DIY Sulfur Denitrator

[Belgian Anthias]

Testing

Testing

I will keep testing Just fir fun

I find this very interesting. Do you have the possibility for measuring oxygen levels?
Can you test nitrite and nitrate levels at the output of the coil?
Normally it should take some weeks before the coil thus the job.
I have no doubt that the setup increases the performance of the SD reactor but is it worth the risk. The coil will have very quickly a bacteria film at the inside which will influence the en-fluent, finally clog your system and give you some problems to think about.
I would use a bigger tube and test the oxygen level diff. to determine the length of the tube after some weeks of use.
If you have the space, I would go for a bigger SD instead of the coil, until you prove me otherwise
Please keep us informed.

 

[Isayso]

yep!!
I can do most of the things you mentioned
I will keep informed

 

[Dave & Monica]

Not well versed since I don't have an ORP meter. The jist of it was ORP measures the lack of O2. Since the goal of the reactor is to deprive O2, a -120 was a desirable spot. -320 meant too little O2 and likely to produce a sulfur smell. Searching for what I posted should yield a lot more details.

My reactor started leaking again.... frustrating. I cleaned and re-sealed the hole again. Need to start over in a few days.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

Orp?

Orp?

Not well versed since I don't have an ORP meter. The jist of it was ORP measures the lack of O2. Since the goal of the reactor is to deprive O2, a -120 was a desirable spot. -320 meant too little O2 and likely to produce a sulfur smell. Searching for what I posted should yield a lot more details.

This is what happens
11 S + 10 NO3- + 4.1 HCO3- + 0.5 CO2 + 1.71 NH4+ + 2.5 H2O ---> 0.92 C5H7NO2 +
11 SO4-- + 5.4 N2 + 9.62 H+

All sulfur derivatives (S, S-, H2S enz"¦) will be oxidized to sulfate where the bacteria use the sulfur as fuel and the oxygen from the nitrate when the oxygen in the water becomes insufficient. When there is no oxygen available the biomass C5H7NO2 will die and H2S can be formed. This can happen when the reactor is clogged or the water flows true channels producing dead spots in the reactor. When the water flow is channeling the outflow will have more oxygen and have possible nitrite readings. I do not see how ORP readings can avoid this.
When your SD reactor is fluidized and the flow is between 1 to 5x the amount of sulfur taking in account 0 Nitrate, KH and PH you will have a stable system which you have to check only once a week and stays stable for months. With a high flow you may have KH and PH fluctuations so you have to bring it down a bit all depending of the calcification media you use. The place where the system is degassed is also important , before or after the calcium reactor.
So, my conclusion is that ORP readings have little value in building a safe system, again, till someone proves me otherwise.
I have PH monitoring at the en-fluent. I find this more important.

 

[Dagsy]

I am building one!

I am building one!

Hi guys! I am brand spanking new to this and have just become a member of RC!!! Ty, Ty, and Ty...
Last week I built the DJ Denitrator from his pics on page 4. I have a question about the sulfur though. I went to Home Depot and they did not have it so I went to on ebay and found granular sulfur that is kinda brownish/gray in color. I was wondering if anybody has used this kind before. Also the tank I am hoping to get the nitrates down is a 200 gallon heavily stocked African Cichlid tank. I do 50% water changes every Friday and they seem to always stay at very very high. The API test is always a very deep red. My PH is 7.5 and 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites. I keep the tank at 78 degrees and run 2 fluval 404's and the biggest HOB with the dual bio wheels. I clean the sponges and blue filters once a week and have a sand aragonite substrate with about 200 pounds of texas holey rock and lace. Fish load is about 30-40 3"-10". Thanks!

 

[Dagsy]

media problem

media problem

I went out and bought the Carib Sea Sulfur and after putting it into the reactor with the aragonite it was rising to the top and causing the pump to clog up with the small pieces. Anybody know what I am doing wrong here???
Thanks for your assitance!

 

[Belgian Anthias]

I went out and bought the Carib Sea Sulfur and after putting it into the reactor with the aragonite it was rising to the top and causing the pump to clog up with the small pieces. Anybody know what I am doing wrong here???
Thanks for your assitance!

Probably did not use filter patches

 

[Belgian Anthias]

sulfur

sulfur

Hi guys! I am brand spanking new to this and have just become a member of RC!!! Ty, Ty, and Ty...
Last week I built the DJ Denitrator from his pics on page 4. I have a question about the sulfur though. I went to Home Depot and they did not have it so I went to on ebay and found granular sulfur that is kinda brownish/gray in color. I was wondering if anybody has used this kind before. Also the tank I am hoping to get the nitrates down is a 200 gallon heavily stocked African Cichlid tank. I do 50% water changes every Friday and they seem to always stay at very very high. The API test is always a very deep red. My PH is 7.5 and 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites. I keep the tank at 78 degrees and run 2 fluval 404's and the biggest HOB with the dual bio wheels. I clean the sponges and blue filters once a week and have a sand aragonite substrate with about 200 pounds of texas holey rock and lace. Fish load is about 30-40 3"-10". Thanks!

If you need a lot of sulfur, in horticulture they use it to be burned against some deseases in greenhouses.
It is also used in wine making.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

question?

question?

I know one thing: next time I'm taking the reactor offline, I will empty it out, rinse all the media and the reactor!

I'm also chucking the old sulfur, since there are a lot of black particles in with it, and I don't want to find out later that I was saving at the wrong end.
By the way, I was using the LSM media, and it did not fall apart or create any slime, so I can say it worked well for me and I'll be using it again this time.

I hope you are still on line because I have an imported question.
I am making a paper about sulfur-denitration.
As I can make out from your postings you did not remove the water from the reactor when closing it down?
Our experience is that when the water is removed and the reactor is closed air tight he can be re-used even afther six months using the normal start up procedure. The start up sequence will be a lot faster. The reactor will be full operational after only+- 4 days.
I just want to know if you can remember what you did exactely when closing down the reactor. It would help me a lot; Thank You!

 

[V.Shaq]

Wondering what the results are...

Wondering what the results are...

yep!!
I can do most of the things you mentioned
I will keep informed

Isayso I was wondering what the results are, if you had a chance to record them. As I have just completed reading this thread (two days/98 pages=brain dead :hmm5: ). I have as many others have done, built one of these SD very close to dj's design from reefkeeping magazine except it looks like the updated design form this thread and I used 1/2" pvc instead of the cpvc(not available locally). I have also added the 25' tube 3/8" OD that feeds the SD from return line plumping. I layered the unit with the drain, corse filter disc, Carrib Sea LSM 1.62L, corse filter disc, Seacham Matrix 1.5L this sits about half an inch below recirc intake(Maxi Jet 900). I made a second unit with 3" PVC for the Carrib Sea ARM, I made the water inlet at the bottom tapped a Watts 1/4" OD to 1/4" MIP. Put a drain, corse filter media, and filled it to the top with ARM almost the whole gallon. The water outlet was from the top of the cap same Watts fitting as the water inlet.

I had the unit up for about a week since 1/29. I rinised the media throughly in a bucket with tank water. Started the motor and let the unit cure for 24 hours. Added the media as described above. I then ran SD with water at full flow for 24 hours. Then to 1dps. I have since tested the effluent daily for Nirite, Nirate, and every third day for Ammonia. I use a API test kit. The first day of 1dps Nirate was the same as the DT 160ppm probably more since the color changes before the 5 minutes, Nitrites were .25-.50ppm same as DT some star fish were attacked and died, Ammonia was Zero from both. On the second day Nirates were 10-20ppm DT was 160ppm fruit punch, Nitrites were getting higher .5-1ppm DT was .25-.50ppm. On the thrid day Nitrates were 5-10ppm DT was 160ppm fruit punch, Nitrite was 2-5ppm DT .5-1ppm (dont think I found them all!!! :worried: ). I have gotten some weird reading after the third day. On the fourth day Nitrates were 0-5ppm DT was 160ppm fruit punch, the weird thing when testing the effluent was when I put the 1st 10 drops their was a brownish tint to the normal yellow color. Nitrites were 5ppm DT .25-.50ppm, when testing the effluent the drops turned darkest on chart as they desended in the tube makes me think it is way higher. On the fifth day Nirates were 0-5ppm DT was 160ppm fruit punch. Nitrites were 5ppm DT was 0-.25ppm, had the same issue with Nitrate and Nitrite effluent test as the previous day. Ammonia Zero in both. On the 6th day Nitrates were 5-10ppm DT was 160ppm fruit punch, Nitrites 5ppm DT 0ppm. Again both effluent tests had same problem as previous day. This is when I started to read this thread.(PH was 7.9 - 8.1 during the first week of testing)

Originally I was controlling the water flow to the unit from the water inlet, then started reading the thread here at RC and started controlling the water flow through the effluent valve on the SD. On the 7th day I checked the unit and found It was leaking a bit from the cap so I had to open it(Delyed the cycle :headwally: ) and teflon tape it real good. At this time I removed the second chamber until SD cycles to make sure I do not get an inaccurate reading. Also I have opened the vent valve until water came up then closed and bled any extra air. I opened the effluent valve and allowed about a third of a 5gal bucket fill up and reduced the effluent to 1 dps.

What I want to know besides the info on the 25' tube is can I increase the flow rate if Nirite is detectable and Nitrate is 0ppm? Also does or has anyone expirence this issue with the effluent out testing?

Thank you all for any input......
V

The Journy so far
:spin3: -> :reading: -> :hmm5: -> :headwally: Ouch!!!! -> :angryfire:
_________________________________________________________________
Also some system info Custom 250 gallon artificial reef insert rockery DT with Custom 75 gallon Wet/Dry, 250lbs live sand/ crushed coral, Reeflo Dart Hybrid return pump, RedSea C-Skim 1800, 4 Maxi Jet 1200 recirculating impeller, GAMMA UV 25 watt, I house mostly fish and star fish and 2 sea urchins. Very Heavy Feeder but never have left overs in the tank.

 

[moondoggy4]

Nice read haven't finished it yet, but thanks to everyone who made this work.
I do have a Deltec Nitrate Reactor Alcohol based and want to convert it sulfur based unit, the alcohol based units have a terrible side affect, it produces a white slim that will consume your tank and clog all of your plumbing, nasty stuff it has to be physically removed.

 

[tonythefish]

So I used my ORP probe in a cup where the effluent would drip into and I was able to tune and set warning parameters. My magic #'s where 175 to 150 ORP . Anything less than 150 you would start to get the smell and anything above 175 I would start to read Nitrates .. This is over the last 6 months but eventually clogging occurred and at very high ( stream ) of effluent I could no longer maintain 150 . So time to take it down and start over .

Next I was thinking of separating the sulfur and ARM in two different reactors to help prolong clogging .

 

[emanolo13]

My new top I will be using

im buidling a better biggger reactor my questions is how did you make this or where did you get them?
thanks

 

[emanolo13]

did you ever make a thread about building this reactor???

 

[newguy88]

so the ph coming out the the reactor is 7.5 what would i have to do if i wanted to get it say to 8.2ph? thank you

 

[Dave & Monica]

That is nice looking top from Kreeger1. My last post sounded as if I never fixed my leak. I did. A few items: I ended up simply taking out the circulating pump. I found it is not needed for the long haul running of this unit. Also, my effluent is always at just a drip (about 2 per second). This keeps my No3 at about 5ppm, always, with no fuss or adjustments.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

So I used my ORP probe in a cup where the effluent would drip into and I was able to tune and set warning parameters. My magic #'s where 175 to 150 ORP . Anything less than 150 you would start to get the smell and anything above 175 I would start to read Nitrates .. This is over the last 6 months but eventually clogging occurred and at very high ( stream ) of effluent I could no longer maintain 150 . So time to take it down and start over .

Next I was thinking of separating the sulfur and ARM in two different reactors to help prolong clogging .

It would be better to have separated reactors and put a closed loop on it with a little pump to make the media move. The reactor will never clog again; You can use any container that you can close air tight.
Please continue to share your experience with ORP readings. Very interesting.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

co2

co2

so the ph coming out the the reactor is 7.5 what would i have to do if i wanted to get it say to 8.2ph? thank you

It may still contain CO2. Some air could help. If no change, more ore better calcification media.

 

[Holyreefer]

So I have built this reactor & purchased a replacement maxi jet 1200 only to notice the motor housing isn't the same size as the old ones were so now my reactor leaks where the maxijet 1200 would go. Can someone suggest anything to make this fit? It fits it's just not a tight enough fit to keep it from leaking

 

[Belgian Anthias]

ORP readings

ORP readings

So I used my ORP probe in a cup where the effluent would drip into and I was able to tune and set warning parameters. My magic #'s where 175 to 150 ORP . Anything less than 150 you would start to get the smell and anything above 175 I would start to read Nitrates .. This is over the last 6 months but eventually clogging occurred and at very high ( stream ) of effluent I could no longer maintain 150 . So time to take it down and start over .

The working of the sulphur reactor depends of the lack of free oxygen in the water. The water that has dripped into a cup will have taken oxygen from the air so the readings will never be correct. The measurements should be made in a closed system. A rebuild calcium reactor would be ideal because it has the possibility to put in a PH probe which could be replaced by a ORP probe. Any recipient that can be closed air tight can be fitted with a probe and the effluent line to get correct readings.