Getting nitrates under control...the saga continues

[waqas_01]

If you're still willing to chase the denitrator. Put up a picture of it. One thing that a lot of people miss is there needs to be an oxygen depleted zone. Could be as simple as having too big of a pipe on the exit side and you won't see it work well. The exit pipe needs to be full of water to create an "air tight" zone.

 

[Rmckoy]

I did a quick search and yes that seems possible although the one thread I read on this (from 2007) said you would need to daisy chain several together to make sure all the system.

Which also makes me wonder if that is part of the problem I’m having with my denitrator.

Alkalinity decreasing rapidly is one of the issues in the build your own link .
I have read something stating if you layer cal reactor media it help regulate alkalinity

 

[Ciwyn]

Well an update after doing enough water changes to use an entire bucket of instant ocean over the course of a week. Nitrates appear to now be in the 50 range which is far more reasonable.

I had two boxes of IO arrive today so I plan on continuing this for another couple weeks to see if I can get them below 10. If they go below 25 I will be happy but ideal levels for me I think would be 5-10 consistently.

We'll see what happens.

 

[arking_mark]

Well an update after doing enough water changes to use an entire bucket of instant ocean over the course of a week. Nitrates appear to now be in the 50 range which is far more reasonable.

I had two boxes of IO arrive today so I plan on continuing this for another couple weeks to see if I can get them below 10. If they go below 25 I will be happy but ideal levels for me I think would be 5-10 consistently.

We'll see what happens.

Congrats. I find most issues can be mitigated with larger water changes.

What are your plans for maintaining a lower NO3?

 

[Ciwyn]

Congrats. I find most issues can be mitigated with larger water changes.

What are your plans for maintaining a lower NO3?

Thank you. It's strange because I have tried what I thought were aggressive water changes before and didn't see a result. It's possible my nitrates have been higher than I thought for a while.

My plan going forward is to keep the denitrator dialed in. Pretty sure it's not going to need 35 ml of vodka a day anymore soon.
Next month I want a good vacuum of the sand and rocks (there is a bit of an algae build up on these which I don't think is a bad thing at the moment).
I also just plan on keeping the water change schedule up. I may size up to 55 gallon brut trash cans to allow me to do 4-5 water changes a week.

 

[Ciwyn]

Ok so an update for the 3 people that may actually be following this thread.

Nitrates have come down significantly. I'm really not sure if they were all the way at almost 240. They were high though. They appear to be about 10-20 right now. I can live with that. Ideal goal would be under 10.

This change has caused some algae growth and cyano on the sandbed though. Hopefully this begins to fade away as things stabilize at these much more desirable levels.