AquaMaxx Sulfur Denitrator TS-1

[Newb73]

I pulled my nitrate reactor offline this weekend. I think something got caught in either the supply or effluent line of the reactor. I noticed my drip rate was wicked low, maybe 1 drop every 3 or 4 seconds. I opened up the kink valve and gave everything a good shake but the drip rate only increased to maybe 1 drop every second or two. The rotten egg smell was very strong and i noticed that the sulfur had a gray / blackish hue to it in some areas. I didnt want the possibility of nuking the tank so i just emptied out the reactor and cleaned it. The smell was atrocious and stunk up my whole house lol.

I would have just turned the effluent into a 5 gal bucket and turned the feeder pump wide open but better safe than sorry

The drip rate fluctuates on its own I've noticed. You gotta check it daily if you can and right befoe and right after a trip for sure.

 

[Jongalt26]

Yea i check it on a regular basis, at least a couple of times a week when i clean filter socks etc.
As far as dumping the effluent into a bucket, it's a recirc system so clearing it out would take forever, and more importantly, couldnt be sure that all of the hydrogen sulfide is removed. Better to be safe than sorry.

 

[Newb73]

One helpful protection in my tank (I am not chemist but as I understand it)....is that I also run ozone 24/7, which will oxidize hydrodgen sulfide into a non toxic form even faster than exposure to air or iron will. I started ozone at the same time I started the denitrator. Still doesn't mean I want it to go long with too low a flow rate...just that it most likely would not build up in my tank to any toxic level when the drop rate goes less than 1 drip per second and the Ozone reactor is processing 240gph of water.

 

[Jongalt26]

I was thinking of running ozone in the future. I think my next purchase will be UV though.

 

[Newb73]

So i essentially doubled my feeding schedule with the introduction of an achilles tang.

At a drip rate of 130/min or roughly 18+ gallons per day....it is eliminating all detectable nitrates.

Still a slight rotten egg smell. This allows me to turn the rate up even further

I am starting to think that people who run high nitrates will reap more benifits from these than people who start with very low nitrates and want to get to zero.

It seems to me that performance would be a pain to keep regulated in a zero environment.

That said...im using the pro version of this test kit so that result is only indicative of a nitrate level of around 4ppm

 

[abinder]

Are you also running a protein skimmer when you're running the denitrator ?
(My Vertex 180i skimmer just doesn't seem to be getting the job done on my 100 gallon tank with 12 fish; I don't think I'm over feeding them either. I can't seem to get my nitrates below 160 either.)


Allen

 

[Newb73]

Are you also running a protein skimmer when you're running the denitrator ?
(My Vertex 180i skimmer just doesn't seem to be getting the job done on my 100 gallon tank with 12 fish; I don't think I'm over feeding them either. I can't seem to get my nitrates below 160 either.)


Allen

I run an aquamaxx Cone-S C03 (225g tank, 40g sump).


Even if you are not skimming anything, you should always run a skimmer. The oxygen reaction helps maintain ph and further oxidize the tank as well as increases o2 saturation for the tank inhabitants.

When i used to leave town my skimmer cup would fill and the apex would shut down the skimmer.

I have sinced learned its better to just fully open the outlet and let the skimmer run at its lowest setting when im going out of town. The oxygen circulating in the reaction chamber is more important than removing the doc.

I think the ozone reactor helps also...it breaks stuff down in the tank (via oxidizing it) to a level that bacteria can more readily consume (which is then consumed by bacteria in the denitrator) can immediatly turn ammonia into nitrate (feeds the reactor).....and while simultaneously providing a safe guard against nitrogen sulfide (or any other toxins that get into the rank, by oxidizing it). It will also kill any bacteria (including cyano, dino and ich etc) that finds its way into the water column and passes through the reactor.

So far the setup is working as i had hoped. I already pulled both bio pellets and gfo off line.

 

[Jongalt26]

Abinder, You have 160 ppm nitrates in a 100 gallon tank?!! Im assuming its just a FOWLR due to the elevated nitrates. Your Vertex 180i skimmer should be more than enough to handle your tank.
i recommend trying to find out what is causing the elevated nitrates and find a way to reduce them. It could be something as simple as a sponge filter in your sump that has been used for too long.

 

[abinder]

Abinder, You have 160 ppm nitrates in a 100 gallon tank?!! Im assuming its just a FOWLR due to the elevated nitrates. Your Vertex 180i skimmer should be more than enough to handle your tank.
i recommend trying to find out what is causing the elevated nitrates and find a way to reduce them. It could be something as simple as a sponge filter in your sump that has been used for too long.

No. It isn't a FOWLR tank.

The really strange thing is my corals and everything in the tank seems to be doing really good.

I've used API test kit and Sailfert test kit and they both read about the same thing.

No sponge filter at all and I change my filter sock 2x a week.

Don't seem to overfeed.

It's really bizarre. People have looked at my tank and they don't understand it either.

One of the Vertex reps that I talked to on the phone thinks that maybe the 180i is oversized for my tank and that I should be using a Vertex 150. Doesn't seem right to me.

I even have a MarinePure 8x4x4 block in my refugium and the chaeto in it seems to grow very well.

I was dosing ozone through the Vertex 180i (it has an Ozone port). Some people at MACNA 2016 suggested that maybe the ozone was possibly killing off some of my beneficial bacteria. I've turned off the ozone since MACNA 2016.

I make my own RO/DI water using my SpectraPure setup. Mix the RO/DI water with Red Sea Coral Pro salt. The TDS of the RO/DI reads '0'.

I don't have any algae outbreaks. The gravel gets a little brown on the top.

I change 10 gallons of water each week. I use to vacuum the gravel when doing the water change, but it was suggested to me to stir up the gravel a couple of times a week. There doesn't seem to be any difference in the Nitrate reading between vacuuming the gravel or just stirring up the gravel a couple times a week.

If I hadn't actually measured the Nitrates, just by looking at the tank I'd swear everything is 'cool'.

One of the reps at Marine Depot was wondering if I just don't have protein in my water column and that was the reason I don't seem to be getting much skim. The small bubbles in the skimmer come up to about the bottom of the collection cup, where they get bigger, and the foam seems to be produced about 2"-3" from the top of the neck of the collection cup. I've also noticed that the foam seems to 'collapse' partially before getting to the top of the neck of the collection cup.

Could something in my system be giving me false Nitrate readings?


Allen

 

[Jongalt26]

Well if everything is doing well then you dont really have a problem lol.
Salifert is one of the gold standards for testing. I typically use Nyos but the readings wont go that high. I would think the best way to confirm is with a Triton water test @ $50 each or a similar one.
I dont think an oversized skimmer would cause nitrates to go up, but im not an expert.
The marinepure block should also be converting the nitrates as well and quite effectively, cheato obviously helps.

As far as ozone killing off bacteria, i doubt that has an effect unless you are actively carbon dosing to generate the bacteria.

Be sure to test your RODI water for nitrates. Spectrapure is awesome from what ive read (and i think most companies use the DOW membranes) but nitrates wont register on a TDS meter. Ive seen instances with zero TDS and some nitrates (my case it was only 4ppm i think)

Side note: Be careful with red sea coral pro salt, i used to use that exclusively but recently switched to salinity. The reason was that Red Sea has a high alk and i used to run alk at 12 but when i added both kalkwasser and GFO to my system it stripped my water of nutrients / (phosphates specifically) which caused some significant issues with my coral. I run alk at 9ish now.

Also as of note, i did testing of red sea salt and had 4ppm nitrates after testing just newly made saltwater.

Water changes seem to be on point.

Hrmmm gravel. What type of substrate are you using? Gravel is known for being a detritus catch / nitrate factory.

Your protein skimmer sounds ok, sounds like you're doing a dry skim. How much skimmate is in the cup at the end of the week?

Im not aware of anything that produces false nitrate readings. Some of the other solutions i would look at too would include carbon dosing (could be vodka, vinegar, nopox, prodibio), zeovit or even biopellets

let me know how it goes !

 

[abinder]

Well if everything is doing well then you dont really have a problem lol.
Salifert is one of the gold standards for testing. I typically use Nyos but the readings wont go that high. I would think the best way to confirm is with a Triton water test @ $50 each or a similar one.
I dont think an oversized skimmer would cause nitrates to go up, but im not an expert.
The marinepure block should also be converting the nitrates as well and quite effectively, cheato obviously helps.

As far as ozone killing off bacteria, i doubt that has an effect unless you are actively carbon dosing to generate the bacteria.

Be sure to test your RODI water for nitrates. Spectrapure is awesome from what ive read (and i think most companies use the DOW membranes) but nitrates wont register on a TDS meter. Ive seen instances with zero TDS and some nitrates (my case it was only 4ppm i think)

Side note: Be careful with red sea coral pro salt, i used to use that exclusively but recently switched to salinity. The reason was that Red Sea has a high alk and i used to run alk at 12 but when i added both kalkwasser and GFO to my system it stripped my water of nutrients / (phosphates specifically) which caused some significant issues with my coral. I run alk at 9ish now.

Also as of note, i did testing of red sea salt and had 4ppm nitrates after testing just newly made saltwater.

Water changes seem to be on point.

Hrmmm gravel. What type of substrate are you using? Gravel is known for being a detritus catch / nitrate factory.

Your protein skimmer sounds ok, sounds like you're doing a dry skim. How much skimmate is in the cup at the end of the week?

Im not aware of anything that produces false nitrate readings. Some of the other solutions i would look at too would include carbon dosing (could be vodka, vinegar, nopox, prodibio), zeovit or even biopellets

let me know how it goes !

Thanks for the reply.
Maybe have about 3/4" of skimmate in the cup at the end of the week. I never see foam actually coming down into the collection cup either.
This is a photo I just took. (6 days since the last cleaning). The white in the neck of the collection cup they you can see is actually the small bubbles and not foam. The foam starts where it gets dark.

The dark part is about 1.5" from top of the inner neck of the collection cup.

I'm presently stirring the substrate 2 times a week and it's about 1 to 1.5" deep. (I have some wrasses and was told that's a good depth for the wrasses.

My substrate is CaribSea. It isn't fine like sand; probably the next size larger than sand.

 

[Newb73]

My water goes through a 7 stage filter. TWO RODI units, a prefilter, 2 carbon blocks and TWO DI resin units.

Using instant ocean my water change mix registered at 2 parts nitrate....which was at the time higher than my tank.

Every time i did a water change i was ADDING nitrates. Now i dont do water changes unless my tank tests higher than my mix water...otherwise i feel it is actually counter productive.

Red Sea was worse than instant ocean.

If you run ozone correctly (where 100% of the effluent is run through carbon....) it DOES NOT dose ozone to the tank should not it kill any denitrifing bacteria as those bacteria are not on the water column. According to Randy Holmes Farley, the break down from an ozone would most likely result in smaller forms of waste that bacteria would MORE easily feed on...thus increasing (not lowering) their population....(good if your seeding beneficial bacteria......bad if it happens to end up feeding cyano).

At any rate, cut your feedings by 30% and change your filter socks every 2 days...see if thar helps.

I also found gfo to be completely counter productive here as lack of phosphates was a limiting factor....things got much better when i took gfo off line....and i still have zero detected phosphates and less cyano now.

I also added marine pure when i added the nitrate reactor and ozone.

 

[Jongalt26]

Thanks for the reply.
Maybe have about 3/4" of skimmate in the cup at the end of the week. I never see foam actually coming down into the collection cup either.
This is a photo I just took. (6 days since the last cleaning). The white in the neck of the collection cup they you can see is actually the small bubbles and not foam. The foam starts where it gets dark.

The dark part is about 1.5" from top of the inner neck of the collection cup.

I'm presently stirring the substrate 2 times a week and it's about 1 to 1.5" deep. (I have some wrasses and was told that's a good depth for the wrasses.

My substrate is CaribSea. It isn't fine like sand; probably the next size larger than sand.

Well i doubt its your sand bed then and your skimmer looks like it is performing reasonably well. I would think the skimmate would be darker with 12 fish though. Thats really odd that your nitrates are that high.

 

[abinder]

Well i doubt its your sand bed then and your skimmer looks like it is performing reasonably well. I would think the skimmate would be darker with 12 fish though. Thats really odd that your nitrates are that high.

Thanks for the reply.
Yea I'm really confused at to why they are as well.

Is there a different type of Nitrate other than from proteins that could be possibly be causing it?
(At least I'm assuming that nitrates from proteins is the only type that a skimmer would remove.)

 

[abinder]

My water goes through a 7 stage filter. TWO RODI units, a prefilter, 2 carbon blocks and TWO DI resin units.

Using instant ocean my water change mix registered at 2 parts nitrate....which was at the time higher than my tank.

Every time i did a water change i was ADDING nitrates. Now i dont do water changes unless my tank tests higher than my mix water...otherwise i feel it is actually counter productive.

Red Sea was worse than instant ocean.

If you run ozone correctly (where 100% of the effluent is run through carbon....) it DOES NOT dose ozone to the tank should not it kill any denitrifing bacteria as those bacteria are not on the water column. According to Randy Holmes Farley, the break down from an ozone would most likely result in smaller forms of waste that bacteria would MORE easily feed on...thus increasing (not lowering) their population....(good if your seeding beneficial bacteria......bad if it happens to end up feeding cyano).

At any rate, cut your feedings by 30% and change your filter socks every 2 days...see if thar helps.

I also found gfo to be completely counter productive here as lack of phosphates was a limiting factor....things got much better when i took gfo off line....and i still have zero detected phosphates and less cyano now.

I also added marine pure when i added the nitrate reactor and ozone.

Thanks for the reply.

My ozone probably wasn't running 100% through carbon. I have a bag of ROX 0.8 carbon hanging in the water stream as it passes by on the way to the return pump, but I'm pretty sure that not 100% of the ozone was going through it (Ozone was being added to my Vertex 180i skimmer). I've actually tried not having carbon when running ozone and didn't notice anything different. I'm not running GFO (was running RowPhos about 3 months ago, but stopped.).

When I added my MarinePure 8x4x4 block, to the refugium, I was hoping that would make a difference. But it didn't seem to put a 'dent' in the total Nitrate reading. (My chato seems to grow really well.)

Allen

 

[abinder]

I've got an AquaMax ConeS Q-2 skimmer coming from MarineDepot to see if for some reason the Vertex 180i just doesn't function well in my setup.


Allen

 

[Oceansize]

I wish I had seen this thread before today, I coulda saved you guys some trouble! I've been running a sulphur denitrator for 1.5 years and have some valuable experience.

1) Air pockets that won't go away: this is simple hydraulics/siphon physics. Best way to avoid it is to take particular care to use as short a water line as possible, both inlet and outlet. Make sure these lines run above the reaction chamber. Especially when using a sump as there isn't much difference in height between the sump water and the reactor water. There should be no "dips" in the lines (no "U" shapes). If your water line has a dip in it, shorten the run so it forms an arc rather than a "U". Also my denitrator (the Korallin) has a valve on top specifically for bleeding air/nitrogen during the break-in process. If yours doesn't have that valve, I don't know how to help you. There should be some sort of way for releasing gas from the top of the chamber, otherwise it's a poor design. FWIW, I never needed to use that valve during the break-in process because I learned from others' mistakes and made sure I had short water lines from the very beginning. I never had an air or nitrogen pocket to get rid of, even during break-in, and I believe my short runs in the water lines are the reason for my good fortune.

2) Whitish cloudy water: educated guess (even Randy H-F is uncertain) this is a bacterial bloom. My assumption is there is a large die-off of anaerobic bacteria once the majority of the nitrates are knocked down. It happened to me twice during break-in, both times without any adverse effects aside from briefly cloudy water. Just chill, it will work itself out shortly. It doesn't appear to be toxic at all.

3) Inconsistent drip rate that needs frequent monitoring and adjustment: this was very normal for me during the first several months, maybe even closer to a year. The good news is it can go weeks now without needing to be adjusted, so don't get deflated. We've all mentioned how surprised we've been by how long it takes to reactor to break-in. I believe this is because it takes a long time for the anaerobic bacteria to find a balance: first it has to colonize the media, then it has to eat up all the excess nitrate that caused you to buy the reactor in the first place, then it needs to readjust to the "normal" level of nitrates now that the excess is gone, and through each phase you can get bacterial blooms, some detectable by the naked eye, some not. All those ebbs & flows of bacterial populations can gum up the effluent line just enough that it affects the drip rate. What I do is simply open the valve full-bore for about two hours and then return it to my target drip rate. Go ahead and wipe off the tip of the line with your finger, that sliminess you feel is bacteria getting pushed out. That helps a LOT. Don't forget to close down that valve back to your drip rate after two hours or the water in the reactor will get too aerobic and your reactor won't work. I got the 2 hour recommendation from somewhere online and it seems to work just fine.

4) Sulfate concerns/ Nasty smelling (rotten egg, sulphuric) water: This means your effluent drip rate is too slow, probably because of the same bacterial ebbs & flows that caused cloudy water. In my experience, a water change is unnecessary, just follow the same procedure for cloudy water: open the effluent valve full bore for about two hours, then return it to normal. This has happened to me twice and I experienced no bad consequences by continuing to run the effluent into the tank as opposed to a bucket or something. Having said that, at it's worst my problem of nasty-smelling water wasn't as bad as the example I read on this thread, so, y'know, grain of salt. If you ran the effluent into a bucket for two hours, heck you might as well just do a water change. What I am saying is that in my experience, a water change was unnecessary, so maybe running the effluent into a bucket instead of the tank is also unnecessary. As I understand it, the nitrate-eating bacteria we're trying to propagate will eat oxygen before it eats nitrates (thus why the water needs to be anaerobic before any denitration will take place), and of course it then converts those nitrates to nitrogen gas. But once the bacteria is out of oxygen and nitrates, whatever it eats after that, sulfate is the product. So the bright side to nasty-smelling water is it means you're out of nitrates, lol. Well, out of nitrates in the reaction chamber anyway.

After all this time and now several months of nearly maintenance-free operation, I would say my target drip rate is about 2 drips per second to keep nitrates below 5 ppm. Of course this is where individual tank parameters will make all the difference, so don't read too much into this.

 

[Jongalt26]

Thats awesome thanks for that reply. Is there any significant danger of hydrogen sulfide getting into the tank from the reactor?


abinder, im not sure if anything else provides a false positive on nitrates.

 

[Newb73]

I was thinking of trying a better pump (than an aqualifter) to address rhe drip rate.

I am not a fan of using a pinch valve....i think a nice dosing pump of some kind to run that line might be better..

Problem is, dosing pumps are not designed for continuous use

 

[Oceansize]

Thats awesome thanks for that reply. Is there any significant danger of hydrogen sulfide getting into the tank from the reactor?

The operative word here is "significant." There is a possibility, but I wouldn't call it a significant or material one. You're only going to get hydrogen sulfide if your drip rate is really low. And if your drip rate is really low, you're not going to be putting very much water in the tank. Assuming you're home at least once a day, I can't see how the problem could get too out of hand. If you nevertheless neglect to check your drip rate during the break-in process, and your effluent starts smelling like rotten eggs, it won't take you very long to notice at all, that smell travels well. I think the only way it could get out of hand is if you left town during the break-in process. But I suppose the bright side there is, if your valve is clogged enough to start producing hydrogen sulfide and you're not home to open the valve, well your drip rate will be zero before very long anyway as the valve continues to clog up. Your reactor will be very sulfate-ridden by that point but at least it's not going into the tank. A simple flush and you're good to go.

The bottom line is, whatever risk there is, is so low that I wouldn't worry about it. Just make sure you're not going on any long trips during the break-in process, which can be 6-8 weeks.