Sulfur denitrator experiment

[Delphinus]

New update ... This has taken a bit of a backseat since March but I got it going again recently.

I've reworked the sump baffles, I've modded the skimmer to meshwheel, and now I use a 100micron filter sock on the sump intake. I'm now happy with the tank and removed what I hope were stumbling blocks in its ability to process bioload.

I took offline my other calcium reactor from the other tank, and replaced it with the smaller unit (left it as upflow). Using the larger reactor now, I modded it to upflow (switching the tubes at the bottom, using a T at the top of the chamber for the intake, cut some eggcrate and got a filter at the top).

It's -just- large enough to hold an entire container of LSM media now.

The recirc pump is a mag5, the feed pump is a lift pump (looks like an airpump but for water) that pushes water, and flow control via an irrigation dripline needlevalve.

Using a 5g bucket of outgoing water change water, which tested at 21ppm NO3, I cycled the reactor (@1 drop per second) on the bucket and the results look like this:

(Date/Effluent Nitrate ppm)
2007/04/29: Not tested (source water = 21ppm)
2007/05/02: 15
2007/05/03: 10
2007/05/04: 7
2007/05/05: 0 (source water now = 4ppm)
2007/05/06: 0 (source water now = 0ppm)

So ... quite an astonishing change from the previous trials. Of course this is on a small volume of water with a static nitrate condition (ie. not being produced), but still, a reduction of 21ppm to 0ppm in 7 days to me seems pretty keen.

I'm more convinced than ever before that the problem in the previous attempts was inadequate media volume.

Incidentally the lift pump seems to be the answer to producing a nice slow flowrate. It has been rock steady at 1 drop per second all week and what tickles me most is that it's a $10 item.

I moved the reactor over to my 110g tank tonight, which tested at 33ppm NO3 (there is a good chance of error on this reading as I did it with the unit uncalibrated on the high range reading, but it is definitely in the ballpark).

It will be interesting to see how it does now that it's moved over into "production mode."

[Psyire]

Awesome News/Results

Glad to see you are giving it another go, hopefully with much better results this time around. I haven't posted any updates to my situation, but things are still ticking along just fine with my reactor and my tank has never looked better. (and tested better)

[Delphinus]

Murphy's Law had to kick in sooner or later.

This week's run started off promising, but has ended not so good.

Date/Reactor Effluent/Tank nitrate readings:
May 7: 10 / 33
May 8: 1 / 31
May 9: 0 / 31
May 10: 14 / 34
May 11: 21 / 32

Not sure what happened on the May 9/10 there, but ever since then Murphy's Law has been showing up. Haven't been able to keep a consistent drip rate since then either, so last night I switch the feed pump / flow control valve around so that the pump is Aqualifter pushing into the reactor (as before) but with the dripline irrigation valve on the output.

Worked awesome to get a nice steady rate, but, it looks like the reactor just can't handle the pressure. Although I have my flange bolts as tight as I can make them, water just seeps through the flanges like crazy. I wish I had noticed this last night (or this morning). I came home from my bike ride today (I left before the tank lights turned on), checked on the tanks and found a good 5-10gallons on the floor. Argh. And, I found that the intake tube had wiggled its way out of the sump and the reactor was just full of air bubbles. I figured at this point the bacterial cultures are a total writeoff and I have to start the cycle from the start all over again.

Bummer. For an inanimate object, it sure seems as if it's quite determined not to work. I tell you, between the nuisance crabs (who just killed a fish on me .. I have to declare an all out war on the little bastards now), the out of control nitrates and the out of control phosphates, and faulty test meters, my patience for this hobby is wearing dangerously thin.

Oh well, next week's another week, we'll see where it goes...