Inexpensive Sulfur Reactor (for nitrate control)...

[Drew1600]

Hello

Does anyone know of an inexpensive ($150 or less) sulfur reactor, or how to build a quality diy one? Only ones I have been able to find are $300-$400, too much for a college student :/

Thank you so much for the help!

 

[Chuk]

How big is your tank? Aquamax makes line for like 160 but it’s pretty small. Are you space limited or set on sulfur for some reason? There’s also this successful denitrator using carbon dosing
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/poor-mans-nutrients-control-donovans-nitrate-destroyer.302685/

 

[Drew1600]

29 g + 30 g sump

I will definitely look into this!! Not set on sulfur, just need nitrate reduction. Thank you so much!!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Marine Depot has been out of stock on the two smaller size Aquamaxx for at least 6 months.

 

[Cory]

Makes your own bades colums or rolls. Its basically sulphur beads inside a felt bag. 10 inches long. Stack them in the sump is all. Cheapest way of doing it. Belgian anthias users idea look up his info.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Makes your own bades colums or rolls. Its basically sulphur beads inside a felt bag. 10 inches long. Stack them in the sump is all. Cheapest way of doing it. Belgian anthias users idea look up his info.

I did something similar to this in the past. I made stacks of siporax held together with needle point mesh and filled the center of the column with sulfur media. I placed several of these columns into a reactor and pumped through it. It worked really well. When I took it offline a couple of years later, half of the sulfur media had been consumed.

Very cheap to do if you have reactors already.

Dennis

 

[c-horse]

All you really need is some kind on upflow reactor like the
Two Little Fishies PhosBan 150 Media Reactor and fill it with sulfur prills and calcium gravel. total cost will be less than $100.

 

[Drew1600]

Would you all recommend sulfur or biopellets? Or both, with sulfur stacks in the sump and a biopellet reactor on return line?

 

[c-horse]

I would just use sulfur. I have never used biopellets, but I read that you have to tumble biopellets to be effective. But after some time the biopellets will clump together. Sulfur pellets do not require tumbling.

 

[Radicalrob1982]

29 g + 30 g sump

I will definitely look into this!! Not set on sulfur, just need nitrate reduction. Thank you so much!!

It's kinda how they work. As the water becomes deoxygenated by the time it hits the filter media. Then it turns into a gas I believe that contains sulphur which comes out the other end. You can use regular filter media such as denitrate or matrix. It's just the water has to have no oxygen before it hits the filter. Some people wrap their 1/4 line around their filter 20 times or more. And also set their flow to 50 Gph or less. I wouldn't take my whole word for it but it's worth looking into and reading about how they work. I once was considering the same thing for my fw tank. It's a good read ! There's lots of videos and articles where people make their own