New sulfur denitrator working great!

[ReeferBud]

I set up an Aquamaxx denitrator today. It was very easy and I was up and running within 15 minutes. I dialed in the 2-3 drops/sec that are recommended and now I have to wait a couple of weeks.

I used extra course calcium carbonate on top of the sulfur. Is a more fine media recommended or should extra course be ok?

Next I'll need to install the ORP probe and solenoid (as a fail-safe In case the ORP drops too much, I wouldn't want to add that water to the tank) and program it with the apex. Does anyone know what type of BNC adapter to reverse the polarity is needed to be able to read the negative ORP values on the apex?

 

[lawise]

Course is what is recommended and that is what I'm using and it is working out great

 

[lawise]

Purchased and aquamaxx sulfur denitrator my nitrates were very high around 80 ppm's after two weeks the nitrates entering my denitrator are 40 ppm's and coming out are zero denitrator is working great. It only took the two weeks for the bacteria to develop enough!

For anyone having problems with drip rate I purchased the two little fishes miniature ball valve it works perfect for drip rate then I downloaded a metronome and that lets you dial in exactly what you want for drops per second, it really helps to fine-tune with this.

 

[ReeferBud]

Can a reactor be dialed in to keep a certain NO3 level, for example 5ppm? How would this be done?

I'm breaking in my reactor and since I'm starting a new system, I don't want to drop NO3 all the way to zero and starve my sps.

 

[lawise]

Can a reactor be dialed in to keep a certain NO3 level, for example 5ppm? How would this be done?

I'm breaking in my reactor and since I'm starting a new system, I don't want to drop NO3 all the way to zero and starve my sps.

I wouldn't think so since nitrate is produced at different levels that would have to be constantly monitored and your drip rate would have to be adjusted.
if nitrate starts to drop below what you want then you just have to up your drip rate. Once your reactor is broken in though you should be able to adjust your rate to hold your nitrate pretty close to that, as long as you're nitrate is being produced at the same level.

 

[Greaps]

If you have a doser, running the reactor to zero nitrate and dosing nitrates might work to some extent to get levels up slightly.

 

[ReeferBud]

Thanks for the replies. Got it. Increase the drip rate to reduce the nitrate reduction in the reactor.

Once it's dialed in, I'll need to understand what the nitrate reduction capacity is and what nitrate reduction would take place at a wide open effluent setting (possibly no reduction?). That way, I can hopefully dial it in to a certain nitrate level. How about ORP, can that be used to gauge "how much" nitrate reduction is taking place?

I thought of dosing KNO3 but wonder if it would work, if the reactor is too efficient at reducing the nitrate, and whether I would simply be dosing and not see any results because the reactor would eliminate the nitrate before it can accumulate to 5pmm, for example.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

A drawback to dosing nitrate to offset a sulfur denitrator is the constant depletion of alkalinity that such a combo will produce,

 

[renato120]

I just checked the water coming out of the denitrator and its reading 5.0ppm (drip at one per second)
The water from the tank its reading 80ppm
Its been almost two weeks. I set it up on 8/3
Today is 8/16.
Do I need to do anything?
Its been dripping steady one drip per second from the day I setup.
Should I change the drip? I see no changes on my nitrates yet. Probably because the drip rate is to slow? What Do I have to do now to start lowering my nitrates? Thanks

 

[ReeferBud]

The unit I bought said to run the reactor at 3 drops/sec for the first two weeks.

 

[Fudsey]

Up your drip rate to 3/sec as ReeferBud said. I have been running my Aquamaxx TS-1 for more than a year now and it can produce bacteria blooms(cloudy water) occasionally. Just let it continue running and it will clear in a couple days. I have also had a sulfur smell come from it when the drip rate was wrong, just adjusted it to 2-3/sec and it clears.

Also, my effluent took almost 5 weeks to become 0.0 Nitrates so give it some time. I went from Nitrates off the scale(read over 160, the purple color was so dark) to now at 5

 

[ReeferBud]

Fudsey - I am cycling a TS-3 and the two week mark is up this weekend. I've been keeping it at 3 drops/sec. What rate did you adjust your reactor to after the break in period?

Now that you mention the cloudy water, I've had 5 days of very cloudy water and thought it could be due to the cycling of my tank and sand fines not yet clearing up. I now wonder whether it was due to the reactor... have you noticed any impact to corals when the blooms occurred?

 

[renato120]

Up your drip rate to 3/sec as ReeferBud said. I have been running my Aquamaxx TS-1 for more than a year now and it can produce bacteria blooms(cloudy water) occasionally. Just let it continue running and it will clear in a couple days. I have also had a sulfur smell come from it when the drip rate was wrong, just adjusted it to 2-3/sec and it clears.

Also, my effluent took almost 5 weeks to become 0.0 Nitrates so give it some time. I went from Nitrates off the scale(read over 160, the purple color was so dark) to now at 5

The unit I bought said to run the reactor at 3 drops/sec for the first two weeks.

I will change the drip for 3 per second. Hopefully It will start to lower the nitrates soon. Thank you for the replies.

 

[Fudsey]

Fudsey - I am cycling a TS-3 and the two week mark is up this weekend. I've been keeping it at 3 drops/sec. What rate did you adjust your reactor to after the break in period?

Now that you mention the cloudy water, I've had 5 days of very cloudy water and thought it could be due to the cycling of my tank and sand fines not yet clearing up. I now wonder whether it was due to the reactor... have you noticed any impact to corals when the blooms occurred?

Can't say, but if you've only had it setup for 2 weeks I highly doubt it's from the denitrator. Mine only did this after months of use. Someone told me it might have been a die off from the Nitrates getting too low in the tank and not enough to feed the bacteria in the denitrator. I could actually see the drips in the sump being very milky when dropping into the water.

the tank it is on is a FOWLR so no idea on corals but I don't believe it would harm them

I have kept the drip rate to around 2-3/sec for as long as I have had it running. I didn't want to drop the nitrates to near 0.0 I have also had it drop to less than 1 per second when I wasn't watching it during the initial 5 weeks so that could have been why it took so long and I was dosing H2O2 at that point too...

 

[renato120]

Update:
Week 3
Nitrates still very high no changes yet.
Drip rate around 3 per second.
Hopefully it starts to work in a week.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Update:
Week 3
Nitrates still very high no changes yet.
Drip rate around 3 per second.
Hopefully it starts to work in a week.

What's the nitrate level coming out of the reactor?

 

[renato120]

What's the nitrate level coming out of the reactor?

5.0ppm
Tank is 80ppm

 

[lawise]

Update:
Week 3
Nitrates still very high no changes yet.
Drip rate around 3 per second.
Hopefully it starts to work in a week.

Drip rate is way too high for new denitrator should be one drop per second or less

 

[Fudsey]

That is what is recommended by manufacturer and others on here as well

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If it is dropping 80 ppm to 5 ppm, I can't see how slowing the drip rate would improve performance with respect to tank nitrate.

Yes, you might eeek out those last few ppm, but you are also treating less water each day.