DELTEC NITRATEFILTER NFP 140

[Jiri Kocourek]

Hello, does anyone have experience with this reactor? I have had it on for a week, everything according to the recommendations. 3 days without adding water from the aquarium, 4th day and onwards I dose via a peristaltic pump 2 ml/minute. I dose 2x 11 ml Deltec Nitrate Fluid daily which is about Vodka+RO.

The NO3 value started at 70 ppm, on the 4th day 45 ppm, on the 5th day 61 ppm, on the 7th day 50 ppm. After a few days, the reactor should produce values close to 0 ppm. I don't know where the problem is?

 

[Blue Ring Octopus]

Maybe it will take patience to see if it is catching on and working correctly, I have the old model with the old AC pump I forget its name problem child pump.

 

[Jiri Kocourek]

Maybe it will take patience to see if it is catching on and working correctly, I have the old model with the old AC pump I forget its name problem child pump.

I think so too, but should I increase the dose of Deltec Fluid/Vodka? I have now base level 22 ml daily.

 

[doninla]

i have an NFP509. Looks like you don’t have an ORP probe? I do, it took about a week with no flow to get the ORP level down to -180 which is where the reactor starts to work.
On a related note - I’m almost out of the Deltec nitrate fluid, do you have a source for this? I can’t find it anywhere… will try vodka when i run out.

 

[amingharacheh]

Hi mate,
I can only share my own experience, because I use this reactor on a freshwater aquarium, not a reef tank.


Before I set mine up, I read many people saying nitrate reactors can be very difficult to run in freshwater, but I decided to try it anyway. What I did worked well for me, so I can only recommend it from my own experience. Of course, if it doesn’t suit your setup, you may need to adjust it differently.


For me, the most important thing was using an ORP probe. I use GHL to monitor the ORP, and honestly I think running this type of reactor without an ORP probe would be very difficult, because you can’t really see what is happening inside the reactor. With the probe, you can see if the reactor is actually becoming anaerobic or not.


I also use a GHL doser for the carbon source. I mixed vodka with RO water at around 1 part vodka to 3 parts RO water, mixed it well, and dosed it slowly. If you want the reactor to start faster and more safely, using Deltec Nitrate Fluid at the beginning may be better, and once the reactor is mature and stable you can change to another carbon source if you want.


In my case, I dosed around 8 ml per day, but I split it into 80 small doses of 0.1 ml during the day. I think this helped keep the ORP more stable instead of jumping up and down. You don’t have to do it exactly the same way; even 4–8 smaller doses per day may be fine, depending on your setup.


For feeding water from the aquarium into the reactor, I use a D-D dosing pump. After calibration, it gives a very stable and accurate flow, so I don’t have to adjust it manually all the time.


Also, always test the outlet water from the reactor, not only the main aquarium water. When you start increasing the flow, make sure the nitrate from the reactor outlet is close to 0. If the outlet nitrate is still not close to 0, I personally would not increase the flow or carbon source too quickly.