the minnows are hungry.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; I am still trying to digest/understand the sugar dosing to reduce nitrates in a small setup like a we have in our homes.
First question; from reading the links I posted earlier the sugar is a supplemental carbon source that particular bacteria need and this takes place under anaerobic conditions. A large waste treatment plant can have dedicated anaerobic tanks. I follow that you have a part of your home setup operating in the dark. It seems to me that being dark is not necessarily the same as being anaerobic. Perhaps I am making the wrong assumptions. Do you in fact have an anaerobic portion operating in the home setup?

 

[skjl47]

Hello; I am still trying to digest/understand the sugar dosing to reduce nitrates in a small setup like a we have in our homes.
next questions; Can we presume that the sugar dosing setup you are using is not now working as planned and , if so, was it ever working properly?

 

[markstrimaran]

Hello; I am still trying to digest/understand the sugar dosing to reduce nitrates in a small setup like a we have in our homes.
First question; from reading the links I posted earlier the sugar is a supplemental carbon source that particular bacteria need and this takes place under anaerobic conditions. A large waste treatment plant can have dedicated anaerobic tanks. I follow that you have a part of your home setup operating in the dark. It seems to me that being dark is not necessarily the same as being anaerobic. Perhaps I am making the wrong assumptions. Do you in fact have an anaerobic portion operating in the home setup?[/QUOTE
My fish food has enough carbon in it sustain the nitrogen bacteria. As my nitrates are only 10ppm. If my nitrate were higher I would have to add a bit of carbon.

The anaerobic tank is the dark picture. In theory, I dont really need it. The second picture is the pumice substrate. It probably has a couple of square miles of surface area?. 500m2 per gram.
I have 18" x 4" x 12" and the same volume of course sand. On the other side.. Sitting on top of a Penn play UG filter plates. When I dose sugar it goes under the UG plate. Next to the glass. With an 5 gpd drip. Slow enough to keep every thing anoxic. The pumice caverns hold the anaerobic bacteria.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; I found your other thread on this same subject just now.

The tank has been going for about 6 months. I fishless cycled it. Stocked it with local creek chubs. Operated it as a conventional UG until the nitrates started building. Then added the anaerobic tank when nitrates hit 200 ppm.
The 1 Gpd anaerobic tank was seeded with a culture of local river bacteria fauna. In a high nitrate Iowa fertilizer watershed.
With pumice rock from oregon. The jars were dosed with 1 tsp white sugar. These bacteria can multiply double in an hour. Every day they would test like 10 ppm nitrate. I would drain the water out leaving the pint of pumice. Then refilling with 200ppm tank water. Enriched with 1/4 fertilizer stick, for house plants. In every test the nitrates were less than 20 in 24hs. The water milky white with bacteria. And no odor.
H2s was only noticeable after nitrates are depleted. After 2 days unopened a slight rotten egg odor will start

The 1 Gpd two stage nitrogen tank contains a gallon of water and a gallon of pumice, lava, and sand. A steady drip of 60 dpm. Keeps it from smelling and at 0 ppm. At 30 dpm it goes septic at 200ppm nitrate. At 120 dpm it leaves 20ppm no3/no2 mix.
Note my river creek chubs were saved from the bait well.
200 nitrate ppm is less prone to crashing. If you think of nitrate as oxygen. It is what the bugs oxidize to survive. When it runs out they go for the sulfate. Which smells.
At say 20 ppm no3. The bacteria need a very porous substrate. As the low water flow would create septic pockets void of oxygen or nitrate leaving only sulfate. The porous substrate with microscopic pores, let's the oxygen content of the water circulating, remain high enough to prevent septic. But low enough that nitrate is tapped into.
The bacteria need a carbon source also. The amount is dependant upon the availability of nitrate. The higher the nitrate the more sugar you can add.
Adding sugar into an aerobic substrate just makes the water cloud and reduces the oxygen until nitrates are used. The smelly stuff only starts when the nitrates are gone.
So at 10 ppm I throttle up the dripping to keep the oxygen up as the same bacteria can burn oxygen or nitrate. The 1 gpd is the fine tuner. The full siphon vs the overflow.

The main tank substrate is the over flow. With the same pumice enriched bacteria. Scrubbing the water for every bit of oxygen and carbon. Until the carbon runs out. Then they sit idle.

This colony can double faster than you can do a 25% water change. In less than 72 hours 200ppm no3 will be vaporized.
The water under the , undergravel filter plate becomes anaerobic, dosed with sugar the BOD, is raised. As the slow drip 5gpd in a 30g tank. Filters up thru the substrate. The nitrates are consumed for the 02 they contain..
As the bacteria overrun the tank. The aerobic critters run for air. The plantains start a migration up the glass. This is a cycle that most people have not attemped. Just like the ammonia peak, the nitrite peak, the nitrate peak, and the nitrogen gas peak.
At healthy ppm the flow is increased and the anaerobic activity is done inside the substrate.

So the external sump, HOB provides oxygen for the aerobic life as the substrate, turns over. Most lakes do this every spring.
So that leaves a lot of food for the routifers, water fleas, cilliapods. Assuming they don't get sucked out in a 75% water change. In which case a diatomaceous filter will clear things up.
A 500 gph circulation on a 30 gallon clears up the water nicely, With poly filters.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; I see where you have included my entire post in as a quote but cannot see any comments from you.

 

[markstrimaran]

Hello; I am still trying to digest/understand the sugar dosing to reduc; Can we presume that the sugar dosing setup you are using is not now working as planned and , if so, was it ever working properly?

Paradox. If I never put a stupid tree branch in my tank. It would have nitrogen cycled in a few months. I NEVER would have bothered with " sugar" . The anaerobic tank would have slowly matured. And I never would have known that chemicals are available to have an instant fish tank.

Sample from 1gpd and the tank.