[reeferaddict]

My results took about a month to develop and have been very consistent since. Before I did the denitrator I battled hair algae and the sort for a year and a half. The tank now runs a tidy ZERO and that even with not getting to a water change in 6 weeks now.

The sulfur does need to colonize denitrifying bacteria in an anoxic environment. To do this I ran mine on a rubbermaid of 80 ppm tank water with a slow drip rate to begin with to promote the anoxic zone and gradually ramped it up to around the 5X media volume turnover per hour as stated in Delbeek and Sprung Vol 3 and waited to see my test water nitrates drop. I noticed a drop after about 3 weeks and after a month there was no nitrates left in the test water. During that time I had gotten the main system down to a reasonable 20 - 30 ppm. It took about 6 weeks on the main tank before my nitrates really dropped, but after 2 months there were ZERO which is where it's been ever since.

You need to keep an eye on the effluent rate, as I've had mine clog a couple of times and when you start up you get that wonderful rotten egg hydrogen sulfide stench, but even restarting it in the system doesn't release enough to be of concern to the inhabitants. I've seen nothing to compare to the nitrate elimination potential of this system. For the most part it's set and forget when implemented with a little research and common sense. Be patient - about all I can say is you may want to try increasing your effluent rate and see from there. I was dauted by mine at first - but it works beautifully!