Sulfur DeNITRIFIER DIY!!!

hmmm, ibass did you ever see nitrite coming out of denitrifier??, nitrite should be present when denitrifier is cycling, just a thought maybe your tank is lowering nitrate naturally that is why you are seeing lower nitrates, or i could be wrong and denitrifier has already cycled.

its hard to tell for me, IME was when i hooked up denitrifier i had a lot of nitrite and a lot of nitrate coming out of denitrifier, i am talking off the chart color, then after 7 days nitrate dropped to 0 and nitrite to .25ppm, after 2 months i have 0 nitrate and nitrite coming out of denitrifier, my nitrate in the tank stays at ~2ppm, i have won the battle against cyano, hair algae, green algae on glass and diatoms with the help of phosban of course, i am really happy how this turned out and i am trying to spread the word, lol
good luck

sana
 
No, I have not seen any nitrite yet. I have posted the pictures of all test I have ran since it initial hook up a few days ago.
Let me run this by everyone. What if you slowed the drip down even slower than one a second after all air is worked out. This would seem to ensure a oxygen deprived zone. Then pick it back up to one a second. Seems like it would cycle faster that way.
 
it might, you can try it, IME as soon as you have nitrite coming out you will know that its begining to cycle and you are on the right path
 
I agree you should see some nitrites exiting the reactor before it can start to reduce your nitrates.
 
Great thread! Questions/comments:

1. For those of us with smaller aquariums, less undercab space etc, I think a great (super cheap!) analogue to the $90 RO unit housing would be those 1-quart glass jars used for canning. You could go to www.fungiperfecti.com to get screw-on caps for them that are made out of plastic. Last time I checked the screw on caps were $1 ea. The jars are available at any grocery store for $1 ea. You could just set up 3 of these in series, drilling holes in the caps, with airline tubing to route the water through. Total cost of little 3-chamber reactor, total volume 3 quarts: ~$6. Cuteness factor: priceless

2. Order of operations: I guess I'm just wondering why the carbon chamber always comes after the calcium chamber. My thought process is that maybe as the calcium media breaks down either the free calcium or any other organics in it would exhaust the carbon quicker than if the carbon were placed upstream of it. Thoughts?
 
Commercial units don't include the carbon as it's not really necessary. I think some folks are adding them in the thought that they will cut down the hydrogen sulfide that may result from the unit, though if adjusted properly and running correctly there really shouldn't be any H2S coming out of the unit anyway. The good/bad thing about H2S is that it's extremely easy to detect with your nose, and if your unit begins to put out H2S, it won't take long for you to know it, and adjust the unit back to where it should be. If carbon is used, it might mask this smell which I see as an early warning system, and your unit may not be in adjustment, but you won't know it. My unit (I have a Midwest Aquatics unit) has only had an H2S smell when the media was clogged up with a heavy bacterial film, so I broke it down and cleaned it out. Set it back up and all was fine.

To cut down on large organics (okay, sediment and big chunks of stuff) from getting into my unit which is gravity fed from my tank, I put a chunk of foam filter material over the inlet tubing. While it won't filter out everything, it keeps the big things from heading down into the unit and keeps it clean for quite a while. I still tend to break it down every 4 to 5 months and rinse out any built up sediment in the sulfur, as well as top off the calcium media and get rid of any broken down calcium that may clog things up.

As for a smaller unit, I'm kicking around doing a sulfur augmented DSB in a small container for my 29G frag tank, but so far I haven't had enough nitrate in that tank to make it a reasonable experiment. I was planning to put a 1" layer of sulfur media, a layer of screen on that, and then cover it with about with about 4 to 5 inches of fine aragonite sand. Probably use a 5" deep kitchen container. I was just going to put this in the corner of my sump and see what happens. If I finally get some Nitrate show up in the tank I'll set it up and see what it would do. Can't get much cheaper than that.
 
TulsaReefer:

Maybe I haven't read enough on the subject. If there is no H2S being released from teh unit, then in what form does the sulfur exit the unit? And specifically, what adjustment do you make if you start to smell H2S? Increase or decrease flow?
 
widmer if you start to smell h2s then up the flow until the smell stops, send it to a bucket so it doesnt go into your aquarium, h2s is only released if the outflow from denitrifier is really slow or it cloggs up, the water stays stagnate and it starts producing Hydrogen Sulfide, it usually smell like rotten egg btw

carbon is used to take the smell, color, sediment out of water so the water going into your sump or aquarium is as clean as possible, IMO is not really necesery but if you have it then use it.

for small tanks you can use a phosban reactor with no-no3 media from carib sea, that is what i am using and have benn at 0 nitrates for 2 months with no problems. look thru the thread and find my post on how to make it and install it, good luck

sana
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11740027#post11740027 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by widmer
TulsaReefer:

Maybe I haven't read enough on the subject. If there is no H2S being released from teh unit, then in what form does the sulfur exit the unit? And specifically, what adjustment do you make if you start to smell H2S? Increase or decrease flow?
Click to expand...

The desired reaction in a unit like this will be:

2 H2O + 5 S + 6 NO3- -> 3 N2 + 5 SO4-- + 4 H+

And if read that correctly, the result is Nitrogen (N2), Sulfate (SO4--), and Hydrogen ions (H+), but I'd be the first to admit it's been a while since I took chemistry in college, and I'm more than a bit rusty. So there shouldn't be any H2S when running normally, the sulfur comes out in the Sulfate (SO4).

I haven't been able to find a formula for the reaction that occurs when the flow is too low, but my guess is that it changes the NO3- available, and the bacteria find another nitrogen source instead, as we know H2O will never be limited, as well as the S (sulfur) within a reactor. This is why when the smell occurs, you turn up the flow, to provide more NO3- to the reactor.
 
I tested mine again yesterday, still no nitrites, but Nitrates looked higher to me. I wonder if I just missed the nitrite spike in the cycle?
 
ibass, i think that if you have no nitrites still and nitrates look higher then your denitrifier hasnt cycled yet, by any chance do you have a phosban reactor????, if so maybe you can try putting some media in there and hook it up, i am sure it will cycle and you would see the difference, or maybe put pices of pipe on filter tops and try it as the same principle as a phosban reactor, IME the bigger the denitrifier the better since you have a big tank.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11770245#post11770245 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sanababit
ibass, i think that if you have no nitrites still and nitrates look higher then your denitrifier hasnt cycled yet, by any chance do you have a phosban reactor????, if so maybe you can try putting some media in there and hook it up, i am sure it will cycle and you would see the difference, or maybe put pices of pipe on filter tops and try it as the same principle as a phosban reactor, IME the bigger the denitrifier the better since you have a big tank.
Click to expand...
hey sanabit, just wanted to thank you for all the help in the previous posts in getting my nitrate reactor out of a phosban reactor going. everything is cycled and pulling zero nitrates. my red slime is finally drifting away.
 
you are most welcomed seattown, welcome to the no nitrate zone, lol.

ibass i saw the site and read thru it, i downloaded the manual for the reactor that is in the site and if you take a look at it you will see that water is beign forced thru media, that is the principle a have taken and seems to work, i am just really bumbed that your system hasnt cycled or is taking to long.

sana
 
I agree it would be better to have the water go through the media. I still have faith that it will work, and not to impatient. My nitrates are not that bad yet to make me worry. Especially since others have a set up like mine that are indeed working.
If this does not work then I can always order a media chamber from MRC that has bottom to top flow ( I already have one that runs carbon and GFO), and convert the unit I currently have to an even bigger water RO/DI filtration system.
I am not sure a phosban reactor would hold enough media to handle almost 400 gallons?
 
ibass, good luck my friend, ohhh and the phosban is rated for a 90 gal tank, thet post was just to do an experiment if you had one laying around....

sana
 
I set up a sulfur denitrafier on my 65 today. I used the same setup as Hormigaquatica, without DI cartridges. I'm pretty excited, I baught the 65 used and the nitrates are at 40-5ppm. I'll keep everyone updated on how it goes.
 
I checked mine today, as it has been more than a month. Nothing has happened, so I'm going to make a couple of changes in mine now. :rolleyes:
 
Melev:

I started mine same time as you, same exact setup (30 feet of tubing before entering RO canisters), and have the same exact results (no decline in NO3 in effluent). Keep me posted as to what you are changing...

I, my friend, am losing faith.

Thx
 
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