Denitrator Filter

[A White]

Hello everyone, glad to be here. I hope you can help me out and give me your opinion.
I have a 75 Gal. and have had it running for over 6 months. I test the water and change 30% each and every week. All of my paramiters are very good except Nitrates. They always range from 20 to 40ppm. I know to some, this may be considered a good number but I am one who wants this to be lower than 10ppm.

I have tried additives and they don't seem to work. Then I found a Denitrator made by a company called Aquaripure. They claim this filter will reduce the Nitrates 0 or close to it.

I have seen rerviews on the web site and all customers are very happy with what it can do. I was hoping to get an independant review and thought you all would know something about this Filter that you could share with me before I purchase one.

Thanks for your help, Alan

 

[Skimmy]

welcome to RF A white!!

well, tell us a little about your current filtration system,
how much live rock, sump or not, etc...

 

[Krish]

Welcome to RF!! As skimmy mentioned, give us a bit more info on your setup. Nitrates usually take the longest to work off and so it will take some time before you get them down to zero. I think it took like 8 months or so for me to get nitrates from 10ppm down to zero so it will take a bit of patience for the necessary denitrifying bacteria to grow in your system and blance things out. One thing that comes to mind when I see you have such high nitrates 6 months in is where are you getting your make-up water from? Is it ro/di water and if not, have you tested your water to see if it infact contains nitrates as you may just be adding more nitrates to your tank with each water change. Also, are you running a wet/dry system with bio-balls as the end product of a wet/dry is nothing but nitrates so you will be fighting a losing battle if you are using one. So give us a rundown on your setup in terms of filters, type of setup, what type of water you use etc so we can know what to suggest. As for denitrators, I honestly can't say that I can think of one person here that uses a denitrator. I'm not sure sure they are all what they appear to be. Many members here keep un-detectable traces of nitrates without using one.

 

[A White]

I have about 70 lbs. of live rock in the main tank. Below in the sump I have a skimmer in one chamber, live sand in the center chamber and return pump in the right chamber. There is also a smaller pump to run the Ultra Violet Sterilzer. I also feed once a day with frozen food. Every other day with Marine snow and Phytoplanton for the inverts and corals.

 

[A White]

I get my water from the retailer in Missoula. He has an RO system. When I need to add fresh water I either get it from him or buy Distiiled from the grocery store.

 

[Krish]

I have about 70 lbs. of live rock in the main tank. Below in the sump I have a skimmer in one chamber, live sand in the center chamber and return pump in the right chamber. There is also a smaller pump to run the Ultra Violet Sterilzer. I also feed once a day with frozen food. Every other day with Marine snow and Phytoplanton for the inverts and corals.

Any chance to get a few pictures?? Something might stand out to us. Also, how is the flow in your tank as you will need sufficient flow in order to keep any deadspots from forming where waste/detritus can settle and degrade water quality. In addition, do you have sand in your tank? If so, how deep is it and what type of maintenance do you perform on the sand bed in the tank as well as the sand in your sump?

 

[Skimmy]

ur feeding too much snow and phyto, imo...
maybe cut that down to 2 times a week.
which skimmer do you have??
and do you run carbon, or any other filter/bacteria media?
i might replace or add macroalgae to the sand in the center chamber of your sump,
how deep is that sand??

 

[A White]

Ok I'll cut back on the Snow & Phyto. I have a AquaC Model EV-120 skimmer. 1400gph Return pump. Hydro 1400gph pump in the tank. In the tank I have2 inches of sand and 2inches of small shell and pebbels. Havent done much maintenance on that. In the sump I have 3 to 4 inches of sand. No maintenance on that either. I can send pictures later if you would like them.
On the web page of Aqaripure they claim Skimmers do not remove Nitrates. Check out this site and let me know what you think is not true.

 

[Krish]

Skimmers may not remove actual nitrates itself, but they will remove some things that can attribute to increased nitrates. Just like a sponge for example. A sponge won't remove nitrates as such, but it will catch the waste that if left in the tank, will drive up nitrates so don't count out the skimmer just yet. Skimmers play a vital role in nitrate reduction by removing some of the nasties in your water that if left in there will be a major source of nitrate production

On the sand, that can be a major source of your nitrate issues. I will find some of the recent threads on it here and post them up for you in a sec, but sand requires maintenance. Any waste that drops on the sandbed if not removed, will cause water quality issues. This is why it is suggested to vaccum your sand when doing a water change in an effort to remove some of his waste rather than just have it sit and rott. Sandbed depth though determines how your sand bed should be cared for and so a deep sand bed would require a totally different maintenance than a shallow bed would. I never had success with sand so I ditched it and only run bare bottom tanks with a lot of flow. So much so that sometimes I turn over my tank's volume over 100x per hour LOL! The idea though is to lift all of this waste that would typically settle in a sandbed and get lost in there into your water column where it can be filtered out and removed from your system before it has a chance to breakdown and degrade water quality. I would look into the maintenance required to care for your sand bed. If just leave it to take care of itself, I'm afraid you will have a lot of issues down the road. I'll fetch you those links.

 

[Krish]

Here is the most recent thread we have that is actually going on right now on sandbeds. If you feel like jumping in there and asking a few questions feel free to. The thread starter Mike, knows ALOT about sandbeds so he would have some really good advice to offer you. http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f14/how-deep-sand-beds-work-59448/

 

[A White]

Dont know much about vaccums. What keeps them from sucking up the substrate? Which one would you suggest I use?

 

[Krish]

Dont know much about vaccums. What keeps them from sucking up the substrate? Which one would you suggest I use?

It's not an actual vaccum you use. Ever seen these before?? http://cse.f3images.com/IMD/feeds/LE11552_50.jpg All it is is a tube with a flared plastic end that you would start a siphon with and then use the flared end to run through your sand bed. It will suck up water and any waste in the sand and the sand will just fall back to the bottom of the tank. Depending on the hose size you use, the length of the plastic end and the size of the grain of sand you have will determine if it will infact it will suck up your sand as well. Typically any of the smaller gravel vac's you find in any LFS will do the trick on any sand grain type. The one in the picture actually is a nice type to use. When vaccuming the sand, that whole plastic tube will look like a sandstorm in there as it churns up the sand, but hardly any sand will make it into the tube and into your bucket but rather only waste and water. Now if you remove that plastic end off of the tube and start a siphon with just the hose, you will suck up anything that will fit in the tube even liverock rubble so it's the plastic attachment you see that makes it really work and not suck up the sand. .

 

[mojoreef]

YOu dont want to vacuum your sand bed, the concept their was to get a syphon and just stir it through the very top layer to remove any detrius that may be building in their, while you are stirring it just run the the water being syphoned through a filter sock and then pour it back in again. Now that is just something you can do to ease the load on the sandbed.
A denitrifier operates on a similar basis as a sand bed does, but it concentrates on the lower end, SO it creates another anerobic zone (devoid of oxygen) so that bacteria that reduce nitrate can populate the media in their and the reduce it to ammonium.

The best way to deal with things like this my friend is to find where it is coming from, then deal with that problem. Adding one bandaid after another is just going to add a pile of bandaids. So you need to just start to do a series of nitrate tests to find the source. Do one at just an 1/8 of an inch in the sand, do one on top of the rocks, your sump and then the stuff you add to your tank as in food. The phyto should not add N into the tank its more of a phosphate thing, although if they are dead and rotting, yep it can add. Marine snow is basically waste, yes fish and other critters waste, so I would imagine that could be a source.

But if you just do the tests you can dial in the source and then deal with it

Hope it helps

Mojo

 

[A White]

Ok great I'll get one and start using it. What should I do with the sand in the sump? Is there anything else I should do as maintenance to reduce Nitrates based on the information I have provided so far?

 

[A White]

Somewhat confused. Should I buy a vaccum and use it as Krish suggests or just use a hose with a sock and put the water back in the tank?

So I gater from everyone that this Aquaripure is not the answer. What else can I do to reduce the Nitrates?

 

[Skimmy]

Ok I'll cut back on the Snow & Phyto. I have a AquaC Model EV-120 skimmer. 1400gph Return pump. Hydro 1400gph pump in the tank. In the tank I have2 inches of sand and 2inches of small shell and pebbels. Havent done much maintenance on that. In the sump I have 3 to 4 inches of sand. No maintenance on that either. I can send pictures later if you would like them.
On the web page of Aqaripure they claim Skimmers do not remove Nitrates. Check out this site and let me know what you think is not true.

im betting you have detritus buildup in your display, in the larger grade substrate and under/around the live rock... yes???
also, what are you using as a feed pump for your aqua c 120??
1400 for a return pump through the sump is alot more than what you need...
IMO a slower sump throughput(about 3x to 5x the total display volume per hour)
will increase the contact time with the skimmer, your uv, your sandbed,
and as i mentioned, i would look at adding macroalgae to the sand and adding a light for the macroalgae,
making it a full blown refugium. as well as adding an inexpensive media reactor for some carbon.
that 1400 gph return pump might serve you better on your skimmer...
injection skimmers want to be overdriven to acheive the best performance...

and dont believe that skimmers cant remove nitrates...as krish mentioned, skimmers remove the wastes, uneaten food and detritus that will turn into nitrates/phosphates...
also, you might want to look into doing a nitrate/phosphate reducing biopellet media before you do a nitrate reactor...
first off much cheaper and easier, second off probably just as efficient if you give it time to work properly(as in 3 months)
500ml NP Biopellets
you could put it in one of these:
TLF-PHOSREC Premium Aquatics - TLF-PHOSREC
and power it with one of these:
RIO-1400 Premium Aquatics - RIO-1400

 

[mojoreef]

Everything folks are tellin you hear are possible fixies, but you still need to identify where the problem is coming from. So put the breaks on for a little but and find out the source. Once this is done you can look into finding or adapting one of these fixes.

Mojo

 

[Krish]

Everything folks are tellin you hear are possible fixies, but you still need to identify where the problem is coming from. So put the breaks on for a little but and find out the source. Once this is done you can look into finding or adapting one of these fixes.

Mojo

I agree with Mike. You will need to find the source of your nitrate issues first to know how to deal with them. Going by what you described (sand bed in tank and sump that didn't receive any type of maintenance) threw the first red flag for me as a possible contributor to your nitrate problem. On the vacuuming thing, what Mike suggested and I suggested are basically the same thing. With the depth of your sand bed you don't want to disturb the lower levels of your sand as those areas are the areas where the bacteria responsible for denitrification (removing nitrates as a simple definition) lives where it is void of oxygen. So vacuuming your substrate and digging through these levels can cause more harm than good so Mike is suggesting to just siphon/vacuum through the top layer (about 1/2 deep at most) to remove any waste that is settling on the sandbed. When he spoke of using a filter sock, he meant instead of having to throw away the water ( which you would have to if you just siphoned into a bucket because it will be water full of waste) he is suggesting that you siphon through a filter sock which will catch the waste and therefore would allow you to re-use the water.

 

[Skimmy]

im thiking it's all that food, snow and phyto every other day...
prolly has built up to detritus and is collecting..

also, you said you feed frozen food everyday, do you rinse the foods of their brine??
and how much??? might want to try decreasing the amount of frozen food, but dosing it with some vitamins after you rinse it.

and if you do have a decent amount of detritus... it might behoove you remove the live rock and to violently shake it in prepared saltwater to remove detritus, as well as clean it from the top of the sandbed.
a fun job, i kno....

 

[Krish]

Also to add to my last post where you mentioned about being confused if to vacuum or just use a hose and filter sock as Mike suggested is you will be using the same vacuuming thing I showed you in either case. Mike didn't mean to just use a hose as that is what I gathered from your last post you thought he meant but rather a sand/gravel vac like I suggested as well as a filter sock. If you used just a raw hose you would suck up everything...sand and all. The difference in what he suggested is to not to stir through the whole sand bed, but rather just through the top layer and run the water through a filter sock just to save you on having to use new water as the filter sock will catch the waste for you.