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Sorry, I didn't mean that in a 'not-nice' way.
Personally I would give it another week to see if anything changes. You should show a lower nitrate level by then I would think. 3 months seems like an aweful long time. |
Day 23
Pheh, this is getting a little past ridiculous now. I don't have a very good nitrite test kit, but I do have nitrate/nitrite test strips, which do at least confirm presence of nitrate and/or nitrite and useful for observing trends but I've found the numbers corresponding to the colour chart to be innaccurate so I don't use the test kit for determining absolute values. However it does confirm the presence of nitrite in the reactor, and has been showing this for almost a week since I started using it. No reduction in nitrite level, in fact, the colour for nitrite is off the chart. I last tested nitrate of the reactor at day 18 and it was still off the chart (i.e., >100ppm nitrate). However I wonder if a nitrite reading would throw off this reading. I haven't been able to procure a proper nitrite test kit, if I have time to pop into Gold's on Friday I'm picking one up (all other LFS's I've tried are either sold out or don't carry Salifert nitrite kits). However I'm somewhat leery of spending $30 on a test kit that I'll never again use after this little sulfur experiment... I expected two outcomes - the first and more optimistic was that this would prove to be viable for me. The second and less optimistic was that it would still work, but the small volume of media I'm using would prove to be ineffective on a 115g overall volume of tank. Frankly I didn't expect at all that it would seem to be incapable of growing the requisite bacterial colonies and be completely ineffectual as a result. I'm now wondering if there is something about how I've set it up, that is incorrect, or perhaps sub-optimal for running a sulfur reactor. I really wish I could see a working model in person .. I'm basically at a loss. In the last week, I have run two 25% water changes (I don't really have the means to do a water change larger than 30 gals, I don't have a large enough reservoir to make more makeup SW) and that should put the tank nitrate level to approx. 40ppm from the initial 75ppm (75% of 75ppm =~ 56 ppm, 75% of 55ppm =~ 42 ppm), I've also moved my mangroves over and planted them in the remote-DSB, I've also made a chaeto cage and moved some chaeto onto this tank so I'm now throwing all I've got at this tank in an effort to get the nitrates down to a tolerable level .. there is a point of diminishing returns though and I don't mind admitting that I wish this sulfur reactor would kick in at some point. 3.5 weeks and no positive trend yet ... well we'll see where this goes. Maybe it's just me, and it's just not going to work. I'll give it a few more weeks but I guess there's no point in more updates at this point until there's actually a change to report on. |
thank you for keeping this thread active !
I was just wondering: How much media do you have in your chaimber? how much flow is going through? do you recerculate water inside the unit? Thank you. |
Hi,
The volume of media is around 1750ml (so just under 2 litres), which works out to about 1/3 (give or take) of a 1 gallon container of Caribsea LSM. Flow rate is one drop per 2 to 3 seconds. I haven't worked out what that corresponds to in terms of ml per minute. I think I should work that out, I'll measure how long it takes to fill a 15ml measuring spoon tonight and post back here as that's probably good info to have to help determine whether something is set up right or not. The water is being recirculated in the first chamber (the sulfur media only) by a mag2. The second chamber (ARM media only) is single pass. One thought I had is that it's very difficult to determine how well the mag2 is pushing water through the media. I was wondering if it's possible that it's blocked and maybe that could explain things a little? Unfortunately I haven't worked out a way to figure out if there is flow through the media. If I blow bubbles into the intake, I could see where the bubbles go, but then I'm introducing air into the chamber and I would have assumed that's a no-no. But maybe the mag2 isn't enough, maybe it needs a stronger pump to push water through the media. Also it's a downflow style reactor, I wonder if an upflow would be better. |
"One thought I had is that it's very difficult to determine how well the mag2 is pushing water through the media."
The way i see it you doing everything right. lets waite and see. Perhaps you could put a "T" with a vlave in the recirculation line to see how much you actually recirculating (instead of blowing air in the unit).When you open that valve you could get an idea of how much flow you get or at least you know that Mag pump is has good flow. Other then that i thank you for keeping us informed. |
Unfortunately I don't have a recirc line on this reactor.
Anyhow I did blow some air in. Had to open my valve and reset it afterwards. But it did show the pump is running. Tomorrow is day 28 -- four weeks and counting. Nitrates still off the chart, nitrites still off the chart. I'm about ready to give up. I don't see any downward trend in the numbers. I don't see how reeferaddict could have such profound results in a month. Should have gone zeovit when I had the chance. My poor tank. :( I suggest to anyone reading this, don't bother with sulfur denitrators, unless you're willing to wait 15 years to see results. At least for me it's just like the Calfo DSB in a bucket idea. .. it just doesn't work. |
Sorry to hear Tony, I had such high hopes that this would be the solution :neutral:
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Me too. Yeah, I dunno. I don't know what to do. Maybe the commercial units have bigger pumps, or have an upwards flow through the media. Maybe there's a threshold volume of media that's needed and I just don't have it. Who knows. If I could see a working and proven unit in action I could compare notes... Oh well.
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Korallin 1501 Biodenitrator
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewIt...Product=KL9115
http://www.korallin.de/frmst2.htm I wonder what is so fifferent between this and what you are doing? |
Tony,
Ok, working off some reading I've done on this topic - not first hand (I prefer coil based denitrators myself). Sounds like your through-put is way too fast, crank it WAY down until you start seeing effluent output with 0 nitrite / 0 nitrate (or get stunk outta the house - that'd indicate way too slow). Once you get that 0/0 effluent then start bringing up the drip rate slowly. Definitely check that mag pump you're using for recirc... Although that kicks your cycle back to day 1 again (introduction of too much o2 - supposed to be a low o2 environment), if it's not working up to snuff - the lack of recirc could be causing some problems. since i'll never find the link again - good rc thread: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...hreadid=752497 |
Oh yeah, one thing is, the effluent has never had any kind of sulfurous scent to it whatsoever. Isn't that odd? I think it has be indicating something's not right here.
Yeah, maybe 1 to 2 drops per second is too fast for the volume. I'm firmly convinced that this is not working and not going to work given an indefinite amount of time -- something has to change on it first. |
Tony do you have a pic of the reactor I would like to look at it for a sec..
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Santa brought me Vol3 T.R.A. Within 5 minutes of reading it I found about 4 things I'm doing wrong with this arrangement and that's only reading a few paragraphs of the sulfur section, by the time I'm done reading it all I could find out a few more things that aren't right with how I'm trying this.
Soooo .. I guess this calls for a "do-over". I'll elaborate on the mistakes of this setup later (stepping out for a while now). |
Sulfur denitrator experiment still alive !
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you can try first page of this tread for the pictures.. |
I'm interested to hear what you think you've done wrong.
Not very encouraging results though... but perhaps there is a reason(s) that we'll find out soon. I'm getting quite close to starting my own experiment, with any luck it will be late next week. |
If you feel the nitrate readings are off then I would ask some other reefers to test your water. I had a salifert test kit and got off the wall readings. I compared it to a friends test kit and also the store where I bought it. I found after comparing I had to divide my readings by 2. So its possible your kit is inaccurate.
Doug |
So, bearing in mind I haven't read the section in detail yet, only scanned it, these are the things that caught my eye:
- recommend upflow instead of downflow to avoid compaction - recommend flow control valve on input not output to avoid pressurizing the unit - recommend media volume 1% of total tank volume - something about the reactor height to diameter ratio should be something like 5:1 (I'll have to read more about that one) My main thinking here is that the flow-through is too high, and the recirc is not enough. I don't know about switching to 1% tank volume as that will need a different reactor, same with changing the height/diameter ratio (actually mine may already be close to that anyhow, give or take). The main thing I'm thinking is switching the flow control valve to the input, leaving the output wide open; changing the flow direction to upflow; potentially scrapping the feed pump (since need to slooooowwww it down even more), and upping the recirc pump from a mag2 to a mag7 or mag9. |
Your last 2 points revolve around a 1-pass reactor if I'm not mistaken. I don't believe T.R.A. Vol.3 discusses recirculating reactors. (therefore volumes and flow rates are changed)
I wouldn't increase the flowthrough rate of the recirc. chamber if I were you. This will nullify the 'O2-Free' zone if the flow is too much. You may want to check your test kits as stated above, just in case something is off. I would just run a nitrate test on your new makeup water, during your next water change to see what it reads. |
If changing your flow through the sulphur chamber I would actually go the other way and lower it. This will create a bigger O2-Free zone and therefore more anerobic bacteria. If your flow is too high I would suspect that you would get into the middle of the denitrification cycle and not have enough anerobic bacteria to finish the cycle off. (which would seem to be what your test results are showing)
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No indeed, I want to slow down the flow-through. Sorry if that wasn't clear. That's what I think that's my problem right now, in that there's too much flow-through, even at 1 drop per 2 to 3 seconds, it's too fast. There has been NO sulfurous scent and everything I've read said that a too-slow flowrate will have a scent, and a too-fast flowrate will likely still output nitrates and nitrite. A bigger unit would probably help but that's not what I have to work with so I have to find another means of controlling the flow through this and slow it down considerably.
What I do want to increase though is the power of the pump doing the recirculation inside the reactor. It won't work to increase contact time but I think there's not enough contact with the media in the current arrangement with the mag2. I've been using three different test kits to take nitrate readings, unfortunately they all agree with each other. Although I only have a test-strip for nitrite, not a full-blown test kit for that, and no secondary testkit with which to compare results. Nitrite's not really a commonly stocked testkit it would seem (I'd never consider buying one if it wasn't for this). |
Ah.
Well in that case I can't see how your proposed changes could hurt anything. Might want to do one at a time, starting with the cheapest being to slow the flow down 'through' the reactor. Then if that dosen't seem to help, increase the recirculation. That way you don't go the wrong direction twice by accident. |
My sulphur denitrator (sized at 0.8% of volume) dropped 40 ppm to zero in 4 weeks, after one week to cycle the denitrator. It does sound like your flow rate is in the right ballpark, so the O2-free zone must be getting disturbed in some way and not forming. Maybe upflow is the secret, as any nitrogen bubbles would rise back through the O2-free zone in a downflow design :question:
I wouldn't worry about the volume of sulphur. If it's too small, nitrate reduction in your system will simply be slower, and as long as it is sized large enough to counter the new nitrate production, you'll reach zero. Once it's cycled, you'll be able to tell if it's large enough. I started out with two Phosban 150 reactors (one with sulphur, one with aragonite) to test the concept on my 500 gallon system, well short of 1% volume. With the effluent nitrates at zero for this test system, I knew that a larger design was required. Myself, I've been having trouble with low pH for the effluent, so am looking to build a recirculation chamber with aragonite on the outflow to counter the problem. Keep persevering ... |
Incase you are interested my reactor is going to be an upflow with a eheim 1250 recirculating pump.
I really have a hard time believing a Mag 2 wouldn't be enough for your application. The midwest units use a eheim 1048 which is probably 1/2 the flow of the Mag 2, and their unit is quite big. |
One week to cycle ?!
Man ... I feel so ripped off. Anyhow, I've taken mine offline for now. Will tinker around tomorrow or the next day time permitting .. I agree about the sulfur amounts -- seems to me if it's too small it should just not be able to pull down the tank nitrates as quickly -- but should still cycle and still output zero. At the very least I'm going to swap the pump leads to reverse the flow, and if the recirc pump isn't enough to draw sump water then I'm going to fashion some kind of gravity feed and see how ridiculously slow I can make the flowthrough. Don't know what to say about the Midwest units using a smaller pump. All I can say is I gave it a month .. and it wasn't cycled so I know something's not right. All I can do is guess at what ... I wish I had more answers. |
:mrgreen: Mine is still keeping everything at zero.... :biggrin:
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I'm so happy for you. And thanks for the plentiful and bountiful suggestions on getting mine to work! You rock! :p
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Why Tony - I have a whole thread on the matter! In your defense, it seems to be a 50/50 split as to whose works and whose doesn't.
I have about 2 litres of media for close to 200g of system volume with about a 8 - 10 litre per hour of output. A few times mine has clogged as the aragonite dissolves and I have to open up the valve to "flush" the effluent, and I end up with the wonderful rotten egg smell, but other than that it has been pretty much set and forget except for the initial cycling which I wrote about in my thread. One water change of about 10% per month and still zero nitrates - I was pulling my hair out and going through a hundred bucks a month in salt before this little beauty. In retrospect, considering the time I have been limited to with my system in the past few months, it would be just a green wavy sea of algae by now without this wonderful little gadget! :mrgreen: |
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Ok was able to tinker around a bit and got the plumbing switched around so the reactor is now an upflow. And I see the mag2 will be more than enough pump because it completely fluidized the entire media column. Before I continue I'm going to have to go get a round sponge (fluval etc.) to make sure the pump intake doesn't suck in media.
And I switched the feed to use my dripline off my overflow. I normally use this to drip in new arrivals. I put an irrigation dripline needle valve and was able to dial down the feed to 1 drop per 10 seconds and I have room to slow it down more. So .. tomorrow I'll hopefully be able to finish off the upflow mods and get this going again. I've just gone from bummed to stoked! Hopefully there will be some learnings we can share from all of this in the end. :) |
Not loving that feed, simple reason - if you cut power etc - you risk introducing air... These reactors work in an anoxic (low oxygen) or anaerobic environment, introduction of air (due to say return pump failure / turning it off for maintenance) would harm the bacterial culture.
Low tech fix - mechanical float - similar to RO / top off floats... So if water level drops below a set height it cuts off flow. Lower tech fix - add another valve as a cutoff for maintenance (if your like me - add a reminder label to the plug / switch for the pump) and prayers go a long way I'm told :) |
There's already a shutoff valve, so the pump maintenance angle is covered.
In the case of a power failure .. there may be some air introduced .. I'm not sure how to completely eliminate that variable. I had also thought of using a separate feed line from one of the overflow chambers but it's basically still the same problem, in a power failure it will siphon until it sucks air. There are a couple mitigating factors though, which I thought might have been enough: (I dunno, maybe not? I realize it's not foolproof but this is why I decided to chance it...) - the reactor sits lower than the sump wall, so the reactor itself doesn't drain. There's always water in the 2 chambers. - With an upflow and the output of the 1st chamber fully open, and on top, any air will escape out right away. It might make 1 pass through the media but hopefully no more. - They say when the reactor's cycled, that you can increase the flow-through, so obviously the media can handle some O2, just not a lot. (??) Anyhow, this is the only way I can see to slow down the flowthrough considerably from what I had before. Since you can increase the flowthrough once it's cycled I was hoping to change the feed once again to something else (after all I want my drip acclimation feedline back sooner or later). But if it's no good then it's no good. I'll try seeing if the recirc pump is enough to draw water from the sump, before going online. If that will work then it's not too hard to ensure that the input is always submerged. Thing is there are a lot of bubbles in the sump so the odds of sucking in the stray air bubble are also nonzero in this situation either. Although probably less and also don't have to worry about the power failure scenario. |
Tony - when I got mine I had no info besides what is available online and in Delbeek & Sprung Vol 3. I wasn't really wallowing in your misery, rather encouraging you to keep with it.
I don't care what your vessel size or media volume is, this "system" will work. On my unit I use a MJ pump to feed the intake which is where the flow control is to avoid the pressurization of the container. The intake goes down into the bottom of the vessel as with a kalkreactor. An Eheim 1048 is the pump used to recirculate, and when I cycled it I set the effluent at 1 drop per second, increasing it when the NITRITE levels disappeared. I gradually amped it up to around 5 litres per hour which is where I had intended running it on my system according to my research. Once cycled at that rate, (EG. - the water used to cycle it results in being nitrate free), I stuck it in my main system which was at 20 - 30 ppm nitrates from massive water changes. It took 2 months or so to see it get to zero, but I didn't do any water changes until it got down to zero. During this time was when I discovered it not circulating a couple of times, but all I did was open up the valve all the way to flush out the gunk and it seems to have had no effect. I think once the sulfur is colonized it would actually take a severe flushing with highly oxygenated water to actually kill it. Even after a couple of lengthy power outages this winter it seems to be fine. I don't know what else to tell you to help here. Mine is a Korralin 1502, but that doesn't make it a set science here. It's the principle of the concept and patience. I believe the only way to have sped up my process would have been to increase the sulfur volume, but everything else would have remained the same. |
Tony, I've just got to say it's a damn shame that it's not working for you yet but I think you deserve a pat on the back for trying it, I'm sure you'll get it soon now. Good luck and all that jazz.
Doug |
Thanks Doug. I hope it can be made to work, I used water changes to get the 80ppm down to about 40ppm, but now I'm at the point of diminished returns -- the same # of water changes would only get me down to 20, and the same # after that would only get me down to 10. When all is said and done and .. that would be a lot of salt. :( So I'd love to see this concept work.
Are all sulfur media's created equal? I figured, sulfur is sulfur, right? Riddle me this - I have yet to encounter even the slightest hint of a rotten egg smell. Even yesterday, as I drained the unit to work on it (switch from downflow to upflow), it had been sitting idle for 24 hours, .. the water coming out smelled fresh. Not a hint of sulfur scent. Would this be expected? Reeferaddict, are you using Caribsea LSM or did you go to a winemaking store and get something from them? |
Ok new update. I was out of town last week and got back Monday so on Tuesday (Jan. 2) I was able to finish off the mods for upflow and get the reactor going again on my test tank.
So after a couple of days, there's been a bit of an "interesting development" as well as a "slight disappointment." The bad news for me is that the nitrate monitor I ordered came yesterday and it appears to be defective. I can't get a reading out of it despite many calibrations, and the readings I get on the calibration fluids, after calibrating, are whacked out. (For example, 93ppm on the 10ppm calibration fluid). Bummer. But, I did some old-school tests and came up with these readings: NO3 of tank water - 50ppm NO2 of reactor effluent - 0 NO3 of reactor effluent - 25ppm I'm somewhat suspicious of the #'s since they're indicative of a nearly complete cycle at 2 days already, so it will be interesting to see what the numbers are at in another 2 days. I was expecting the nitrite #'s to be non-zero for a while yet, if it went non-zero and came down then I've missed it already. Since they hadn't come down after 4 weeks on the previous trial I'm at a loss to explain the profound difference. I should mention that besides changing the unit to a non-pressurized upflow design, I also have the flow-through cranked way, way back. Unfortunately due to the flow control being on the input, getting a consistent flowrate day after day is a bit of a challenge, but the last time I measured the flowrate it was approximate 3ml/min. That's 180ml/hour, or assuming a total water volume of 115gal, about a 0.04% volume turnover per hour, or just under a 1% volume turnover per day. |
Tony, Not sure how the numbers work out but have you considered using garden irrigation drippers? I used a 1/2 gallon per hour dripper on my old Ca reactor, yes it clogs up after a couple of months but changing them is easy and they are affordable.
Doug |
That's a cool idea! I can see that working well for a Ca reactor. Unfortunately that flowrate is far too fast for cycling this thing, since what we need is an oxygen-free zone to kickstart the anaerobic bacteria, so have to really restrict the amount of oxygen being introduced. I almost wonder if it's better to close the input altogether and open it slightly only once per day just to get the cycle going. Once the bacteria is settled I should be able to open up the flowrate, after all 1% volume turnover per day is not going to touch the tank's nitrates in any scenario.
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Glad to see some encouraging results!
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Two days and 25ppm NO3! what a difference pressure can make. May be you already had bacteria there, and when Bacterial headache is gone they just got hungry !
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