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

[Brad Vaughn]

My local LFS is carrying Dophin bio ring and balls. I can buy white ceramic ring cheaply. If none is available, you can use coarsely crushed coral rubbles, seachem matrix etc. Any bio balls/rings with high porous features will do. Make sure water will flow freely through the media. Too small and they will compactly arranged overtime and clogged the reactor.

Donovan would matrix work in place of pumice stones?

 

[bif24701]

Success story:-

Started using this reactor in February 2016 (NO3 roughly 80ppm)
Nitrogen bubble started to flow out (clearly visible via the hose, NO3 slightly lower than DT)
End of 2nd week, bacteria slime start to build up (effluent output goes directly into the coffee strainer aka my filter socks. I have to squeezed it out)
End of 3rd week, NO3 was down to 3ppm in my DT, effluent registered zero NO3
Started maintenance dose on 4th week
Second month, I started seeing bacteria planktom bloom every morning in my DT. All corals enjoying the food. No coral direct feeding since then.
Has been running with less than 5ppm NO3 with virtually no maintenance on the reactor (only daily carbon dosing)

Can you tell me a little more about this bacteria bloom. What does it look like and is it an effect of the bacteria coming from the reactor?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Can you tell me a little more about this bacteria bloom. What does it look like and is it an effect of the bacteria coming from the reactor?

Hi there. Bacteria bloom (inside the reactor) happens because my NO3 was quite high initially. Its a hazy slime build up, almost like thick glue without any smell. No effect to anything as it goes directly into my filter socks. It might end up being skimmed or consumed by corals if not being filtered. For a low nutrient tank, the bacteria bloom is whitish and snotty, could be a different strain. Happened to me when I redesign the reactor.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Donovan would matrix work in place of pumice stones?

Affirmatives sir. I recommend a larger media for a bigger reactor as I found out it works better and less likely to clog and will allow higher water flow for a bigger water volume.

 

[Peanut]

I think you built this, which I have had on my tank for over 10 years now http://aquaripure.com/

 

[bif24701]

Hi there. Bacteria bloom (inside the reactor) happens because my NO3 was quite high initially. Its a hazy slime build up, almost like thick glue without any smell. No effect to anything as it goes directly into my filter socks. It might end up being skimmed or consumed by corals if not being filtered. For a low nutrient tank, the bacteria bloom is whitish and snotty, could be a different strain. Happened to me when I redesign the reactor.

Gotcha. I get the same thing if I overdose vinegar. The corals do like it.

 

[trinisteve]

Love it .. Unconventional and DIY reefing FTW. What is your tank maintenance like? Water changes, filter sock replacement, sand bed maintenance etc.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Gotcha. I get the same thing if I overdose vinegar. The corals do like it.

Yup. Are you dosing straight to water column?.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Love it .. Unconventional and DIY reefing FTW. What is your tank maintenance like? Water changes, filter sock replacement, sand bed maintenance etc.

Daily maintenance - glass cleaning and carbon dosing (once a day less than 5 seconds)

Water change - none, never did since started. I did change 20litres when I dried up my sump for cleaning

Filter socks (coffee strainer actually LOL) - swap every 2 or 3 days

Sand bed - don't ave much, suppose to be half inch thick but my dragon wrasse has moved all of it to one side for his bed. I never vacuum my sand either

 

[trinisteve]

I like no water changes!

 

[bif24701]

Yup. Are you dosing straight to water column?.

Now I'm adding it to my Kalk. Years ago I experimented with over dosing.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Now I'm adding it to my Kalk. Years ago I experimented with over dosing.

Okay. So basically you are adjusting kalk PH and feeding bacteria as well. Kill two birds with one stone huh?.Nice!

I am dosing kalk as well via dripper straight to DT. No vinegar added.

 

[bif24701]

Okay. So basically you are adjusting kalk PH and feeding bacteria as well. Kill two birds with one stone huh?.Nice!

I am dosing kalk as well via dripper straight to DT. No vinegar added.

It's not really enough to produce a film of bacteria that thick. I just add two cup to 30 gallons to ensure my Kalk dissolves. I made get try over dosing again one day to feed the coral.

 

[bif24701]

How much carbon are you adding daily?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

It's not really enough to produce a film of bacteria that thick. I just add two cup to 30 gallons to ensure my Kalk dissolves. I made get try over dosing again one day to feed the coral.

I wonder why AF energy smells like vinegar.... Hmmm.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I think you built this, which I have had on my tank for over 10 years now http://aquaripure.com/

I never came across with this product. I know Dymico do have higher end design (with ORP monitoring and flushing). What do they have in there?.

I built this one based on my observation, reading and by accident LOL. I bought seachem denitrate (2 litres) and dump it in my sump (inside a container with holes at the bottom). Didn't see any result after two months, I pulled it out. Whilst scratching my head what to do with it (expensive stuff here in my place), I accidentally came up with this design.

It's good to know something similar is available commercially. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ReefBeta]

You are correct also my friend. But in order for direct dosing to work, the surface area not only have to be huge, it must be able to host denitrfying bacteria in a low or absent O2. Which means it has to be deep in the rocks, how deep I don't know either. In a chambers like this, the aerobic and anaerobic zones are separated and maximised as O2 is consumed a long the way out, leaving a massive amount of denitrfying zone at the second chamber. Can you believe a 75G at 80ppm NO3 can be stripped of nitrate in 3 weeks?. I can strip my tank of NO3 in less than 2 days. Another pros of having bio media in a reactor are no bacterial bloom outside the chambers, less chances of over dosing (even in you accidentally over doing it, it will be consumed faster and clogged the reactor but will clear up on itself in a day or two by stopping dosing). I also read somewhere saying that the absent of light increases denitrfying process, so the dark chambers is another features well fitted the criteria. Why poor man?. No pump or light needed, easy and cheaply to build, cost almost nothing to keep it running.

Two questions.

1. How do you dose carbon? From my experience, 40G tank take 6ml vodka daily. For your 75G I guess is about 10ml daily? There is no dosing pump that's slow enough to spread it out such small dosing throughout a day. So for the carbon to be consumed without leaving the reactor, it means the bacteria will just grow like crazy at that tiny fraction of time the carbon flow through the reactor, then the rest of the day they will have nothing to do since carbon source is out. As you say the bubble is visible in the output throughout the day, that doesn't sound like the case. So it's more likely that the bacteria that make use of the carbon source is living all through your aquarium.
2. Denitrfying NO3 to N2 is not the primary way of nutrition exportation with carbon dosing. It's bacteria used up nitrate, phosphate, and carbon, to grow and fixation those onto themselves, and removed from skimming. Denitrfying bacteria will only lower nitrate. But carbon dosing lower phosphate as well. So what's your P4 levels?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Two questions.

1. How do you dose carbon? From my experience, 40G tank take 6ml vodka daily. For your 75G I guess is about 10ml daily? There is no dosing pump that's slow enough to spread it out such small dosing throughout a day. So for the carbon to be consumed without leaving the reactor, it means the bacteria will just grow like crazy at that tiny fraction of time the carbon flow through the reactor, then the rest of the day they will have nothing to do since carbon source is out. As you say the bubble is visible in the output throughout the day, that doesn't sound like the case. So it's more likely that the bacteria that make use of the carbon source is living all through your aquarium.
2. Denitrfying NO3 to N2 is not the primary way of nutrition exportation with carbon dosing. It's bacteria used up nitrate, phosphate, and carbon, to grow and fixation those onto themselves, and removed from skimming. Denitrfying bacteria will only lower nitrate. But carbon dosing lower phosphate as well. So what's your P4 levels?

I dosed once a day, 5ml VSV + 2 other elements as recommended by a friend of mine whom is a microbiologist. I cannot dose more than twice per day as my nitrate will drop to zero. Some other reefers around the world (i shared this design on another forum last year) have built one with additional features such as ORP and incorporated auto dosing with great result. Tiny bubble doesn't appear whole day, in fact mine only visible on the first few weeks only. Of course bacteria is all over the aquarium, but if you saying the carbon source has exited the reactor than my sump should be covered with slime as I only run my skimmer at night for 9 hours. No build up in my display as well. All my rocks are clean.

Yes, i know about nitrogen cycle. I can't tell you my exact phosphate level as I only use API test kit and I don't test it regularly. There is no reason for me to test when my tank is free from algae. I know my PO4 is less than 0.25 as per API. I am running colored channel (red/green/pink/warm white) at 85% for 5 hours with no algae issue.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Some pictures of my rocks...

 

[Dogtown]

Are you familiar with Glennf and his DSR dosing process? He doses around a dozen elements and gets great results without water changes. I'd imagine that the 2 extra elements you learned about from you microbiologist friend are included in Glennf's regimen. Iron citrate comes to mind. No need to throw out teasers about other elements without sharing the whole story among friends. Please share what those 2 elements are since you brought it up.