Planted tank ( sump ) question

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
U guys have me thinking. I'll retest my water again tonight with another kit.
My return filter needs cleaning, so I'll stir up some substrate and remove as much as I can. Then test again after a couple hours and see what I get

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burbon44s said:
U guys have me thinking. I'll retest my water again tonight with another kit.
My return filter needs cleaning, so I'll stir up some substrate and remove as much as I can. Then test again after a couple hours and see what I get

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Click to expand...

If you do a thorough cleaning and a big WC wait more than a couple of hours. You want to get an accurate representation of what your tank is like normally, and stirring things up could change that.
 
Bottom line is nitrates come from waste breaking down. the brown dirty looking stuff is either waste or dead plant/fish parts breaking down. It will increase your nitrates if it just sits there and continues to break down. Do you have mechanical filtration before your planted section? All junk should be filtered so that all thats left in the water for the plants is the nitrates.
 
tomomothy said:
Bottom line is nitrates come from waste breaking down. the brown dirty looking stuff is either waste or dead plant/fish parts breaking down. It will increase your nitrates if it just sits there and continues to break down. Do you have mechanical filtration before your planted section? All junk should be filtered so that all thats left in the water for the plants is the nitrates.
Click to expand...

There are filter pads and bio balls where in water enters the sump.
Then the plant area and then more filter pad and finally through a pond filter which returns water to the main tank.
I also use an Ultima 4000 on the main tank.
Last night i turned up the drip to 4 gals per hour.
Before last nights cleaning I checked nitrate and it was high. 80 ppm.
I'll check again tonight
I need a nitrate reactor. I thought for sure, with all the filtration, I'd be good.
Guess not!

I'm gonna have to design some kind of a nitrate reactor.
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my planted tanks get that if I don't clean it for like 3 weeks, it doesn't seem to hurt the fish. I siphon it out because it's pretty ugly.
 
Your right, it is ugly.
But with all the plants, I can't get down in the substrate to suck it out, without hurting the plants.
I think next time. I'll just stir things up and see what happens.

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Should I stay away from a sulfur denitrator? Because of freshwater plants. How about the coil diy denitrator? Do they work good enough?
Or should I just spend the money and buy a store bought one?
Opinions please.

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I think denitrators can work very well. That being said, they are finicky and expensive. They need constant adjustments to stay effective.

Water changes are cheaper and cover far more ground than just removing nitrates. For a fraction of the price of a denitrator you could setup a drip or auto water changer.


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