Does de-nitrate in a skimmer work?

[ourownvolition]

Okay so I love doing diy projects for my tank. I was wondering if any reefer has tried this and or can give me reasons why this would or would not work.

this is the design with the top protruding out of the water connected to a collection cup.
The idea behind it was using a powerhead as a pump and water polisher. Then putting a airstone right before the intake so the impeller cuts the bubbles and the bubbles rising helps with the suction through the polyfil, now sponge, filter. Now it’s a 80gph power head so I would think the flow would be reduced to under 60 with the filtration infront of the intake. So the powerhead pumps water into a modified spray bottle.
The spray bottle I thought would be a good shape and a large enough space for the bubbles to stay suspended. Where the output is I put a good layer of de-nitrate over top to 1 block bubbles from escaping and 2 reduce nitrate in the water further after it’s been skimmed.
I had this set up now for now for 3 weeks from April 25 switching to a sponge filter at the input.
It has started to collect a good dark green skimmate and foaming after 1 min of being turned back on. I’ll post a picture of that then.
What I’m skeptical about is the denitrate working and I change out the mechanical filtration weekly since it’s so cheap

 

[mta_morrow]

I use 6 liters of denitrate in my current sump.

I used it in my prior tank as well.

It must be used in a low flow area in order to be effective at removing nitrates.

It absolutely works at removing nitrates, but I’m not so sure it will work in your application as I believe you may have too much flow.

 

[ourownvolition]

Yea that’s what I was worried of. I’ve heard of people putting it in canister and hob filters before which easily is over 100gph of flow. Do you think using it as the substrate for a hang on refuguim would work? Kind of wish it would have worked. The skimmer was finally kicking in, and wow the skimmate is black.

Is this dragons breath?