Looking for denitrification system for 125 Used OR OPINIONS ON THEM APPRECIATED

[torit123]

I've had consistent problems with my nitrates in my 125 and as a beginner (1year) have gotten so many conflicting opinions on a solution, I have a fish/coral tank and apparently my pinnate batfish is the problem. My nitrates just hit 100 and I've had repeated issues here, had a water change just 2 weeks back so wasn't expecting this so fast.

I was told by one LPS that the denitrification unit is the only solution (I don't want to get rid of thje batfish unless he gets a great ideal environment in a very large tank).

I was told by another LPS that nitrates of 100 are no big deal and wouldn't affect my coral....no way is this true but he also advised that the denitrification units are more trouble than they are worth and not to bother.

Any ideas on used denitration systems for sale out there? I will be at the frag swap...

OR OPINIONS>>>>

Also a friend looking for metal halide 250 watts.

Thank you !!!

 

[Rogger Castells]

what kind of tank and filtration do you use? you need to post more details of your system if you want to get feedback that is accurate

 

[Malcolm_C]

well, im just getting back into the hobbie, but from what i've been reading many people are doing remote sandbeds, cheap to set up very low maint. just do a search on or RC. so many others things to do too, fluidized sandbed filter, Big als runs a huge one. more live rock, refuge etc.. etc.. all have pros and cons, im sure theres hundrreds of threads on nitrate\nitrite control.

 

[Kogo]

have you tested with more than one test kit?
faulty test kits are the first thing to rule out.

after that i would vote for a refugium. this would remove nutrients as whole products leaving nothing to break down into nitrate in the first place.


side note:
fluidized sand bed filters are used by commercial opperations for thier ability to grow bacteria very rapidly in changing bioload conditions (like when you order $4,000 worth of fish at a time) this highly oxygenated enviornment is excellent for removing amonia and nitrite, but i dont think it would do much for removing nitrate.

 

[torit123]

Here's my best shot at tank details, 125 with wetdry and new corallife 125 skimmer and UV Sterilizer. Tank is about 7 years old, I bought it used 1 year ago. Came to me with Excellent coraline algae growth. She had it set up as a plenum system which is still somewhat intact but sometimes exposed, Crushed coral deep sand bed 4-5 inches. Approx 100 pds of rock and atleast that much sand.

Stock:
small engineer goby
12 inch Pinatus Bat
3 tANGS..1 sAIL, 1 HIPPO AND A YELLOW 3-4 INCHES
1 DRAGON WRASSE (HE'S ON HIS WAY OUT WHEN i can CATCH HIM and the LPS is open)
2 maroon clowns 3 INCHES AND 1 INCH
2 BRITTLE STARS, 1 BLUE STARFISH
A COUPLE OF SHRIMP
AND APPROX 12-15 CORALS etc:
HAMMER
Frogspawn, 2 leathers, star polyps, multiple attempts at xenia
Pineapple coral
Plamyra..sp? like favia
Large long tip anenome
Lobophellia just passed on.
5 inch sun coral
a few mushrooms
Most recent water peramters:
salt: 1.025
PH 7.86
Nitrates 100ppm
pHOSPHATES .25 put in new phosguard since
aLKALINITY 5.6 VERY LOW.... have dosed buffer since
calcium 520
magnesium 1200


Have been dosing Kagwasser (sP) daily with replacement water.
Also recently started using Mark Weise Reef DNA weekly
Dosing coral foods 2x a week, small amounts.

Evap is 1.5 gallons daily and I do real saltwater water changes monthly.

Thanks for taking the time, any advise is so helpful and very appreciated.

 

[Rogger Castells]

now we are talking, if you running a wet dry with the bio-balls or any other media, you bet anything you want that is were you have your nitrate factory, that is after all what they are design for, breakdown amonia into nitrate and they are very good at that.

The reason why this system work in the pass (fish only tanks) is because fish are not affected by nitrates, however that is not the case for inverts, they are not crazy about it.

As far as the ph and the Alk are concern you have a problem that needs to be resolve ASAP, basically your calcium-Alk-Ph & MG are not Balanced, hard to say how to target them, however, in the pass and IMO the best way to target this unbalance is to make large water changes, as suppose to try to correct one while disturbing the other, but is you do want to do that this is an article that could help http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/

I dunno what MW dna is but if I was you I would stop adding it until you have your chemistry under conmtrol

 

[bawla47]

i agree exactly what rogger said

i would do a few water changes, but test your salt also and make sure its where you want it, i think your calc is precipitating out your water, and that tends to drive your alk down i think, (correct me if im wrong)

if you have any wet dry type setup, get rid of it.

Also, if your setup is running at its max, id recommend abucket deep sand bed. really simple to plumb up and it works great at lowering your nitrates.

theres also alcohol that i think people have been dosing, but ive heard somewhat mixed reviews. i myself am a bit afraid to try it.
anyhow good luck, hope you get it worked out

 

[ahlikeit]

denitrification system

denitrification system

Hi,
I have one if you're still intrested.... I'm in Pembrook Pines

 

[seas3to5]

The first thing I would do is read the direction on Mark Weise Reef DNA . It will raise your nitrates. His product work great , but you have to go by the directions , just like any other product you put in your tank. Then stop out at , I think the name of the shop is Coral Sea on state road 7, Ask Rob he has been using a unit for years.

 

[torit123]

Thank you so much everyone

Thank you so much everyone

I've wanted to reply sooner but can only respond from my home computer, going to the frag swap today so hopefully I'll see a new possibility in my set up. I quess the wetdry is out of the picture.

Also Yes I would be interested in speaking with you about the denitrification untit, is it sulfur or regular...

You can email me at victoriaturvey at bellsouth dot net.
May be we can me at the swap !

Thanks again all !!

 

[torit123]

I FOUND MY PROBLEM !!!!!

I FOUND MY PROBLEM !!!!!

Wow, I had friends over tonight who hovered around the aquarium for hours, as i was explaining the wet dry system went to shine my flashlight into the bio media (I don't have bioballs, just had a 7-10 inches of bio matter under the screen,it's a very mature tank).

Well, the bio area was gone !!!! There was nothing there...now am I right???...that is my nitrate problem, I've had nothing doing the breakdown. If I am right I am so releaved and would love advice at this point, I guess i need to get bio balls asap, with the bio media gone the water level is lower so I can lower that plastic screen to let the water in bioball compartment rise (only 1 inch of water above now.

I can't believe it took so long for me to figure this out, I'm also astounded that the guys who come to check the tank and do my waterchanges never figured it out either.

So what next ?

 

[ZURCSREEF]

1st, Change your maintanance guy right away.
2nd, DO NOT put bioballs in your sump if its matured already... I would suggest modding your wet/dry a little better so you don't have to have a stack of 10" of "bio-material", set it up so all you have to do is put one strip of poly filter or just run filter socks.
3rd, Goodluck

 

[Bullredchaser]

That is incorrect,no bio balls is actually helping you.In Berlin Systems there is no bio balls and live rock is doing all the conversion.Your biggest problem is using crushed coral as a media.Especially 5 inches of it.This is your biggest problem IMO.I would swap it out with a shallow fine sand bed or even better go bare bottom.Also my personel experience is that the Coralife skimmers are not very effecient and a upgrade is in order.Or maybe even a mod to it if money is tight.If you can remove most of the waste before it breaks down with a skimmer ,ammonia will be removed before it can be broke down and ultimately ending up as nitrate.I would also recommend a refugium with miracle mud as it's one of the best natural denitrifiers around.One thing of note is you will need to do lots of water changes as nitrates will get into your rock and it will be a while before you can remove them completely from the tank.I don't recommend you do it but if you did a 100% water change in a couple of days you would be surprised to see the nitrates raise high again in the tank.Due to the process of osmosis where the concentration of nitrates being higher in the sand and rock,will release into the new water untill both levels of nitrates are equal.On a different note your phosphates should be less than .03 in a reef tank and 0 or .01 being better.You should beaware that .25 is considered off the charts.Use a reactor or don't even bother using phosphate removers.Brands of media that work well for me are Phosban,Rowaphos,or Eco Phos.Your magnesium should be higher as well.The first thing I would do If I was you would be to do weekly water changes of about 25-30% just to get the parameters back in check and to cleanse the system.The old saying goes the best solution to polution is dillution.