Poor Man's Nutrients Control - Donovan's Nitrate Destroyer

[cchomistek]

I just tested the nitrates and do not see much reduction yet. Nor do I see any white sludge out if the discharge. I have now increased the vodka dosage to 7 mls per day. And will increase by 1mL each day until I see a change. At this time I am adding it 4 times a day.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I just tested the nitrates and do not see much reduction yet. Nor do I see any white sludge out if the discharge. I have now increased the vodka dosage to 7 mls per day. And will increase by 1mL each day until I see a change. At this time I am adding it 4 times a day.

Some will take a week or two. Fastest maturing reactor I ever encountered was 3 days. Increasing vodka is another way to provoke the reactor, or you can reduce the flow further. Do you have UV sterilizer or Ozone running?

 

[cchomistek]

Some will take a week or two. Fastest maturing reactor I ever encountered was 3 days. Increasing vodka is another way to provoke the reactor, or you can reduce the flow further. Do you have UV sterilizer or Ozone running?

Nope I have neither of those just a skimmer in the next chamber of my sump. No other filtration in my sump.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Nope I have neither of those just a skimmer in the next chamber of my sump. No other filtration in my sump.

Good. Just give it more time to build up the bacteria colonies. Continue doing your routine maintenance, I don't see any reason for failure.

 

[cchomistek]

Is 4 times a day enough or should I increase it to 8 or 10 times a day for the dosing of the vodka. Or does that not seem to matter?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Is 4 times a day enough or should I increase it to 8 or 10 times a day for the dosing of the vodka. Or does that not seem to matter?

It doesn't matter, because in the end your final goal is maintaining the best nitrate level for your tank. Just a word of caution, a fully functioning reactor will strip nitrate if overfed with vodka. Fine tuning your vodka/flow is easy once your reactor is matured.

 

[cchomistek]

Yup I am fully aware of this issue. I am hoping that once I have the nitrates where I want them the cyano will deplete as well.

 

[cchomistek]

What I am hoping is this system will allow me to feed what I want and maintain low nitrates and low phosphates. I know it does not reduce phosphates alot but it should in the same regard as regular vodka dosing would.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Speaking of feeding, a matured tank do have naturally occurring foods in it. I fed my fishes twice a day and they all are happy and fat. I have 15 fishes, one of them is a group of chromis, wrasses and a mandarin. You don't have to feed that much to be honest, unless your tank is young or your remove so many equations from your tank. Over filtration is not my bread and butter in this hobby.

 

[cchomistek]

I do not have over filtration. Just a skimmer and a small bag with some carbon. I do not overfeed but would like to keep my fish fairly well fed. I have about 25 fish in my system. 8 of them are chromis. I have a male and female blue throat trigger and they need good meat food.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

I do not have over filtration. Just a skimmer and a small bag with some carbon. I do not overfeed but would like to keep my fish fairly well fed. I have about 25 fish in my system. 8 of them are chromis. I have a male and female blue throat trigger and they need good meat food.

Yup, need to feed the fishes alright :). My 7 chromis is constantly picking foods from water column. Not sure what are they picking but it's a good sign that food is abundant in there. No socks involved, everything is constantly flowing around.

 

[cchomistek]

Would there be any benefit to plumbing the discharge of the reactor past the skimmer compartment as it seems due to the added amount of bacteria that my skimmer is going pretty nuts these days. Tonnes of bubbles due to the bacteria in the water. Will this subside some once things are more in equilibrium and my nitrates are down to where they should be??

I guess there is also the possibility that I could be seeing a die off of the increased bacteria in the DT due to not dosing vodka to the tank water anymore.

My discharge water from the reactor appears to be cloudy so I would think this is a good sign that bacteria is starting to build up in the reactor.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Some pictures to share. I wish some of these sticks will turn into a nice colony....

 

[Donovan Joannes]

@cchomistek, it's normal for skimmer to go nuts with this reactor. It could be a die off from your main tank as well, but cloudy effluent means the reactor is maturing. If you have extra socks, you can use it to catch the extra bacteria oozing out from the effluent outlet (snotty slimy bacteria will filled up the socks). This will help your skimmer from over working.

 

[cchomistek]

Is this the reason you took your skimmer offline. Would it make any difference having the discharge of the effluent going to the return pump section of the sump??

I don't really think I want to go skimmer less at this time. But having the skimmer go crazy is not good either.

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Is this the reason you took your skimmer offline. Would it make any difference having the discharge of the effluent going to the return pump section of the sump??

I don't really think I want to go skimmer less at this time. But having the skimmer go crazy is not good either.

Nope. I removed my skimmer as I am on complete nutrient recycling now. Nothing goes to waste in my tank, I don't remove anything out. Even bacteria become foods in my tank. Corals loves it, especially NPS and SPS. Detritus build up in the sump is blown off every hour by a small powerheads. Good foods for the whole tank (no socks either :D)

 

[cchomistek]

Donovan, any thoughts on whether the increased skimmer output could help keep the phosphates down as you should be taking out the same stuff that is skimmed out when you regularly dose carbon.

Also how are you keeping your phosphates in check at this time??

Thanks

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Depending on bacteria strain, phosphate uptake varies. When I am on bacteria reactor alone, I can keep phosphate below 0.1ppm (I don't have phosphate test kit that can test lower concentration) or lower. I just put my algae through online several months back (not because of nutrients issue, simply for variety and extra pods production for my fishes) and yet to test but I believe my no3/po4 are low enough as I can see color improvement on my acros.

I am quite surprised how well nutrients recycling works in my tank so far.

 

[cchomistek]

So you now are running an algae scrubber along with you nitrate destroyer?

 

[Donovan Joannes]

Yup, but my scrubber is not for nutrient export. I don't throw the algae, I feed it back to the tank. I have SPS frags growing in it as well :D