New sulfur denitrator working great!

[Dr. Reef]

i just read the first page,
i have been using Korallin Sulphur denitrator for about 8-10 yrs.
Slow drip will cause hydrogen sulfide gas which in large numbers is deadly to fish. first sign will be smell. second fish will swim like drunk.
As the bacteria matures you will need to adjust the flow. making it flow faster, or else H2S gas will form.
Mine is almost fully opened on flow. it works so well that Nitrates remain 0 but i dont want them to be 0 so i dose Sodium Nitrate to keep it at 2-5ppm.

Doing so will deplete alkalinity fast and drop pH so compensate for that.

 

[Dr. Reef]

another thing after its all cycled and you have reached the max flow and comfortable nitrate steady numbers slightly open the second outlet to where it drips 1 drop per few sec. this will release H2S gas and air buildup inside the reactor and release it into the air rather than getting mixed in the water.

 

[Blue Carbon Reefing]

So I need some advice for those who have been successful with these. I try to keep the drip rate at 1 to 2 drops per second and after a few days the drip raye will slow and the ORP will go further into the negative. When i get the orp to negative 150 the flow rate has slowed to one drop for every 10 seconds or longer. I have been increasing the flow back to 1 to drops per second and the ORP will go back up to the negative 80 range. However i am still testing over 80 Nitrate doing this method. Why is my effluent not come out at zero? What am I doing wrong?

 

[Fudsey]

@Blue Carbon Reefing How long have you had it running?

 

[Blue Carbon Reefing]

@Fudsey the original version it in two reactors was started June 27th. That version had no recirculating pump. I purchase a calcium reactor and used all of the same media and put that into the calcium reactor on August 12th. I doubled the media in the same reactor on September 7th. If the clock would reset, I am not sure if it would or if the bacteria the first gallon of media had would wash off or not. If it did the clock would be reset on September 7th and it is has been up and running since then.

 

[Dr. Reef]

everytime you add or open the reactor air/oxygen is added to system that sets your clock back. i would let it run now at low drip for about 2-3 weeks and smelling for H2S gas. if you smell rotten egg smell increase drip just a little and keep doing that till you dont smell the gas anymore and by that time Nitrates will be 0 out of the reactor.

 

[Blue Carbon Reefing]

@Dr. Reef thank you. I will check back in a couple of weeks on how that is working. Anyone know how people run their effluent at a straight stream of water and claim zero nitrates coming out of the effluent? Wouldn't increasing the flow just introduce more oxygenated water which would be counter productive to reducing the nitrates?

 

[Dr. Reef]

i have been using sulfur rx for about 20 yrs. Once you have very close to 0 nitrates coming in into the reactor the bacteria has not much to get fed with and thus they do whatever they can and bring the nitrates to 0 and rich oxygenated water runs through the reactor with bacteria having not much to do so they start consuming sulfur. i am at full stream but i had to dial it back to about 80% open as i am dosing Nitrates now to keep at 5ppm.

To answer your question about oxygen rich water being counter productive. well when you get to that point you wont have any nitrates in the system bacteria will be forced to consume sulfur along with whatever little bit nitrates from feeding and cycle that maybe produced.

 

[Blue Carbon Reefing]

wouldn't you just remove some of the sulfur media instead of dosing something you are removing from the water?

 

[Dr. Reef]

wouldnt make any difference if you removed some media. Bacteria will still consume nitrates and sulfur and when sulfur is gone and not enough nitrates in the water, bacteria will die out and you will start seeing increase in nitrates. To increase nitrates if you have hit zero is either by slowing the water to a point where only so much water is processed and not all nitrates produced by tank get processed so tank starts to increase in nitrates or run the water so fast through the reactor that bacteria has no time to consume but this will also wash away the bacteria. its a hard balance.
If i keep the full flow with dosing, bacteria will consume all the dosed nitrates and i will still end up with 0.
With slowing the water bacteria can only consume so much and nitrates stay at a certain level in tank.

 

[Blue Carbon Reefing]

@Dr. Reef Thank you. that is a good explanation.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Would dosing Kn03 at the point of bottoming out N03 to keep the bacteria colonies alive be warranted?

 

[Dr. Reef]

once you bottom out bacteria will continue to live off sulfur media till it depletes. if you are dosing Kno3 or Sodium nitrate your going to add in a very small amount to keep nitrates at 0-5ppm or at most 10ppm. If bacteria is not checked they will eat that up in no time. it will keep them alive but not enough so sulfur media will be consumed and once you are down to very little media and need to open the reactor most likely you will loose the bacteria or throw the reactor in a mini cycle.

 

[Dr. Reef]

highly recommend to use a second chamber after sulfur and add coral media to gain pH and some alkalinity back. if not second chamber then 75% sulfur then 25% coral media.

 

[Flippers4pups]

If a reactor is too large for a system and it's nutrient load, at first it would perform as needed, but later end up in this condition. At some point, even at a very slow drip rate, consumption of the sulfur would happen.

Sizing the proper size reactor up front would be essential.

Would having scalable reactors, say two Chambers be better? As the nitrates drop down to 0, one chamber could be taken off line to compensate.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Very true. I had a small koralline unit designed for 200 gal. It kept up till a certain time. Then i had to upgrade to their bigger version because smaller unit wouldn't keep up. Now the oversize unit is big enough for 600 gal while i have only 300 this why I have run into situation as you mentioned.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Very true. I had a small koralline unit designed for 200 gal. It kept up till a certain time. Then i had to upgrade to their bigger version because smaller unit wouldn't keep up. Now the oversize unit is big enough for 600 gal while i have only 300 this why I have run into situation as you mentioned.

Could two phosban reactors in tandem work? Would still need a thrid chamber for ARM.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Yes even just one chamber with 25% arm will work as long as you have something where the pH can be risen back up, should be fine.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Yes even just one chamber with 25% arm will work as long as you have something where the pH can be risen back up, should be fine.

What would the size of the degassing chamber be in relation to the reactors size? I’ve seen very small chambers on commercial units. I’m assuming it doesn’t need to be very large.

 

[Dr. Reef]

Most manufacturers recommend 3:1 ratio.