Converting Calcium Reactor to a Sulfur De-Nitrator

[ryanuy]

Sorry if this has been asked before. Anyways, I was hoping to convert my bubble magus calcium reactor into a sulfur de-nitrator. Its the model in the link below.

http://www.bubble-magus.com/productinfo.aspx?id=481

I was just going to change the media to the sulphur media and add some calcium reactor media on top of that and run the effluent near the skimmer intake.

Would there be any issues with that and has anyone done this with other calcium reactors? Otherwise I was looking at purchasing the Aquamaxx nitrate reactors.

 

[garbled]

I converted one years ago, and yes, it works fine. It's a relatively easy conversion. Mostly you strip off all the CO2 adding bits and move the feed lines around a bit.

Personally, I won't run one ever again, too fiddly, too dangerous. I'm not convinced you can run one without an accident of some kind eventually.

 

[ryanuy]

I converted one years ago, and yes, it works fine. It's a relatively easy conversion. Mostly you strip off all the CO2 adding bits and move the feed lines around a bit.

Personally, I won't run one ever again, too fiddly, too dangerous. I'm not convinced you can run one without an accident of some kind eventually.

Ohhh... what kind of accident happened with your set up?

 

[garbled]

So the problem with these, and why they are fiddly, is that the bacteria colony grows pretty quick. As it grows, it changes how quickly water passes through the reactor. So lets say you adjust it so everything is perfect, well, the bacteria like that, and they grow, and they slow the water down, now it's not perfect anymore, now it's too slow.

When it's too slow, the bacteria starts churning out hydrogen sulfide, and not little amounts that occur in sandbeds and are pretty much a non-issue, I mean it churns out H2S. The worst part is, once it starts making H2S, it slows down even more, and makes even more of it.

Twice I had it dose my tank hard with H2S. Both times I was barely able to save the fish. The second time was so bad, that the puffer I had in that tank was swimming around upside down on the bottom of the tank, basically drunk. Probably would have died if I had noticed it a few minutes later. He was so far gone I could literally scoop him out with my hand and ran him to the sump of another tank.

The problem with controlling them is you need to constantly monitor the ORP of the reaction, and adjust the flow level to match. As it lowers, you need to increase flow to get it back into range. They go H2S super fast, like, matter of hours fast, so this isn't something you can safely do by hand. And honestly, I don't trust any computer to control them enough that I would run one ever again.

You can run one for months without issue, and then one day, bam, joy everywhere.

 

[Blue Ring Octopus]

You need to have a really good peri pump that runs 24/7 and is adjustable.

 

[ryanuy]

So the problem with these, and why they are fiddly, is that the bacteria colony grows pretty quick. As it grows, it changes how quickly water passes through the reactor. So lets say you adjust it so everything is perfect, well, the bacteria like that, and they grow, and they slow the water down, now it's not perfect anymore, now it's too slow.

When it's too slow, the bacteria starts churning out hydrogen sulfide, and not little amounts that occur in sandbeds and are pretty much a non-issue, I mean it churns out H2S. The worst part is, once it starts making H2S, it slows down even more, and makes even more of it.

Twice I had it dose my tank hard with H2S. Both times I was barely able to save the fish. The second time was so bad, that the puffer I had in that tank was swimming around upside down on the bottom of the tank, basically drunk. Probably would have died if I had noticed it a few minutes later. He was so far gone I could literally scoop him out with my hand and ran him to the sump of another tank.

The problem with controlling them is you need to constantly monitor the ORP of the reaction, and adjust the flow level to match. As it lowers, you need to increase flow to get it back into range. They go H2S super fast, like, matter of hours fast, so this isn't something you can safely do by hand. And honestly, I don't trust any computer to control them enough that I would run one ever again.

You can run one for months without issue, and then one day, bam, joy everywhere.

How long did you run yours for before the denitrator started churning out H2S? How do you control nutrients in your system now since stopping the denitrator?

 

[ryanuy]

So the problem with these, and why they are fiddly, is that the bacteria colony grows pretty quick. As it grows, it changes how quickly water passes through the reactor. So lets say you adjust it so everything is perfect, well, the bacteria like that, and they grow, and they slow the water down, now it's not perfect anymore, now it's too slow.

When it's too slow, the bacteria starts churning out hydrogen sulfide, and not little amounts that occur in sandbeds and are pretty much a non-issue, I mean it churns out H2S. The worst part is, once it starts making H2S, it slows down even more, and makes even more of it.

Twice I had it dose my tank hard with H2S. Both times I was barely able to save the fish. The second time was so bad, that the puffer I had in that tank was swimming around upside down on the bottom of the tank, basically drunk. Probably would have died if I had noticed it a few minutes later. He was so far gone I could literally scoop him out with my hand and ran him to the sump of another tank.

The problem with controlling them is you need to constantly monitor the ORP of the reaction, and adjust the flow level to match. As it lowers, you need to increase flow to get it back into range. They go H2S super fast, like, matter of hours fast, so this isn't something you can safely do by hand. And honestly, I don't trust any computer to control them enough that I would run one ever again.

You can run one for months without issue, and then one day, bam, joy everywhere.

Also how fast was the flow through your denitrator? I was thinking of running mine on the fast side where nitrates wont come out totally zero but at least lower than the DT.

 

[garbled]

They don't work very good unless you get it in the butter zone, and the butter zone is basically the danger zone. It ran fine for about a year fore it went bad on me the first time. The second time it was just 3 months.

I don't remember the flow rate. Basically you want that magical rate where its pretty slow, and just on the edge of H2S, without actually being in it. -170mv ORP. The problem is the H2S number is somewhere in the -220 / -250 range.

 

[ReeferBud]

They don't work very good unless you get it in the butter zone, and the butter zone is basically the danger zone. It ran fine for about a year fore it went bad on me the first time. The second time it was just 3 months.

I don't remember the flow rate. Basically you want that magical rate where its pretty slow, and just on the edge of H2S, without actually being in it. -170mv ORP. The problem is the H2S number is somewhere in the -220 / -250 range.

I’ve had mine go into the -250mv zone multiple times and at most, I just noticed a bacterial bloom that would cloud up the water for a few days. But nothing as bad as what you describe.

Has there a strong smell from the H2S?

How many days do you think went by before you noticed the flow rate had dropped too low.

I do agree that the optimal operation zone is pretty narrow and requires almost daily monitoring/adjustment.

 

[garbled]

There was a bit of a smell, yes. One of the major incidents I had was that the flow got really low, so I fixed it. It turned out that the thing was full of H2S, so when I fixed the flow, it dumped it all into the tank immediately, and then horror.

I'd say it was a day or two before I noticed...

 

[ReeferBud]

Thanks. How did you know something was wrong when you fixed the flow and dumped the rx contents into the tank?

How did the tank and inhabitants respond and what did you do?

I ask in case I’m ever in a similar situation and know what to do.

 

[garbled]

Np, that is the perfect question to be asking!

So I didn't realize it was dumping H2S immediately. I think with the low flow of these reactors in the first place, it took awhile to push the bad stuff all the way out and into the tank.

What I remember, is that my GF came and got me in hysterics, because the puffer was swimming in spirals and upside down. When I got to the tank, what I saw was the puffer doing barrel rolls, quickly, and swimming in erratic bursts in random directions, like down, or up, or sideways. As soon as I got near the tank, there was a strong smell of H2S, especially when I opened the lid.

This was about 15-30 minutes after "fixing" the reactor. In the 30-60 seconds where I was observing the tank, and trying to figure out what had happened, the puffer got noticeably worse, and had dropped to the bottom of the tank upside down. I immediately threw the lid open, reached in, grabbed him with my bare hands, and ran down the hallway, and threw him in the sump of my 800. Within a about 10 minutes he was happy again. (I think I might have done the pull him backwards through the water thing to get some water in his gills, that part is kind of a blur now)

After a few days all the H2S worked its way out of the tank, (lots of aeration), and he was returned to his home, this time without a reactor.

I feel one of these reactors could maybe be run with the more modern tech and controls available (for example, something reliable like a Kamoer peristaltic pump running the feed), but I feel like the danger is so high, I'm not willing to try anymore. The window there was probably 30 minutes. If it happens, you have 30 minutes to evacuate the tank. If that happens at 3am, everything is dead.

For reference, it was a long spine puffer, about 6-8" in length. I think a smaller fish would have been done for instantly.

I think the problem was that fixing the reactor needs to be done into a bucket. Once the flow drops too much like that, and it goes bad, you basically have to run the reactor clear into a bucket for awhile, to push all the H2S out. My critical mistake was fixing the reactor flow, and leaving it attached to the tank. (Obviously I didn't know at the time it was full of H2S, but still..) You might also be able to mitigate this by running the reactor flow directly into a skimmer, so hopefully if something goes wrong at 3am, it will gas off more.

I don't really remember the other event, because it wasn't as catastrophic. I think that one it just kinda messed up on it's own and I smelled H2S and shut it down to fix it with no ill effects.