New sulfur denitrator working great!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 23, 2020

robbyg said:
Haven’t really had any depletion issues. Mind you I use half the Recommended sulphate and doubler the the buffering media.

If you run the effluent over calcium carbonate, some will dissolve, shifting the issue from depleting alkalinity to rising calcium. That effect will be less of an issue for most folks.

NO3 · Mar 23, 2020

Hello everyone,
I just tested my water from the tank and effluent. Here are the results:

This is from the tank

This is from the effluent:

It looks like the Nitrite from my effluent are slightly elevated and my NO3 looks the same. I have my drip rate set at 1 drip every 2 seconds. Is everything normal here? Any help is always appreciated, thank you.

NO3

NO3 · Mar 25, 2020

Anybody?

NO3 · Mar 27, 2020

I checked my levels from the denitrifior just now and my NO3 levels are blood red and my NO2 levels are .25. Should I just stop this or just let it dip 1 drip every 2 seconds? Am I doing something wrong here? Any help is always appreciated!

NO3

robbyg · Mar 27, 2020

NO3 said:
I checked my levels from the denitrifior just now and my NO3 levels are blood red and my NO2 levels are .25. Should I just stop this or just let it dip 1 drip every 2 seconds? Am I doing something wrong here? Any help is always appreciated!

NO3

How long have you had it setup?

ca1ore · Mar 27, 2020

My experience with alk depletion was that it’s minimal as the reactor seeds, quite high as the reactor is eating nitrates, and then lower again once you get to the maintenance state.

NO3 · Mar 27, 2020

robbyg said:
How long have you had it setup?

2 weeks today

NO3

NO3 · Mar 27, 2020

ca1ore said:
My experience with alk depletion was that it’s minimal as the reactor seeds, quite high as the reactor is eating nitrates, and then lower again once you get to the maintenance state.

So, it would show high NO3 as it’s “eating” nitrates?

NO3

robbyg · Mar 27, 2020

I would not increase the drip level until the N03 coming out of the reactor is near zero. At the two week point your just in the zone of building up the bacteria needed. Within a week you should have zero coming out of the reactor and you can start upping the drip count to 1 per second and when that comes down to zero up it again. BTW I assume you did run the reactor on full bore for the first 24 hours to get all the air out of the chamber? If not it's too late to start again but it may be the reason your not already getting zero out and why it may take a bit of extra time.

NO3 · Mar 27, 2020

robbyg said:
I would not increase the drip level until the N03 coming out of the reactor is near zero. At the two week point your just in the zone of building up the bacteria needed. Within a week you should have zero coming out of the reactor and you can start upping the drip count to 1 per second and when that comes down to zero up it again. BTW I assume you did run the reactor on full bore for the first 24 hours to get all the air out of the chamber? If not it's too late to start again but it may be the reason your not already getting zero out and why it may take a bit of extra time.

Thanks for tour reply @robbyg I actually had the unit run at full bore from the effluent for 2 days and had the outlet at 1 drip every 2-3 seconds. I read the forum again and instructions again and I should have closed the effluent, so I did.

So now, effluent is closed and the drip is coming out of the outlet. I’ve never had bubbles in the effluent line, I check everyday and I don’t see any cloudiness in the unit either.

NO3

robbyg · Mar 27, 2020

You seem to be on top of things. The only thing you need to do now is be patient and wait for the output to drop to zero. What you don’t want to do is start messing around with the settings.

NO3 · Mar 27, 2020

robbyg said:
You seem to be on top of things. The only thing you need to do now is be patient and wait for the output to drop to zero. What you don’t want to do is start messing around with the settings.

Thank you for your help @robbyg I haven’t touched the settings at all, not going to either. I’ll be patient and wait. It’s going to be hard tho lol

NO3

NO3 · Mar 28, 2020

Well, today I saw I lost my pink tail trigger and khole tang. The only fish surviving is my snowflake eel. I was at my LFS earlier today and they tested the water I bought in, this water is from my tank. The only thing is my ph is really high. I’ve been dosing with ph buffer and it’s not working. Here is a pic.

Should I add damsels in the tank or should I just wait for things to calm down? Any help is always appreciated!

NO3

Bob Breton · Apr 14, 2020

unable to locate any sulphur media need help

FirstContact · Apr 14, 2020

Was able to source a large replenishment Korallin kit from Marine Depot. Ebay and Amazon have sulfur prils marked as for soil. Don't even have my reactor yet. Ordered it from PacificSun. Not sure why sulfur vanished from the US aquarium market. BRS sold Skimz sulfur media. No one has any sulfur in stock, but everyone is still selling the reactors. I was extremely happy MD hooked me up.

ca1ore · Apr 14, 2020

FirstContact said:
Not sure why sulfur vanished from the US aquarium market.

Probably because nobody was buying it ..... well, almost nobody.

ca1ore · Apr 14, 2020

Bob Breton said:
unable to locate any sulphur media need help

Buddy of mine used this .....

xionggotstyle · Apr 14, 2020

You can use the sulfur stuff from the Plant places. Its the same stuff. Just ask for the ones that are more like spheres. This was the advice given to me from the Caribsea guys at MACNA. They just didnt sell enough of the Sulfer media to maintain keeping it as a stocked item.