PeterC99
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Following along. See certain members swear by their sulfur denitrators.
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If you want to know if you are making any progress, I think you should test the effluent for nitrite. If their is nitrite, the denitrifying bacteria is most likely growing. Hopefully the nitrate level isn't so high that you need to try to do something different than what the instructions say(I have an idea that you could try, but I don't know if it would be necessary.)That’s the problem— a month in and the effluent is still 160+ Nitrate... same as the display tank.
I have it at 1 drop per second (per the instructions). “If... the nitrate level of the effluent is lower than the nitrate level of your aquarium water, the BioDenitrator has begun reducing nitrate (NO3).” “It will take 4-6 weeks for denitrifying bacteria to fully colonize the media in the BioDenitrator.”
So technically I’m not at 6 weeks yet, only 4, but I was expecting some lowering of 160+ in the effluent.
If the effluent has zero nitrite, and it doesn't have zero nitrate or close to zero nitrate, I think the denitrifying bacteria(sulfur oxidizing)may not be in the sulfur denitrator. I think that you should run the SD wide open for at least 2 to 3 days(the bacteria don't need low oxygen conditions to grow), and test for nitrite each day, if you measure nitrite, reduce the flow to one drop a second. That is what I would do. If the bacteria are in the aquarium(and are not in the SD), I believe that running the sulfur denitrator wide open would greatly increase the chances of the bacteria getting into the sulfur denitrator.Tested the effluent's Nitrite level today: Zero. Guess I might have to wait the full 6 weeks to see Nitrate and Phosphate budge at all (?)
@tehmadreefer, they were indeed back-ordered almost everywhere; here in the U.S. I gathered that everyone was literally waiting on the same ship's container to arrive. Because I was on a waiting list, I was able to snap two new units, but at least from my seller they blew out 70 of them almost right away.