Methods to lower nitrate

[timtk]

The central dogma of aquaria is that nitrate is the last and least toxic step in the bacteria driven oxidation of ammonia. It's typically been considered that the only ways of nitrate remediation are:
- using plants, which uptake nitrate
- increasing biological filtration, which increases the amount of nitrate present relative to more reduced nitrite, and reducing the time necessary for this conversion. However, these factors are hard to measure and determine in an aquarium and could already be approaching optimum
- and most importantly, water changes, i.e., replacing water highly concentrated with nitrate with nitrate deplete tap water

Those are essentially your only options.

Your link for a nitrate removing device isn't working on my computer, but i'd be hesitant to put any amount of faith in the operation of any device like this.

 

[jaws7777]

Hi,
I'm looking into methods to lower nitrate in my 180 gallon freshwater. I don't have problems with nitrate, and do regular water changes, but I want the water to be as good as possible. I don't have a sump (just canister filters), so is there any way to use one of these bio denitrator devices without making a sump? https://www.marinedepot.com/Bio_Denitrators_Nitrate_Reactors-FIFRISDN-ct.html

If not, what about seachem denitrate? Is there a canister filter with a low enough flow rate (50 gph or less) to make this effective?

Any other methods?

Thanks! - Nick

Ive mesed with different methods like algea scrubbers, denitrate filters, purigen filters , plants and diy reactors.

Its not a waste of time by any means. Sometimes just messing with little projects is fun in its own right regsrdless if they fail.

I can post a few old threads later on if you like.

For me the purigen filter worked best. I used a 4 inch pvc pipe filled with purigen connected to a pump. Its a little expensive as you really need to stock up on the purigen. Seachems description is b.s. it all depends on the biolaod not how many gallons the tank is.

The denitrate filter took about 5ish months maybe more of tweaking to get going. It did work but inly for about 1 month. kno4te did get his to work

I gave up on the algae scrubber too soon to really judge it. markstrimaran has some great threads on the subject.

I was least impressed with plant filtration. I guess it could work on a very low bioload tank but in the end they only go so far. For me it was a mere dent in nitrates.

tarheel96 did a pretty extensive experiment with plants btw.


What sized tank ? Whats the stock list and sizes ? Do you have a sump ?

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

The scrubber is a part of the filtration system, not part of the tank.

 

[duanes]

I find canisters end up producing more nitrate than less, because they are not normally cleaned out enough, and the decomposing gunk produces nitrate exponentially, the longer the duration between cleanings.
Plants help, but the ratio of plants to fish needs to be very high, at minimum 10 times more weight of plants to 1lb weight of fish (probably should be much higher).
Water changes are the only real answer, I do 30-40% every other day, with planted sumps, and my nitrate level averages 2-5ppm.
Drip systems can help, but the drip (flow) needs to match a good water change. In one of my 300 gallon line of tanks, that would mean a drip of 30 to 50 gallons per day.
One of my planted refugiums below, situated in between the tank, and the equipment sump.
Th clump of papyrus weighs about 8 to 10 lbs.

 

[markstrimaran]

Hi,
I'm looking into methods to lower nitrate in my 180 gallon freshwater. I don't have problems with nitrate, and do regular water changes, but I want the water to be as good as possible. I don't have a sump (just canister filters), so is there any way to use one of these bio denitrator devices without making a sump? https://www.marinedepot.com/Bio_Denitrators_Nitrate_Reactors-FIFRISDN-ct.html

If not, what about seachem denitrate? Is there a canister filter with a low enough flow rate (50 gph or less) to make this effective?

Any other methods?

Thanks! - Nick

Hi
Do you have any way to filter at 1200 gph. @ 300 microns. Thats' about 4 filter socks, or a 16 x 16 filter floss tray.


The over sump, works just as well, as the traditional under sump.

ANY nitrate reduction process will require, professionals grade, or industrial grade 300 micron rated filtration at full flow, with 80% plugged , filter flow.

 

[jaws7777]

Heres a bunch of threads that we had going in the past.

I wanna mention that my goals were never to do away with wc's just get down to 1 per week. The purigen filter imo worked TOO well. After a wc i would get 0 nitrates fpr a few days. Which i didnt like i felt that the bio would have gotten starved. Purigen removes waste before it enters the nitrogen cycle. So essentially it keeps ammonia down. The denitrate filter had promise as it removes nitrates (the end result) so effectively leaving you with a healthy bb colony. If you take the purigen route just dont over do it.


Sorry just saw you mentioned you dont have a sump. You could just add an hob filter and put some purigen in it. The product does work but needs to be recharged. Easier to get to if its in a hob vs a can.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/purigen-filter.693727/

Some lengthy threads but all good reads choc full of info from experienced members.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/anaerobic-bacteria.691210/

This thread is great as it started out with algae scrubber ideas then morphed into a few of us trying different nitrate reduction methods
https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/diy-algae-scrubber.683050/

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/algae-scrubber-as-bio-filter.670459/

There are more but figured it would be over kill.

 

[RD.]

Feed less

 

[mudbuttjones]

Feed less

I agree. I used to feed 5-6 days a week and I've settled on feeding every other day.

I also agree with duanes, you need a ton of very fast growing plants to take advantage of nutrient export.

decrease stocking, feed less. the solution to pollution is dilution! more water and less fish!

 

[kno4te]

The denitrator I made had some great results. Reduced my water changes to 2x per month. I do feed less as well, 2-3 x per week. It does need to be cleaned and all the leftover in the pvc pipe needs to be run out.

About a month ago the pump died out. So I let it be as family stuff got in the way. All the bacteria died. So opened it up and cleaned it out. Gonna try some other stuff when I get time to reduce nitrates, little projects.

 

[esoxlucius]

I find all this nitrate reduction without the need to do water changes, or at least drastically reducing nitrate without the need to do as many water changes, absolutely fascinating.

Him upstairs has a lot to answer for. I mean fancy giving us ammonia eating bacteria and just to prove how almighty he is he goes and gives us nitrite eating bacteria too. But that's when his goodwill ran out. Because then he decided to play a very cruel trick on us by creating a bacteria that can only eat lots of nitrate without the presence of oxygen. Great.

Thing is, if he had have decided to give us a bacteria which could neutralise harmful nitrate, even in a very oxygen rich aquarium environment, we'd still have to do our weekly water changes!!!!! How ironic would that be? Because then the holy grail of aquaria would be how to maintain levels of magnesium, potassium, chloride, iodine blah de blah blah de blah in the aquarium to maintain our fishes health.

We're never ever ever going to get away without doing our good old water changes. I suppose that's where drip systems come into their own.