Sulfur DeNITRIFIER DIY!!!

[IBASSFSH]

I really don't think that the recirc pump moves the media. If you look at pictures of other units by Midwest and Korallin, they are packed pretty tight with a sponge between them. Should not be too much wiggle room it looks like. The water movement just keeps a food source for the bacteria IMO.

 

[Steve 926]

Sounds good Ibass.

But the flow through the media is no doubt essential to it's success

Steve 926

:smokin:

 

[TulsaReefer]

I have a Midwest unit, and it has a Eheim 1048 pump that recirculates water in it continuously. This keeps the water from getting stagnant in any area, and keeps the nutrients flowing to the bacteria, as well as helps keep it from clogging up too quickly. In my experience, the bacteria can build up into mats that will clog even a unit that has a recirculation pump fairly quickly, especially when processing a high nitrate load. It also may help allow the units to process more load, since it means that all the media is more fully exposed to nitrate, where if you are slow flowing through the media there is more chance of uneven distribution. Now is this the only design that can work, from what we are seeing the answer must be; no, but it does seem to be a relatively efficient design. Can it be done differently, I'm sure it can, but it's always easier to take a known working design and tweak it from there, than to start with a completely new design.

 

[Steve 926]

Thanks for the reply Tulsareefer.

 

[sanababit]

steve, this is what i did, i have a phosban reactor and filled it from one sponge to the other with no-no3 media from carib sea, this media is mixed with aragonite but i dont think it gets consumed fast enough to be replaced, even so its sold in gallon which will last about 4 to 5 fills of the reactor, on the pump i have an mj1200 which is manifold to 2 other reactors one with carbon and the other to phosban, the pressure is divided between the 3 reactors which work fine with this setup.

i dont recirculate the water inside the reactor, its a straight in and out deal, the inlet and outlet have 1/4" ball valves to contol water going into reactor and going out (just to be safe), i leave the inlet valve all the way open and the outflow valve closed enough to get about a drop a second, my denitirifier with this kind of media took 7 days to cycle which is not bad, it has benn running for 2 months now with no problems, i have 0 nitrate coming out the outflow at 7.8 ph (which is not bad).

btw for the first 7 days you should see nitrite and nitrate coming out of reactor, you can send this water into a bucket just to be safe to not send any sulfur to your tank, when you are comfortable with the results hook it up to your tank and your on your way to 0 nitrate, just remember for it to work you need nitrate in your tank, if your tank is running clean 2-5 ppm it will take time to cycle.

now hydrogen sulfide could be a possibility, i have read that there are 2 ways of producing it, first if water stays stagnate for too long in reactor and second if you run out of nitrate in your tank and suddenly all anaerobic bacteria dies because it starved, so feed heavely, lol, jk

all i have to say i am really happy with my diy project and hope my experience will help you get yours going or double the appologies back.

here are some photos

good luck guys

sana

 

[Madman133]

So sana how much of a PH drop are you seeing? Do you have to add buffer or anything regularly or is a small enough ammount to where freshwater top offs are able to counter balance it pretty easy(Im lucky...the stuff that comes out of my tap is about 8.1-8.2 ) Im hoping to order all the stuf in the next week or so. Thanks for all your help!

 

[Steve 926]

Thanks for the reply+ pics Sana :thumbsup:

With this setup you are just using the No NO3 reactor by itself, & not flowing through additional reactors / ro-di containers with the effulgent from it.

This is what I had hoped to do. I was also planing to let the reactor effulent drip through a bag with an aragonite / carbon mix to help buffer it. My UV set up is this way with just carbon, but I can add the aragonite & let the reactor drip into it also.

So Thanks Again for the Info.

Steve 926

:smokin:

 

[sanababit]

madman, since the media has aragonite, the outflow is beign buffer a bit, so for me its 7.8, depending on your tanks stability this may vary, now if you dose alk or cal, then this will buffer your tank so ph will stay as stable as possible.

steve, this is a single pass reactor with no-no3 media, its just an in and out deal, i am using other reactors but they are separate from the denitrifier, if you like you can put a little bag of carbon on the outflow of denitrifier, just to take care of hydrogen sulfide, odor or color of water, you really dont need to put more aragonite since the media already comes mixed with it, but it couldnt hurt.

btw guys how much nitrate do you have in your tanks.

sana

 

[Madman133]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11875356#post11875356 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sanababit
madman, since the media has aragonite, the outflow is beign buffer a bit, so for me its 7.8, depending on your tanks stability this may vary, now if you dose alk or cal, then this will buffer your tank so ph will stay as stable as possible.

btw guys how much nitrate do you have in your tanks.

sana

Alright...I just figure what I need to do for ph as I go.

my tank is running about 60ppm on average(if I remember right)

Again Sana thanks for all the help!

 

[sanababit]

madman, ohh man 60 ppm, you will be very happy with this project, keep us posted on your progress.

 

[Madman133]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11875407#post11875407 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sanababit
madman, ohh man 60 ppm, you will be very happy with this project, keep us posted on your progress.

Just went an looked...Im averaging right above 50. Im really getting tired of doing so many water changes and the crap loads of algea lol but hey fat fish are happy fish

 

[Steve 926]

5~10 ppm, usually stable @7 ppm.

5 gal. W/C every 10~12 days, Reef Crystal.
Really not that bad of NO3, but I would like to lower it. This looks like an easy attempt at it, before investing in a midwest unit if I have to.

Steve 926

:smokin:

 

[sanababit]

steve, your nitrate is really low, so it might take a little longer to cycle, just remember to keep some nitrate going in your tank to keep feeding bacteria in reactor.....

my denitrifier has a 0 nitrate outflow but my tank water stays at ~2 ppm, this works for me because it keep my denitrifier going, keeps feeding anaerobic bacteria inside reactor....

 

[Madman133]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11875532#post11875532 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Steve 926
5~10 ppm, usually stable @7 ppm.

5 gal. W/C every 10~12 days, Reef Crystal.
Really not that bad of NO3, but I would like to lower it. This looks like an easy attempt at it, before investing in a midwest unit if I have to.

Steve 926

:smokin:

Dang dude do you even feed your fish? lol I cant seem to keep mine that low with just water changes...IMO it wouldnt even be worth buying a midwest as no matter what you are never going to get 0 ppm(close but I dont think you actually will...if you do then all your bacteria are goin to die off in your denitrator and its going to have to cycle again).

 

[Steve 926]

2 ppm, sounds good to me

I mostly have a coral set up with 5 small fish & inverts.
Trust me they are all fed well & growing larger fast.
I have never had an algae problem of any kind, even during cycling. I am using a plenum (Controlled Waste Plenum) that is designed to allow it to flush out at times, & a DSB of about 5 ". a 5 stage Ro /DI works well also. If you search the forums for CPW / Plenum, you will come across an old thread by "Iderhawk" about this kind of system. It is a long read, almost rivaling the T5 thread, but worth it.

Steve 926


:smokin:

 

[melev]

So here's my update as of tonight.

No nuisance algae in my reef; the macro algae in my refugium looks unhappy.

PO4 appears to be .03 to .1, or maybe less. Hard to tell under kitchen lighting at 1am.

Nitrate coming out of the reactor is higher than what is in the tank, when comparing the two tests side by side. From what I've read, that means the drip rate on my reactor should be even slower, so now it is dripping one drop every 3 seconds.

I don't have a nitrite kit, so I'm working only with nitrate.

All other parameters are well within target range. Once I get nitrates where they need to be, this reef is going to grow like mad.

 

[pete620]

I set my reactor up on 2/8/08, the tank (65g) was at 50ppm nitrates

Today the reactor effluent is 5ppm and the tank is between 5-10ppm. The tank test kit color is a little darker than the reactor but not by much.

Setup has no extra tubing and no DI cartridges.

 

[TulsaReefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11875582#post11875582 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Madman133
Dang dude do you even feed your fish? lol I cant seem to keep mine that low with just water changes...IMO it wouldnt even be worth buying a midwest as no matter what you are never going to get 0 ppm(close but I dont think you actually will...if you do then all your bacteria are goin to die off in your denitrator and its going to have to cycle again).

With my Midwest unit on my 110, I had Nitrate around 2 for maybe a couple months, but then it finally went to zero or at least lower than can be measured on a Salifert test kit (on low range it's absolutely as clear as water, no pink at all).

But we all know there is some nitrate being produced, I have fish, and feed pretty heavily, but it's being produced at a relatively steady level as well, unless I change my feeding habits, or having something die off. And what is being produced is being consumed by either/both the chaeto in my fuge, or my sulfur denitrator. I don't care which one really does, I only care that it stays undetectable. And I'm sure there are still some bacteria in the unit, and since my Nitrate will not rise overnight, unless I have a big die off of something or another catastrophic event, then things are in a stable situation now. I can stay at extremely low levels without worry, if they rise, the bacteria will multiply and pretty quickly consume what there is. So I do believe it's possible to have a near zero Nitrate level. And I say that because I'm sure that there is Nitrate, it's just that it gets consumed almost as fast as it can be produced, and I doubt any test kit can accurately measure amounts in sub 1 ranges. So I'm hoping that my nitrate level is near that of natural sea water, which is in the < .1 level depending on the location of the sample.

 

[sanababit]

hello, little update, about a month ago i put cut out bottom from a plastic bottle filled with carbon on the outflow of denitrifier, today doing the monthly maintenance i noticed somekind of white mocus forming on carbon and on the outlet of denitrifier.

I tested everything and still getting 0 nitrate, 0 nitrite, 7.8 ph, and no rotten egg smell, i since replaced carbon and cleaned line, this is just a heads up in case you see the same thing, next time i will post pictures.

sana

 

[TulsaReefer]

The white/gray film is pretty common on these units. It's just a heavy bacterial buildup. If it gets too thick and clogs the circulation and things get smelly, or you just can't keep the flow going you can just break it down, rinse off everything to remove the heavy bacterial film, and set it all back up. Enough bacteria will be left to get things going right away. Isn't that uncommon to break down sulfur units about every 4 months or so to do this, as well as to replace any needed ARM media.