jml1149
New member
Right but isn't the front end of the reactor pressurized? Does your dosing hole already exist?
And yeah, I used a bunch of denitrate, I might go back in tonight and mix it all up after the bio balls
Donovan's Nitrate Destroyer
- Thread starter djbon
- Start date
Right but isn't the front end of the reactor pressurized? Does your dosing hole already exist?
And yeah, I used a bunch of denitrate, I might go back in tonight and mix it all up after the bio balls
djbon
New member
Even the front end is not pressurized. The water pump is merely pumping water into the front end chamber, my dosing hole is not plugged. If the reactor is clogged, water will overflow through the dosing hole. As long as the IV hose is loosely placed into the dosing hole, the pressure will not build up in there.
jml1149
New member
Back in business.
I emptied out the "right" side of the system where the denitrate is, and had to literally chisel out a 2" thick chunk of crud that looks to be accumulated dust, particles, and bacteria from the media. Put it all back in and boom! Flowing like never before.
Lesson learned? Rinse the media well before putting it in. Hopefully, this will prevent it from clogging in the future and I didn't disturb the bacteria too much, as I was seeing very positive results.
I have one vial left of bacteria, I'll probably seed when I get home just to be safe. Thanks again for all of the help.
I emptied out the "right" side of the system where the denitrate is, and had to literally chisel out a 2" thick chunk of crud that looks to be accumulated dust, particles, and bacteria from the media. Put it all back in and boom! Flowing like never before.
Lesson learned? Rinse the media well before putting it in. Hopefully, this will prevent it from clogging in the future and I didn't disturb the bacteria too much, as I was seeing very positive results.
I have one vial left of bacteria, I'll probably seed when I get home just to be safe. Thanks again for all of the help.
djbon
New member
Jml, how thick is your denitrate media?. I would suggest if you going to use a litre or more, sandwiching denitrate media with medium sized coral rubble will ensure smooth water flow. Denitrate does contain fine dust out of the bottle. Rinsing the media is a must 
. I am happy that you are seeing positive result. My sps are growing quite fast, very happy with my reactor so far.
. I am happy that you are seeing positive result. My sps are growing quite fast, very happy with my reactor so far.
jml1149
New member
Not sure exactly, but it's at least 4-5" of a 6" pipe. When I reloaded it, I didn't pack it down as I previously had and mixed in some bio media. We will see! Normally I couldn't get through a day of dosing, so when I get home tonight hope to see a nice steady flow. Will let you know.
ravi197699
Member
I have tested water yesterday in my DT and nitrate reading is LO with exactiDIP digital tester, I has been dropping continiously, There is another thing I have noticed, I travel on weekly basis and when ever I come back there is brown film on the glass that I have to clean with my magnets and last week i did not have to clean anything, All three sides of the glass were neat, This could be due to low Nitrates..But I am still working getting the material ready to build 10" diameter reactor,
djbon
New member
Yep, clogged again. Sandwiched the denigrate between 0.5" bioballs as best could. Flowing like a champ again today
Haha. It shouldn't clogged unless you overdosed. I discovered another trick to unclogged the reactor faster. Just cover the dosing hole, increase the flow to pressurized the reactor until it there is a good effluent outflow. So far it clogged once, stop dosing and it recovers in 2 days.
ravi197699
Member
I thought of this issue while I was building my reactor so I have the input and output of the reactor 1/2" and Vinegar dosing input is 1/4" tubing, 1/2" gives enogh room for slime to wash out where 1/4" tube does not have enough room, remember 1/4" tube has 1/4" in OD and inside is even smaller than 1/4".. just a suggestion ..
djbon
New member
Mixing various media sizes in alternating sandwich pattern should minimized or eliminate clogging due to excessive bacteria growth. 1/2" tubing or PVC pipes for output is fine for much bigger reactor. I did use 1/2" PVC pipes for one of my built, but you won't be seeing the bubbles when they first fully matured
. If you build your 10" reactor, i think you can upsize the media to bigger one, maybe the last section you can use matrix instead of denitrate. Can't wait to see your next beast Ravi :O
ravi197699
Member
This is awesome
Don after 3 months of continuously operating and nopox dosing into the denitrator, I can not replicate your results.....I still measures the same no3 both at display and denitrator outlet
The only difference with you is that I never dosed any commercial bacteria. So I would like to know , how often , in what quantity, and what product, are you dosing at the beginning and also now at the maintenance period.
The only difference with you is that I never dosed any commercial bacteria. So I would like to know , how often , in what quantity, and what product, are you dosing at the beginning and also now at the maintenance period.
djbon
New member
Wow. After so long the denitrator should have brought down your no3 almost zero. Okay, i used mb7 and China made fm100 to seed the chamber. 5ml to 10ml per day bacteria, along with vodka 10ml daily. I stopped bacteria dosing after a week, continue vodka dosing until no3 start dropping. Adjust vodka dosing, if you have socks and you are catching the effluent, bacteria slime should build up on the socks.
So you dosed bacteria only for the first week or do you continues dose a maintenance dose?
jml1149
New member
Just a couple of days ago, I started getting a sulfur smell around the tank, and I can't be 100% sure, but I think it was coming out of the reactor. Which would indicate the reactor was too anoxic, and was creating sulfur bad stuff. I did see some white "snots" coming out of the reactor, but that day there was some black as well. Pretty sure the black was bad. So, I shut it down and flushed it out, and the smell is gone.
Previously, never really had a way to measure the effectivity or performance of this reactor, other than watching for lowering nitrates. However, after a bit of reading the interwebs, these types of things were very popular at one point, and some reactors used ORP to ensure the low oxygen environment was acheieved, without going compleley anoxic as I'm pretty sure I did.
My new plan is to get another ORP probe for my Apex, swap the leads to measure negative ORP, tie it into the reactor, and use it to validate I'm maintaining the correct environment. Should be fun!
And then step 2 is to get a DC controllable pump and command it to vary flow speed into the reactor to hopefully optimize the heck it. Because engineering is fun!
gregkn73, these bacteria are naturally occurring, so the only reason that would make sense to me, that this isn't working for you, is that you're not maintaining low enough oxygen. You can check this on the output with an ORP probe. Apparently, the target reading is -170mv. Have you tried slowing down the reactor to a trickle?
Previously, never really had a way to measure the effectivity or performance of this reactor, other than watching for lowering nitrates. However, after a bit of reading the interwebs, these types of things were very popular at one point, and some reactors used ORP to ensure the low oxygen environment was acheieved, without going compleley anoxic as I'm pretty sure I did.
My new plan is to get another ORP probe for my Apex, swap the leads to measure negative ORP, tie it into the reactor, and use it to validate I'm maintaining the correct environment. Should be fun!
And then step 2 is to get a DC controllable pump and command it to vary flow speed into the reactor to hopefully optimize the heck it. Because engineering is fun!
gregkn73, these bacteria are naturally occurring, so the only reason that would make sense to me, that this isn't working for you, is that you're not maintaining low enough oxygen. You can check this on the output with an ORP probe. Apparently, the target reading is -170mv. Have you tried slowing down the reactor to a trickle?
