Sulfur DeNITRIFIER DIY!!!

I was wondering how long it takes for one of these units to "seed". I currently have my unit set to approx 1drip/sec. and have watched the nitrates rise. nitrates coming out of unit are approx 100 and nitrates in tank have gone from approx 40 to 60 since saturday when unit was setup. I believe others said it went up before it went down. just want to make sure that I'm not doing something wrong and need to let it take it's course, just getting nervous watching the nitrates rise. thanks in advance for you help.
 
set my up this saturday too. making it drip/sec also. hopefully this will work. are you gonna speed it up next weekend tangers or ya gonna wait a whole month?
 
Not sure if its been said yet or not, but you don't even need a pump with these. You could use a simple siphon to feed them. I made one a while ago out of 3" pvc. It stands about 24" tall. 2/3 filled with sulfur, top 1/3 with crushed coral. Theres a clean out fitting on the top so I can change media as/if needed. The supply line is run off of an overflow where it will not get any bubbles in there or drain the tank in anyway if theres a power outage. Theres no recirc pump on the unit either. Very cheap and simple. Not counting media, it cost me about 8-10 bucks to make. 40 total with media. Dropped my nitrates from well over 100 to 5 in about 2 weeks. Been working perfect for almost a year now.
 
MMM, Can you provide more details on your unit you built? Maybe some pics? From what others have said, a fair amount of pressure is required to feed water through this design. Your design sounds like it is much less restrictive.
 
I am having issues with my large system. I have about 1200 gallons or so.. and nitrates will not drop below 50. I am dosing over 65ml of vodka and just not working. this would be my next step... so how much and what size reactor would i need to build to handle 1200 gallons?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11599139#post11599139 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by bored4long
MMM, Can you provide more details on your unit you built? Maybe some pics? From what others have said, a fair amount of pressure is required to feed water through this design. Your design sounds like it is much less restrictive.
Click to expand...
Its tucked behind my tank, so I cannot get pictures. Its very simple though. A 3" pvc pipe about 24" long. Theres an end cap at the bottom and a clean out fitting on top. A clean out fitting is pretty much just a cap that screws on. I put some teflon tape on the threads to keep it air tight. Theres a 1/4 barb about an inch from the bottom that serves as the inlet. Theres also a 1/4" barb coming through the center of the top of the clean out fitting that serves as the out line. I just fill the tube about 2/3 with sulfur and then put about 1/3 crushed coral directly on top of that. Nothing separates them as I don't feel its necessary at all. when the crushed coral needs replaced, I just unscrew the top and pull some out and put more in. In a few years when the sulfur needs replaced, Ill just replace all the media inside the entire thing. Not too worried about it. Water goes in the bottom barb which is fed via a barb fitting I tapped into my overflow box with a sponge filter over it to keep detritus out of it. Denitrafied water comes out the top fitting and is directed into the sump where there is a small valve at the end to adjust the drip rate. Theres not much restriction at all as if I open the valve all the way, water comes out in a nice solid 1/4" stream. And on that note, it all must travel through 60' of 1/4" hose and 2 gallons of bioballs on a coil denitrator before it makes it into the sulfur denitrator and it still flows that good. I originally made the coil denitrator but after months of it doing nothing unless I constantly fed it, I decided to make and add on the sulfur unit which started working immediately. :D Good stuff.

Heres a quick diagram of my design:
172523sulfurdenitrator.JPG
 
Last edited:
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11598059#post11598059 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tangers
I was wondering how long it takes for one of these units to "seed". I currently have my unit set to approx 1drip/sec. and have watched the nitrates rise. nitrates coming out of unit are approx 100 and nitrates in tank have gone from approx 40 to 60 since saturday when unit was setup. I believe others said it went up before it went down. just want to make sure that I'm not doing something wrong and need to let it take it's course, just getting nervous watching the nitrates rise. thanks in advance for you help.
Click to expand...

It can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on a number of factors. The reason it often looks like the nitrates are higher on the effluent is that it's likely that the bacteria are partially breaking down the nitrate into nitrite. And many test kits will read way off when a little nitrite is present. This is a sign that the bacteria are beginning to do their work, but they aren't completely consuming the nitrite yet. Keep an eye on it and it should begin to drop soon.
 
I tested again tonight and found it hard to believe but my nitrates coming out of the unit are already at 0!! The nitrates in the tank are between 25 and 50 (kind of hard to judge on salifert test). They were at about 60+ yesterday before a large water change. I increased the drip to appox 2drips/ sec.
 
I tested mine last night and it still is just as high as the tanks. :( I'm not sure what I could do differently at the moment.
 
Just hang tight and be patient. I wish there was some way to know why some people seems to have almost immediate results, and for others it can take weeks. I'm sure there is a reason, it's just not one that we can seem to really figure out yet. As long as the unit isn't causing any problems, just keep it running, and test it once in a while to check on the progress. I know I was testing almost daily when I set mine up, and it seemed every day was another disappointment.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11610129#post11610129 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
I tested mine last night and it still is just as high as the tanks. :( I'm not sure what I could do differently at the moment.
Click to expand...

You might need to add a pump to circulate the water in the chambers. If you look at the commercial reactors they got pump on them. I converted my old calcium reactor to sulfur reactor and it only took a week to get 0ppm at the effluent.

DSCN2101.jpg


Here is the result after one week. The left test vial is from my reactor effluent. The right test vial is from my main tank.
DSCN1627.jpg
 
Marc- no worries, I think I must have tested wrong.!!! I don't know how that happened but I think I did. My effluent is still at appox 50. Working it's way down slowly though. Just wanted to let you know so you didn't think yours wasn't working.
 
I've never checked that. I don't even know if I have a nitrite kit, it's been that long since I've ever cycled a tank!
 
I am wanting to set up one of these systems. I can not get the vodka meathod to work at all.. so this is my next guess. I have around 1100-1200 gallons of water or so in a 300 reef and 800 lagoon.

how much media would i need? sulfur media that is.. thanks for any help
 
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