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

Toomanyfish said:

Nice
Happy New Years buddy

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Haha. Didn't realize there's still a layer of tissues at the bottom. I snapped the top branches and stick another acro on it.

Happy new year to you too

Happy New Year! Hey Donavan, I made a quick denitrator out of the cheapest stuff I could find for fun. I just wanted to see how cheap I could go and still have results! I found red lave rock(pumice) at the local landscape supply for $6USD a 5 gallon bucket. Then I found a roll of 2 inch pool drainage hose for $0.50USD a foot at the hardware store. Calculating the volume of your denitrator I found I would need roughly 12 feet of 2 inch hose to be equivalent. I had some old 1/2 inch hose and 1/4 inch ro/di line laying around. With that and a small pump(180gph) I think, and a 1/2 inch ball valve, I got to work...
I took a 5 gallon bucket of tank water as my sample and after 2 days I’m already getting an output of 5ppm from the 50ppm start! I have added pictures for everyone’s amusement. Total price of under $10USD!

I have also included pictures of my 4 inch setup for you to name. I’m waiting on more media to come in the mail before I finish it up. It is 83 inches long and made out of 4 inch pvc. After sourcing the 6 inch pvc you recommended I found it to be way to expensive compared to 4inch, so I just make one as long as I could fit under my stand. I have to give it to you, this is the best diy project of the year!

That was insane @AbsoluteZer0273 !

You are not going to put that blue roller coaster online in your tank right? LOL. Even though some of us is using lava rocks in our sump (marine tank), some lava rocks might leach something bad for your tank. Since your are building another 4" reactor, I beleive you will be using an inert bio media in it, aren't you . I am surprised you are getting result so fast with lava rocks, how long is that blue hose?. It doesn't looks like 12', or it is?

Are you building an in-sump reactor?. Very clean built, no excess glue oozing everywhere. And is that a german shepherd?.

Donovan Joannes said:

That was insane @AbsoluteZer0273 !

You are not going to put that blue roller coaster online in your tank right? LOL. Even though some of us is using lava rocks in our sump (marine tank), some lava rocks might leach something bad for your tank. Since your are building another 4" reactor, I beleive you will be using an inert bio media in it, aren't you . I am surprised you are getting result so fast with lava rocks, how long is that blue hose?. It doesn't looks like 12', or it is?

Are you building an in-sump reactor?. Very clean built, no excess glue oozing everywhere. And is that a german shepherd?.

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No blue roller coaster in my tank! Just an experiment for fun. I might swap out some old tank water to get more results. It is 12’ long! I was thinking of making a longer one for fun since I have the extra materials.

I have a cubic foot of marine pure blocks and I ordered 20 lbs of ceramic rings for the 4” one I will put on my tank. It will be a “behind my sump reactor” because I have the space from my where my plumbing runs. The 90 degree fittings on the top will keep everything in the sump as it will kinda lean into the sump. I will add more pics as it progresses.

Finally that is an Akita named Kaida! She is about 120lbs and thinks she is a lap dog.

Thanks again for this great idea!

AbsoluteZer0273 said:

No blue roller coaster in my tank! Just an experiment for fun. I might swap out some old tank water to get more results. It is 12’ long! I was thinking of making a longer one for fun since I have the extra materials.

I have a cubic foot of marine pure blocks and I ordered 20 lbs of ceramic rings for the 4” one I will put on my tank. It will be a “behind my sump reactor” because I have the space from my where my plumbing runs. The 90 degree fittings on the top will keep everything in the sump as it will kinda lean into the sump. I will add more pics as it progresses.

Finally that is an Akita named Kaida! She is about 120lbs and thinks she is a lap dog.

Thanks again for this great idea!

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As long as the ceramic rings are very porous, you should get a good result. Can't wait to hear some good news from you. I do have several local breed dogs, but not as fluffy as Kaida. But I love my dogs, they had killed a lot of cobras visiting my compound.

@Donovan have you thought about putting together a list of materials that you would recommend do there would be less chance of others having issues ?

I will be going with live rock, ceramic bio ball (have to order can’t find the large ones local ) and ceramic rings.

Greenstreet.1 said:

@Donovan have you thought about putting together a list of materials that you would recommend do there would be less chance of others having issues ?

I will be going with live rock, ceramic bio ball (have to order can’t find the large ones local ) and ceramic rings.

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I have listed everything that can be used at the very beginning in general without specific name/brand being called. I can't named materials that is not available in my LFS (limited choice), but generally, anything inert/porous (not plastic) that is marketed as bio filtration media (please read the product description before buying) is fine in this reactor. As usual, always read some reviews on the products you intend to use before finalising your choice of materials. Some might leach something (heavy metals/aluminium etc). As this is a DIY reactor, I let fellow reefers choose their own brand/materials that can be purchased conveniently. Just remember this two criteria, inert and high porousity.

Hi Donovan. Happy New Year! My reactor has been up for about a week. I was dosing 5ml mb7 for the first 5 days. On the 3rd day I began dosing vodka at 5ml. By the 5th day (2nd day dosing) the filter was oozing bacteria. By the 7th it was pretty clogged up and only dripping out. I stopped dosing carbon for two days per your instructions earlier in the thread. My question is should I continue dosing 5 ml a day of vodka or reduce the dose? I opened the valve a bit more Flow is about 6 ml every 10 seconds out of the effluent. Thank you

You can either reduce the vodka or increase the flow a bit (if effluent output is zero/near zero/or significant lower compared to display). How is your no3 level (both test)?

Your no3 test will dictate vodka amount and flow. Judging from the bacteria mass, I believe your nitrate must be above 50

Donovan Joannes said:

You can either reduce the vodka or increase the flow a bit (if effluent output is zero/near zero/or significant lower compared to display). How is your no3 level (both test)?

Your no3 test will dictate vodka amount and flow. Judging from the bacteria mass, I believe your nitrate must be above 50

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Ok sounds good. Thank you. I have not tested. I will test today and post my numbers here. Test a hour after dosing carbon. Is that correct?

|FATHOM| said:

Ok sounds good. Thank you. I have not tested. I will test today and post my numbers here. Test a hour after dosing carbon. Is that correct?

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You can test before and after dosing vodka. You will know whether you need multiple smaller dosing quantity or not based on these numbers.

Last night my dosing pump tied to my Archon controller decided to fail and dumped about a pint of vodka into my reactor. Fortunately I have a float switch in the dosing container that shuts off the pump on low level. Needless to say this morning the tank smelled like a martini and there was a white slime over the glass and the water was cloudy. I assume that a water change is in order but my opinion is that the tank isn't harmed terribly by this error. I noticed the ORP dropped from about 350ppm to 277ppm which I assume would indicate that there is an overabundance of bacteria in the tank. Let me know your thoughts on any effects or things I should do to correct this and prevent damage to the tank's inhabitants. Thanks.

crs751 said:

Last night my dosing pump tied to my Archon controller decided to fail and dumped about a pint of vodka into my reactor. Fortunately I have a float switch in the dosing container that shuts off the pump on low level. Needless to say this morning the tank smelled like a martini and there was a white slime over the glass and the water was cloudy. I assume that a water change is in order but my opinion is that the tank isn't harmed terribly by this error. I noticed the ORP dropped from about 350ppm to 277ppm which I assume would indicate that there is an overabundance of bacteria in the tank. Let me know your thoughts on any effects or things I should do to correct this and prevent damage to the tank's inhabitants. Thanks.

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Holy molly!. That was close to 500ml of vodka. Hopefully nothing bad will happen. Do some series of small water changes, run wetter skim mate and put some air stones hooked to an air pump to aerate the tank. Running some GAC will help on absorbing some organic materials (including the extra vodka). I can't imagine having 500ml vodka in the tank, as I have read a few occassion of crashed tank due to excessive vodka. I am going to hook up an auto doser, but I will limit maximum VSV quantity of 100ml in the dosing container (will last me 20 days at current dosing quantity).

Love this. Thanks for sharing.

cpschult said:

Love this. Thanks for sharing.

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Glad you like it. Thanks for dropping by

I've seen the following media recommended above:
1 Gallon Bacteria House Ball Bio Filtration Media for Aquarium Sump Canister Filter Bakki Showers • Trickle Filter • Aquaculture • Koi Ponds

Does anybody have any idea how many gallons of media would be required to build the reactor? Probably the 4" pipe by 18" tall, 2 sections that Donovan posted?

I found found the following calculator. Anybody care to guess if 1 gallon of bio balls like I posted above will fill one side of the 18" reactor? The calculator says a 4" pipe 18" high is .98 gallon of volume.

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calc...&fill_ft=0&fill_in=18&last=cyl_v&action=solve

Would the entire reactor filled with the linked bio balls work?

Casey-Reef said:

I found found the following calculator. Anybody care to guess if 1 gallon of bio balls like I posted above will fill one side of the 18" reactor? The calculator says a 4" pipe 18" high is .98 gallon of volume.

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calc...&fill_ft=0&fill_in=18&last=cyl_v&action=solve

Would the entire reactor filled with the linked bio balls work?

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I ordered 2 gallons for my 3inch diameter 50ish inch long reactor and still had probably 3/4 of a gallon left. Maybe more. Its all i used in my reactor and it works great.

LongDickDiane said:

I ordered 2 gallons for my 3inch diameter 50ish inch long reactor and still had probably 3/4 of a gallon left. Maybe more. Its all i used in my reactor and it works great.

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Thanks for the info. Is that 50" times 2 so 100" total?

Did you use any other media beside this one?

Again, thank you for the quick response!!!!

The media looks great, volume calculation seems to be fine.