Poor Man's Nutrients Control - Donovan's Nitrate Destroyer

[Casey-Reef]

5 days and ABSOLUTELY NO drop in nitrates. Tonight I discovered I had anaerobic and aerobic sides backwards. Switched the top caps and changed the pump. Hopefully that will get things going. Lol

How backwards?

I think anaerobic is the 2nd chamber regardless of direction of flow?

I assume all oxygen should be consumed in first chamber and second chamber should be devoid of oxygen.

Or am I mixed up?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

5 days and ABSOLUTELY NO drop in nitrates. Tonight I discovered I had anaerobic and aerobic sides backwards. Switched the top caps and changed the pump. Hopefully that will get things going. Lol

Haha. You broke the record having the carbon dosing cap at second chamber . But 5 days is too early to see any result.

 

[Stlouphil]

My anaerobic (2nd) side has much finer media. I was running water through that first. Then it flowed through the aerobic chamber with much larger pieces. Theoretically the first side could have chewed up all the 02, but there was greatly diminished surface area on the second side. Setup (backwards) at least it reduced efficiency in a great amount.

 

[Stlouphil]

Haha. You broke the record having the carbon dosing cap at second chamber . But 5 days is too early to see any result.

Lol

 

[Donovan Joannes]

My anaerobic (2nd) side has much finer media. I was running water through that first. Then it flowed through the aerobic chamber with much larger pieces. Theoretically the first side could have chewed up all the 02, but there was greatly diminished surface area on the second side. Setup (backwards) at least it reduced efficiency in a great amount.

Doing so will clogged the first chamber faster.

 

[AbsoluteZer0273]

Thanks for this tread Donovan! Looks like this is helping a lot of reefers! I am going to take a crack at it in the next few weeks as I have been fighting high nitrates for a year now. I have one question I might of missed over the 29 pages I just read. What is the tank turnover you run on your entire tank? Thanks again for this great thread!

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Thanks for this tread Donovan! Looks like this is helping a lot of reefers! I am going to take a crack at it in the next few weeks as I have been fighting high nitrates for a year now. I have one question I might of missed over the 29 pages I just read. What is the tank turnover you run on your entire tank? Thanks again for this great thread!

Currently my reactor is on 100% turn over within 24hours (80G total volume) and nitrate is below 5ppm (can shoot up to 20ppm when I over fed my tank ). If you are asking about total water turnover on pumps, I have no idea at all. I have two Jebao RW8 and Atman return pump doing 2500lph. Quite a lot actually as you will notice my sand bed is always changing on every FTS.

 

[Casey-Reef]

Is there a recommended reactor size to tank size in gallons?

For example with 4 inch pipe 1 inch of height per 4 gallons of tank volume? In this example an 18 inch tall reactor would handle 72 gallon (4 gallons times 18 inch height)

With as many reactors that have been made maybe we can determine a formula?

The 5 footer that was made would handle 240 gallon if the formula holds up

Just a thought... thanks

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Is there a recommended reactor size to tank size in gallons?

For example with 4 inch pipe 1 inch of height per 4 gallons of tank volume? In this example an 18 inch tall reactor would handle 72 gallon (4 gallons times 18 inch height)

With as many reactors that have been made maybe we can determine a formula?

The 5 footer that was made would handle 240 gallon if the formula holds up

Just a thought... thanks

So far reactor sizing is more likely a guessing games. I would say build the reactor that fits, either in your sump, fishroom or garage. Efficiency is quite dynamic (carbon dosing quantity vs flow), but it always a good idea to build it bigger/higher in accordance to your total water volume.

 

[AbsoluteZer0273]

Donovan, I have a 200 gallon system approximately. Being twice the volume roughly of you system, would you recommend a unit with 4 chambers or 2 separate units running at the same time? I see there are a few people running monster sized systems, but would it be more efficient to have 2 separate units running in tandem? Thanks for the help!

 

[Donovan Joannes]

@AbsoluteZer0273

Longer chambers will allow higher flow, hence faster turn over for a bigger tank. Two separate units should be slightly more efficient. If I were you, a 6" diameter pipe at 36" high (for total length of 72") sound promising.

 

[cchomistek]

Being that I have a 230 gallon tank I guess the 4" x 18" reactor is a bit small. Hopefully over time it will still do the job.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Being that I have a 230 gallon tank I guess the 4" x 18" reactor is a bit small. Hopefully over time it will still do the job.

It is . Double the length should be good enough, bigger diameter will perform better.

 

[cchomistek]

It is . Double the length should be good enough, bigger diameter will perform better.

Not sure what is really going on with my reactor though. It seems as though the water coming out of the reactor is roughly the same nitrate level if not a bit higher. My tank is Down to roughly 10 ppm nitrate. Possibly a bit more. My reactor has been running for almost 3 weeks now. Should I be testing a half hour after the addition of the carbon or should it not really matter?

 

[cchomistek]

I mean 10 ppm nitrate is not very bad but cyano is still pretty prevalent. Might be almost time for a chemiclean treatment and see where that gets me. I know the phosphates are still a bit high around .12 but probably higher due to the cyano feeding off of it. I need to possibly do a lanthanum chloride treatment to lower the phosphates as well.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

It does the job apparently. You can test an hour after the dosing, it should be close to zero no3 at the output. As for the cyano, it will be gone once your tank stabilize. You can use chemiclean if you want, but for me that is part of the ugliness, a well known problem for maturing tank. It took me way beyond one year mark before all this ugliness disappear by itself.

 

[cchomistek]

Well my tank is almost 5 years old but I guess the first 4 and a half were with very little husbandry so possibly I am seeing a cycle and a restabalization with lower nitrates and less phosphates. I would assume that the chemiclean would kill off some of the bacteria in the reactor as well??

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Not really. If I am not mistaken chemiclean is chemical component absorbing material. It won't kill bacteria, but it will reduce the chemical components needed by bacteria to flourish. 5 years?. Is your nutrients has been high for that long?. As far as i know, phosphate will bind with the substrate and start releasing it back once the equilibrium is disrupted. In my case, GHA infestation is more prominent than cyano, but all cleared up in 3 months after my destroyer successfully brought down no3 below 5ppm months before.

 

[cchomistek]

Yeah I was using tap water for 4.5 years and have now gone to RO water. So things are getting on track now. We basically ran the tank Fowlr for 4.5 years but now I want to get things back to where they should be.

I will test my effluent one hour after the next addition of vodka and report my findings. If it is the same as before would you recommend an increase in vodka addition??

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I doubt you have the same reading, your previous display nitrate is 30ppm if i recalled correctly, now it's down to 10ppm right?.