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

[cchomistek]

Another question that I think may have been discussef already but couldn't find is since the tubes are not sealed and we are not flowing enough to fill the outlet tube how are we not letting oxygen in to the second chamber all of the time? Since this is supposed to be the anaerobic area or does this amount of oxygen nkt make a difference.

Thanks

 

[Donovan Joannes]

@cchomistek

Brief answers for all your questions:-

1) You can use any porous media available in your LFS or you can order online. As long as it is inert, reef safe and made from ceramics with high porousity, it doesn't matter whether it's a ball, cube or rings. Bigger than 1" is better, as it allows water to flow through the reactor. You can use pumice rocks at the very end of the reactor, but make sure it is less than 1" thick. Use your creativity to allow water passing thru. Media arrangement is critical, too tight formation will clogged easily. To be safe, just use ceramic balls and rings.

2) You can use any bacteria in a bottle. It really doesn't matter as long as the bacteria is a bacteria and not water. MB7 is proven in this application, other brands will work as well. I use FM100 before (cheap and easily available) and it works fine. Make sure you seed the media, either inside or outside the reactor. Seed more bacteria for five days straight. Start carbon dosing on the second or third day, 5ml is a good number. You can dose more, but most probably it will exit the reactor safely as your media is not yet being colonized.

3) You can use a small pump to feed the reactor, or tee off from your return or use your return manifold if you have one. Make sure you have a control valve on it to fine tune your flow. My design is gravity fed, means the whole reactor is not pressurized. The outlet is lower than the inlet, water will flow slowly allowing bacteria to do it's job. The small carbon dosing hole on the first chamber will become a fountain if it is a pressurized system. For a fully enclosed and pressurized reactor, you have to think a way to "inject" your carbon source. I can tell you how to do it, but it will cost you an auto doser as a Christmas gift, delivered to me via express courier, all cost borne by you. Your choice .

4) On your question why the second chamber is in anaerobic condition, it is because that is how it was designed. As long as the outlet hose is small enough, no oxygen will enter the second chamber. The continuous water flow will act as a barrier. Smaller than 3/8" hose is fine. Bacteria in the first chamber will use up the oxygen to perform nitrification, when all dissolved oxygen molecule has been used up, bacteria will start consuming the oxygen molecule from nitrate (NO3) and releasing nitrogen gas as by product (hence the denitrification process). You can permanently seal the chambers, but PVC fittings are tight enough if aligned properly.

5) Before you ask me, any carbon source will do. Vodka, vinegar, sugar or any commercial carbon dosing product will work. But don't waste money, buy the cheapest vodka you can find, a gallon 5% acetic acid @ white vinegar and standard table sugar from the supermarket. Google for DIY Vinegar/Sugar/Vodka for the recommended mixture.

6) Exactly where aerobic and anaerobic zones is in the chamber, nobody knows.

7) When you start seeing slime or snotty oozing out from the outlet hose, it's a clear indicator of maturing reactor. Increase your flow a bit, test for nitrate (water column and effluent for comparison). Some will experienced clogging, don't panic. Stop dosing for a day or two, it will clear up by itself. Some tanks might not see nitrate reduction after a few weeks. Split your dosing into several but smaller quantity and work out from there. Mine only requires a single shot for several months, but now with 15 fishes in a 75G, I need two shots daily.

 

[cchomistek]

Thanks for the reply donavan.

Another question I have is whether the water needs to be prefiltered and if so how to make this happen as I will be placing the pump and rwactir in the first chamber of my sump where the water comes down from the tank. Detritus can build up in this chamber. No fish or snails can get there but small debri can. If this is a problem how should it be rectified?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

A quick update on my tank (pictures)...

1) Added a cryptic zone (a few days old)
2) Added a poor man float switch in the cloud auto top off (works flawlessly for several weeks now)
3) Added a temperature controller (on/off cooling fans) since october when my chiller commit suicide. Water temperature is swinging (lowest 26C when it rains, highest 30.7 on a very hot day) but so far all corals are not affected that much (slight tissue necrosis here and there on several acros).
4) Dumped 8 medium sized live oysters I bought from the wet market. Had spawned a few times since October and corals loves it.

Cryptic zones. Hopefully it will provide more live foods when matured.

Live oysters. Bought 25 pieces for USD1.50. Most ended in the freezer as fish food

My sump and ATO container


Elitech controller. I will hook up my split unit chiller later. Currently out of budget


My FTS...

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Thanks for the reply donavan.

Another question I have is whether the water needs to be prefiltered and if so how to make this happen as I will be placing the pump and rwactir in the first chamber of my sump where the water comes down from the tank. Detritus can build up in this chamber. No fish or snails can get there but small debri can. If this is a problem how should it be rectified?

You can buy a pre-filter unit, or you can place your feeder pump after your filter socks if you have one. I don't have any mechanical filter in my setup, only time will tell whether detritus will build up in the chambers or not. Hopefully there is something in there that will consume the detritus.

 

[cchomistek]

I do not have any mechanical filtration either. Ok I will not concern myself too much with it if you are not using one either.

 

[|FATHOM|]

I guess should chime in and give Donovan the credit he is due for sharing this with us.
About 2 years ago I got busy with school and work and long story short, I ended up losing all my corals in a semi-crash due to neglect. The fish were healthy, but chemistry was bad and all those corals caused a huge nutrient spike.

Fast forward about 18 months, and I'm trying to get the reef going again. I knew I could break it down, clean everything and start over, but that is not what I wanted to do. I wanted to revive my reef through proper care and husbandry.

I got the main three elements back in line relatively easily (KH, CA, MG), but NO3 and PO4 were out of control.

NO3 - 200+
PO4 - 1.5
So I began a steady regiment of water changes, cleaning, and siphoning, to go after nutrients and get rid of them. It didn't take me long to decide this was going to be a battle with a 350 gallon tank and N & P this high.

Then one day a few months ago I found this thread and decided, what the heck, lets give this a try.
This is the second attempt - the first one clogged too easily because I used media that was too small.

I skipped the union and just used a holesaw to make a hole big enough to slide in a straight PVC fitting, then glued it together using blue glue. This worked great BTW.
On the second attempt I ordered this media in 2 sizes (1" and 1.5") and filled the tubes with this from top to bottom, making sure there were gaps for water flow.

The reactor is 4" diameter, and 18" tall. This time it works great!! I have full control over water flow.

I'm feeding the vodka through the line in the top with a dosing pump. There is also a 1/4" ball valve on the line in from the manifold that you can see in the backround.

It took a few weeks for everything to get going, and begin to put out zero nitrates from the effluent, but after that all I need to do is monitor the flow and give it a blast if it looks to be clogging up.

I think this has been running for about 1 month and I have gone from 200+ Nitrates down to 4. Yes 4!

Thank you @Donovan Joannes for the idea to do this!!! This thing works great!

This is great to hear. Did it help with your phosphates?

 

[Feet4Fish]

I have been watching this thread since the beginning and i think I might build one of these for my new 800 gallon build. Donovan - I can build a reactor with a max height of 5 feet. DO you think 6 or 8inch diameter PVC would be better. Will be for heavy bio load shark and ray tank.

 

[TMB]

This is great to hear. Did it help with your phosphates?

It may have helped a little, However I started with Lanthanum Chloride drips to remove PO4 and that worked AWESOME!!

Once I got it low, the Nitrate destroyer has kept everything very low and stable for me.

I don't want to take over @Donovan Joannes thread on the PO4 though. If you want complete info/instructions on Lanthanum, PM me and I'll send it to you.

 

[crs751]

Would you pm them to me please?

 

[TMB]

Would you pm them to me please?

Sure thing.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I have been watching this thread since the beginning and i think I might build one of these for my new 800 gallon build. Donovan - I can build a reactor with a max height of 5 feet. DO you think 6 or 8inch diameter PVC would be better. Will be for heavy bio load shark and ray tank.

For such huge tank, bigger diameter should be better. This will allow higher turnover ratio in the reactor. Homer has built a five footer, I think you should try the 8" five footer as a new benchmarks. Go for it if you have the space. You might as well go along with bigger bio balls. 2"?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

It may have helped a little, However I started with Lanthanum Chloride drips to remove PO4 and that worked AWESOME!!

Once I got it low, the Nitrate destroyer has kept everything very low and stable for me.

I don't want to take over @Donovan Joannes thread on the PO4 though. If you want complete info/instructions on Lanthanum, PM me and I'll send it to you.

. Bacteria consumes PO4 along with NO3 but at lower amount. I like the idea of using Lanthanum, but for a skimmerless system like mine, I use a small algae through for PO4 removal. My Po4 stays below 0.1ppm on reactor alone, and its fine for most corals. As recommended, PO4 should be lower than 0.05ppm.

 

[Khaotic]

for anyone looking for media, especially those looking to build massive reactors, there is this media on Amazon that is cheap and very similar to marine pure. For bio balls a gallon bag is 13$. Just search "bacteria house bio" or "aquaneat". I doubt I'll ever use another bio media.

I was feeding silversides and shrimp to a small shark and I still have undetectable nitrates. Stuff seems to work great.

 

[Feet4Fish]

I have followed and read this thread from the beginning. I am convinced and ready to build one for my new 800 gallon high bioload build. I have about 60 inches of vertical space. What would you recommend as far as diameter 4,6,8”?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I have followed and read this thread from the beginning. I am convinced and ready to build one for my new 800 gallon high bioload build. I have about 60 inches of vertical space. What would you recommend as far as diameter 4,6,8”?

I think the bigger the better for such big volume of water, so I would say 8" is best for you. You can build it shorter, probably 4' is a good height too. If only we can measure sizing vs efficiency....

 

[Feet4Fish]

I was thinking 8” too. Have anyone ever thought of making a quad tower design in an effort to save vertical height but still increase contact time?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I was thinking 8” too. Have anyone ever thought of making a quad tower design in an effort to save vertical height but still increase contact time?

Yes, we have a few friends who did a quad towers and horizontal single bacteria tunnel system.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I have to remove an over grown forest fire digitata and donate it to a friend (he has a frag tanks). Grown well over 6" colony in 8 months, shading a lot of other corals underneath it.

Out of water, kind of brittle... Hmmm


Frags... Ready for donation... All of it


New look. Toadstool, devil's finger, kenya tree and leather coral will be fragged soon. I will keep a kenya frag, the rest will find a new home

 

[cchomistek]

Ok my u-tube reactor is up and running. Just seeded with 6 mls of dr.tim's bacteria and left the pump off for a half an hour to allow the bacteria to settle in a bit. I will see how things go.

How many days till I can start adding vodka to the reactor?