Seachem Matrix?

[rhodes_96]

2 - Fair enough but then what about the tank that was previously hooked to the sump with all the Matrix? Was that tank also running at near zero nitrates?

3 - So its Pond Matrix now, not the regular stuff you buy in Pet Smart and you happen to have a 50 micron poly sheeting. The <50 micron silt will also clog the Matrix. I had Matrix, CellPore, and a couple other hard-porous bio medias. I discovered over time they clog up, so I switched to sponges.

Are you sure you are not making this up as you go...lol.

All joking aside, you need a better test environment and procedures to back up any claim that Matrix (excuse me; Pond Matrix) really reduces nitrates in any significant manner.

You could be responsible for a bunch of less informed people reading this thread and wasting their money on a product that has no impact in the average fish tank.

Yes I am making my results up so seachem notice my posts and hopefully give me a job as a door to door salesperson.

The results are what they are ! The testing could have been better controlled, but I don't have time or the resources to spend on doing that.

As I said previously the results surprised me. I have used matrix in canisters and small quantity's in sumps for many years and have not noticed anything special compared to other media. I have always had low nitrate levels in my tanks and I put that down to being regular with my water changes.
I have been using 50 and 100 micron poly sheets overlapped for years as primary mechanical filtration in my sumps. When I change them, the media looks fine, and my water parameters are all good, so if it ain't broke don't fix it !

 

[drdrewr]

Bigals the cheapest?

Not the absolute cheapest, but, close enough. You can get cheaper (I did), but, the drama wasn't worth it. If I were to order some more today (hahahaha - I don't have to. I now have a reserve of 12 liters unopened), I would order it from Big Als. The only reason I went elsewhere is because I bought the rest of Big Als inventory!!! I still had more canisters to fill. After about 1 1/2 months of waiting, I went elsewhere. I'm still scarred from that experience.

 

[drdrewr]

I do not understand how it could reduce nitrates in anything other than the short term unless it has sulphur or a carbon based nutrient in there, the anaerobic bacteria need next to no oxygen and a carbon food source to turn the no3 to nitrogen gas, this is why we feed a nitrate reactor with vodka or have sulphur beads.

I am not saying it cannot work but need to understand how?...

Matrix is, essentially, artificial live rock (after a few months). It will (and does -- ask the salties about this) work!!! I "did" run a test. I did a water change on my 29 gallon and siphoned the water into a 5 gallon home depot bucket. I then hooked up an eheim 2228 with nothing but matrix and the stock eheim sponges and ran it that way since April 2010. By late July, I was feeling cheated. By late August, I was still less than impressed. By the first week of September I felt complete redemption in my purchase. It, apparently, requires major patience to let Matrix (and similar competitive solutions) "mature" before they fully achieve what the manufacturer(s) claim.

All of these products (probably) do the same thing, but, we (at least me) have become a society of "instant expectations". Go ahead and "use" the Matrix and then just "wait"!!! You "do" have to clean your filters regularly. If you don't, then it won't matter what kind of media you have in there. As you have read in so many posts from so many experienced MFKers, there is no substitute for maintenance!!! Matrix cannot compensate for a bunch of mulm breaking down in your filters. You've got to get that stuff out of your ecosystem. If you do, you will realize the full benefit of what Matrix does.

I am currently running over 20L of it for my 265 tall. Although I have other NNR methods in place, once I changed from gravel to sand and started cleaning my filters regularly my nitrate issues went the way of the dodo.

 

[vfc]

Matrix is, essentially, artificial live rock (after a few months). It will (and does -- ask the salties about this) work!!! I "did" run a test. I did a water change on my 29 gallon and siphoned the water into a 5 gallon home depot bucket. I then hooked up an eheim 2228 with nothing but matrix and the stock eheim sponges and ran it that way since April 2010. By late July, I was feeling cheated. By late August, I was still less than impressed. By the first week of September I felt complete redemption in my purchase. It, apparently, requires major patience to let Matrix (and similar competitive solutions) "mature" before they fully achieve what the manufacturer(s) claim.

All of these products (probably) do the same thing, but, we (at least me) have become a society of "instant expectations". Go ahead and "use" the Matrix and then just "wait"!!! You "do" have to clean your filters regularly. If you don't, then it won't matter what kind of media you have in there. As you have read in so many posts from so many experienced MFKers, there is no substitute for maintenance!!! Matrix cannot compensate for a bunch of mulm breaking down in your filters. You've got to get that stuff out of your ecosystem. If you do, you will realize the full benefit of what Matrix does.

I am currently running over 20L of it for my 265 tall. Although I have other NNR methods in place, once I changed from gravel to sand and started cleaning my filters regularly my nitrate issues went the way of the dodo.

Can I have a little more detail on your 29G experiment? You said it took about 5 months for the anaerobic bacteria to become effective. Was there incremental improvement over the past couple months or did it suddenly "kick in"?

What was the bioload (i.e., how many and how large are the fish) in the 29G? How high did the nitrates climb before the water changes and what was the level after the WC?

What was the tank contents other then fish; e.g., sand, plants, driftwood, etc?

Did you maintain the same WC schedule?

What was the actual nitrate reduction rate?

Thanks...

 

[ar0wan]

 

[drdrewr]

Can I have a little more detail on your 29G experiment? You said it took about 5 months for the anaerobic bacteria to become effective. Was there incremental improvement over the past couple months or did it suddenly "kick in"?

What was the bioload (i.e., how many and how large are the fish) in the 29G? How high did the nitrates climb before the water changes and what was the level after the WC?

What was the tank contents other then fish; e.g., sand, plants, driftwood, etc?

Did you maintain the same WC schedule?

What was the actual nitrate reduction rate?

Thanks...

Darn it!!! I misled you a little bit. This was a "controlled" experiment without any bioload. During a water change, I siphoned the nitrate-laden water into a five-gallon bucket and hooked the filter up to that (the five-gallon bucket). I needed to actually see the nitrate reduction before I would allow myself to believe Seachems' claims.

If I had done this on the tank itself (which "does" have a bio-load) and did not see improvement, then I would not know if the Matrix just did not work at all, or, if my bio-load was just too heavy. After about 4 1/2 months of not seeing any reduction in the 5gal, the next week the nitrates suddenly went away. At this point, I dumped the bucket and re-filled with nitrate-laden water. In two days, nitrate went to 0!!! This was proof enough for me. I now have all of my filters (with the exception of two Eheim 2228s) filled with Matrix. They need more time to mature before I'll see their effect (I gradually changed them over to matrix throughout the course of the summer), but of course, those filters are on systems with bio-load. I'm using a total of about 40L worth of matrix via two Eheim 2260, two Fluval 404, one Fluval FX-5, and one Fluval 205. The two Eheim 2228s are now filled with denitrate and used as prefilters to two separate nextreef reactors filled with Purigen. Cleaning my filters regularly and the use of Purigen is keeping my nitrates at bay right now. I can't yet say that the matrix is playing a role in this yet. After a few more months, I'm going to pull the Purigen and measure how matrix handles my bioload on its' own.

Nitrates were "off the chart" both times I filled the bucket. I had dumped some old efisubstrat media (less than 1L) in the bucket and never took it out during the experiment.

Also, I did not clean the Eheim 2228 during the experiment (with the bucket) as there was nothing to clean. It was just water and nothing being added to the bucket (i.e. there was nothing in it to feed).

Hope this is helpful.

 

[Mr Pleco]

Has anyone tried Seachem Matrix?

It "claims" that the size of it's surface area and pores allows it to also cultivate a healthy amount of nitrate-eating bacteria also, and not just nitrite eating bacteria. While I would not expect this to replace a water change, it may be a compelling addition to a filter system. Some people have said it really works. One user review reported nitrates going down from 20ppm to 4ppm the first week of use.

I love it.... I use Matrix and pond matrix in all my canisters...around 15 filters currently.. Plus I even place a layer in the bottom of my DIY sumps..

 

[drdrewr]

Has anyone tried Seachem Matrix?

It "claims" that the size of it's surface area and pores allows it to also cultivate a healthy amount of nitrate-eating bacteria also, and not just nitrite eating bacteria. While I would not expect this to replace a water change, it may be a compelling addition to a filter system. Some people have said it really works. One user review reported nitrates going down from 20ppm to 4ppm the first week of use.

I seriously doubt that anyone is going to see matrix playing a role in nitrate reduction after just one week in use. It takes "months" (three to five) for the bacteria to culture/mature in the media. Any nitrate reduction, as described above, was almost certainly due to the "cleaning of their filter" while exchanging the media (i.e. all of the nitrate-producing crap that had accumulated in the filter is now "gone").

 

[rhodes_96]

Update to the testing.

I have decided to do a little more testing since this tank will be pulled down in about a month.

The tank is a 180 gallon with 40 gallon sump.
This tank has 20 L pond matrix
2 x 10.5" x 10.5" x 1.5" sheets of jap matt,
Approx 15 L of bio balls
1.1kg crushed coral
Jap matt is always submerged and about 1/4 of of the matrix is submerged.
Water is delivered to the sump via spinning spray bars over poly mech filter sheets.
Tank has 1x RTG arowana, 2 x salfin pleco, 1 x senegal bichir + few small fish.
The tank has some driftwood.

This setup has been running for over 6 months in it's current form.
This tank has not had a water change in 1 week as of today. Starting nitrate levels are 0-5ppm. The fish are feed 1-2 times a day depending on the day.
Today's readings are as follows
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0-5ppm
Ph 7.05
Temp 26.9c
Phosphate 0.25-0.5ppm
dkh 4

I will run this test for 4 weeks as long as the tank parameters and the fish are ok. I will post my results at the end of every week.
I will only change poly mech filter sheets if need be and add top up water to the sump. I will also monitor orp of the water and if it goes vastly out of range I will stop the test.

 

[rhodes_96]

Today's readings are as follows
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0-5ppm
Ph 6.95
Temp 27.1c
Phosphate 1-2ppm
dkh 4

Only maintenance done to the tank top up around 1 gallon water, change a faulty ph probe to a new one, and calibrate it.