Matrix (and siporax) questions, to keep from derailing Sahin's thread.....

[DiscusHeckel]

I have read through this thread, matrix and siporax are able to maintain nitrate level in decent range. Does this also apply for phosphate? Or just nitrate ? And you add anything at all, like when you are using zeovit stone you will need add zeobak and zeostart. Do everyone run purely siporax in small container without gfo ?

Thanks

Hendrik

I run 7.5 lt of siporax and 1 lt of matrix without GFO. My latest nutrient readings are as follows:

NO3: 5-10 ppm (Salifert)
PO4: 0.092 mg/l (Elos high sensitivity)

I have 16 fish in my 240 lt-tank (overall total net volume) and feed them with 4 cubes of frozen food per day.

When I started to use siporax, I hoped that I would get much lower nitrate readings though I anticipated that PO4 would rise in time due to heavy feeding. I do not know whether or not I would have much higher NO3 readings without siporax and matrix. But I must say that I am slightly disappointed that nitrates are still fairly high despite siporax has been in my tank for more than 3 months.

 

[scuzy]

could the high nitrates be due to sandbed? my tank eventually crashed due to dirty sandbed and my po4 won't go down.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

This is a possibility even though my sand bed is shallow and is just over one year old. Replacing it with new one is not a big issue for me. However, before I do that I want to investigate the possibility that perhaps siporax is not working for me because of the way I set it up.

 

[Ontheway]

I run 7.5 lt of siporax and 1 lt of matrix without GFO. My latest nutrient readings are as follows:

NO3: 5-10 ppm (Salifert)
PO4: 0.092 mg/l (Elos high sensitivity)

I have 16 fish in my 240 lt-tank (overall total net volume) and feed them with 4 cubes of frozen food per day.

When I started to use siporax, I hoped that I would get much lower nitrate readings though I anticipated that PO4 would rise in time due to heavy feeding. I do not know whether or not I would have much higher NO3 readings without siporax and matrix. But I must say that I am slightly disappointed that nitrates are still fairly high despite siporax has been in my tank for more than 3 months.

Your tank is a bit crowded, I think. 16 fish in 240L. Do you have any chance to increase amount of siporax ?

 

[naecO.rM]

I run 7.5 lt of siporax and 1 lt of matrix without GFO. My latest nutrient readings are as follows:

NO3: 5-10 ppm (Salifert)
PO4: 0.092 mg/l (Elos high sensitivity)

I have 16 fish in my 240 lt-tank (overall total net volume) and feed them with 4 cubes of frozen food per day.

When I started to use siporax, I hoped that I would get much lower nitrate readings though I anticipated that PO4 would rise in time due to heavy feeding. I do not know whether or not I would have much higher NO3 readings without siporax and matrix. But I must say that I am slightly disappointed that nitrates are still fairly high despite siporax has been in my tank for more than 3 months.

Hi,
What is water flow through the Siporax?
How Siporax is placed in the sump?

 

[scuzy]

Most say slow water flow.v you want the bacteria to be able to consume the nitrate

 

[naecO.rM]

Most say slow water flow.v you want the bacteria to be able to consume the nitrate

My tank is 350L (90G) 12 fishes, sps reef , I'm planing to use about 10L of Siporax 25mm pond rings . is it is OK?
Is it enough 10L for my system?

How large water flow have to be in Siporax?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I already posted my sump arrangements some time ago. Basically, my siporax box is situated in the middle chamber of my sump after skimmer. The middle section is under-over and over-under arrangement. The water flow is about 1500 lt per hour or even a little less if I do not clean the flexi tube connected to my return pump.

I have just checked my log book to understand the changes that occurred to NO3 and PO4 in relation to no of fish and siporax. The relevant data are shown below:

20/Sep/2015: N03: 0.5-1 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l; No of fish: 6
26/Sep/2015: No.of fish: 11
4/Oct/2015: NO3: 0.5-1 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l
7/Oct/2015: No. of fish: 13
20/Oct/2015: (3 lt siporax added) No of fish: 15
29/Oct/2015: (4.5 lt more siporax added- total 7.5 lt): NO3: 1.0-2.5 ppm
7/11/2015: No3: 2.5 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l
28/11/2015: NO3: 1.0-2.5 ppm
13/12/2015: NO3: 2.5 ppm; PO4: 0.046 mg/l
27/12/2015: NO3: 2.5 ppm
31/12/2015: No of fish: 16
9/1/2016: NO3: 5 ppm; PO4: 0.046 mg/l
21/1/2016: NO3: 2.5-5 ppm; PO4: 0.024 mg/l
13/2/2016: NO3: 5-10 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l
4/3/2016: NO3: 5-10 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg /l

My interpretation of the above data is that adding additional fish definitely impacted negatively on the nitrates, but did not affect the phosphates. Furthermore, adding siporax initially did not have any impact on any of the nutrient readings. However, after adding the 16th fish, there was a upward spike in nitrate readings. This coincides with perhaps the maturation of whatever bacteria must have colonied siporax. The nitrate spike happened approximately 3 month after placing the second batch of the siporax media. if I am right, then why did this happen? Is it because my set up encourages more aerobic bacteria than anaerobic bacteria? Is it because siporax is clogged up, which then started to cause issues?

I will try to rinse the media inside the sump without exposing it to air as much as possible to eliminate the possibility of clogging up. If nothing changes, then perhaps I should remove the media in stages to see what happens.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

 

[Ontheway]

I already posted my sump arrangements some time ago. Basically, my siporax box is situated in the middle chamber of my sump after skimmer. The middle section is under-over and over-under arrangement. The water flow is about 1500 lt per hour or even a little less if I do not clean the flexi tube connected to my return pump.

I have just checked my log book to understand the changes that occurred to NO3 and PO4 in relation to no of fish and siporax. The relevant data are shown below:

20/Sep/2015: N03: 0.5-1 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l; No of fish: 6
26/Sep/2015: No.of fish: 11
4/Oct/2015: NO3: 0.5-1 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l
7/Oct/2015: No. of fish: 13
20/Oct/2015: (3 lt siporax added) No of fish: 15
29/Oct/2015: (4.5 lt more siporax added- total 7.5 lt): NO3: 1.0-2.5 ppm
7/11/2015: No3: 2.5 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l
28/11/2015: NO3: 1.0-2.5 ppm
13/12/2015: NO3: 2.5 ppm; PO4: 0.046 mg/l
27/12/2015: NO3: 2.5 ppm
31/12/2015: No of fish: 16
9/1/2016: NO3: 5 ppm; PO4: 0.046 mg/l
21/1/2016: NO3: 2.5-5 ppm; PO4: 0.024 mg/l
13/2/2016: NO3: 5-10 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg/l
4/3/2016: NO3: 5-10 ppm; PO4: 0.046-0.092 mg /l

My interpretation of the above data is that adding additional fish definitely impacted negatively on the nitrates, but did not affect the phosphates. Furthermore, adding siporax initially did not have any impact on any of the nutrient readings. However, after adding the 16th fish, there was a upward spike in nitrate readings. This coincides with perhaps the maturation of whatever bacteria must have colonied siporax. The nitrate spike happened approximately 3 month after placing the second batch of the siporax media. if I am right, then why did this happen? Is it because my set up encourages more aerobic bacteria than anaerobic bacteria? Is it because siporax is clogged up, which then started to cause issues?

I will try to rinse the media inside the sump without exposing it to air as much as possible to eliminate the possibility of clogging up. If nothing changes, then perhaps I should remove the media in stages to see what happens.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

If I am not wrong, you also mentioned previously that you do not clean the sump. Heavy feeding, accumulated sump detritus, crowded tank.. I believe its holding well.

What I understand is, there is no reason to blame siporax here. You seem just overrided the capacity of your PS. It might be a good idea to clean detritus in sump first also give a blow to the rocks to move the settled particles in tank.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

If I am not wrong, you also mentioned previously that you do not clean the sump. Heavy feeding, accumulated sump detritus, crowded tank.. I believe its holding well.

What I understand is, there is no reason to blame siporax here. You seem just overrided the capacity of your PS. It might be a good idea to clean detritus in sump first also give a blow to the rocks to move the settled particles in tank.

Thanks for offering your thought. What is "PS" please? Protein skimmer? If so, the skimmer always produces good skimmate. Perhaps I should run it in a way to produce wet skimmate to remove more nutrients. It produces dry skimmate at present. FWIW, I also use GAC (Seachem Matrix carbon) passively (as well as Tropic Marin NP Balance though I stopped it for a while for an experiment on coral zooxanthellae).

 

[tripdad]

I just added about 2L of Matrix to my sump. I just laid the matrix in 2 compartments. I soaked the Matrix in RODI water overnight and added it today. After adding it the water became a little cloudy, I just wanna make sure the tank won't go through a mini cycle or bacteria bloom or anything? I tried looking it up before i added it but didn't see anything so I figured I was ok.

Also my skimmer went crazy so I just left it off I assume it is normal, and should be able to turn it on later.

There should not be any cycle or bloom. Siporax is inert therefore contains nothing to cause any problems. It is simply a place where bacteria MAY grow if your biologic conditions will support the growth, this seems to be the biggest misconception on this thread. These media don't grow anything, they are just a place for bacteria from your tank to colonize and IF your system will support it, they then contribute to further processing of waste. Think of it sort of like adding more dry rock that then becomes live as it matures. It is just very porous, at least siporax, so CAN grow more bacteria in a smaller amount of space, but again this is determined by your tanks nutrients not the media.

 

[Volcom698]

There should not be any cycle or bloom. Siporax is inert therefore contains nothing to cause any problems. It is simply a place where bacteria MAY grow if your biologic conditions will support the growth, this seems to be the biggest misconception on this thread. These media don't grow anything, they are just a place for bacteria from your tank to colonize and IF your system will support it, they then contribute to further processing of waste. Think of it sort of like adding more dry rock that then becomes live as it matures. It is just very porous, at least siporax, so CAN grow more bacteria in a smaller amount of space, but again this is determined by your tanks nutrients not the media.

No there wasn't all is gone. The next morning the cloudiness was good, the skimmer came back online just fine.

I started adding MB7 to seed the Matrix so will see how that goes.

 

[Ontheway]

Thanks for offering your thought. What is "PS" please? Protein skimmer? If so, the skimmer always produces good skimmate. Perhaps I should run it in a way to produce wet skimmate to remove more nutrients. It produces dry skimmate at present. FWIW, I also use GAC (Seachem Matrix carbon) passively (as well as Tropic Marin NP Balance though I stopped it for a while for an experiment on coral zooxanthellae).

Sorry for the abbreviation, although thinking its a common one. Yes I meant Protein Skimmer.

An overloaded Protein Skimmer does not tend to produce light (bad) skimmate, I think. It continues to produce "good" skimmate. Only thing is, there is more in water then it can handle. And yes it is a very good idea to skim a bit wet then current.
I do not know how often you replace the carbon, but in case of overloaded skimmer scenario, excess nutrients that skimmer could not handle may quickly fill the capacity of carbon and then make it a good home for nitrifier bacteria. How clear the water is, when compared to past (lower nitrate times), or, is clarity changing visibly, right after replacing carbon with fresh one?

 

[slavetonet]

I would like to update on my current usage of sera siporax mini.
Currently I have 7.2 liters of that stuff in my 2ft sump. It is working just fine at controlling NO3. It is working so well that I have do re-dose potassium nitrate back into my system.
Previously it was only dropping about 1.0ppm each week, now it is dropping alot faster at a tune of 2.5ppm each week.
I am still using the AIO bio pellets - but I haven't topped up any new pellets since Dec 2015. Usually if I don't top up, the NO3 will rise slowly over time as the pellets get used up.
So this is very good sign indeed. This stuff works as it say. Still haven't shaken it or clean it, which I should be doing this weekend.

 

[scuzy]

Matrix (and siporax) questions, to keep from derailing Sahin's thread.....

Here is a combo of everything.
Siporax, block, balls and matrix

 

[Usernam Invalid]

Here is a combo of everything.
Siporax, block, balls and matrix

That's a lot of media what size is your system?

 

[scuzy]

240 gallon in volume

 

[Reefable]

Guys can I keep Siporax in refugium due to space limitation in my sump? Will the light for chaeto grow algae on it and affect its effectiveness?

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Guys can I keep Siporax in refugium due to space limitation in my sump? Will the light for chaeto grow algae on it and affect its effectiveness?

My main concern would the accumulation of detritus as chaeto would be a magnet for it.

 

[Reefable]

Guys can we place Siporax in your refugium. Due to tight space in my sump the only place where I can easily install is in my refuge. My question is will the light for chaeto grow algae over it and will it effect its performance ?