Sulfur denitrator experiment

[andresont]

Can you combine coil denitrator with sulphur instead of bioballs?
I guess you wouldn't at this time eh?

I might as well try a coil denitrator at this point too, what the heck, eh? [/quote]

[Psyire]

Have things changed at all?

I just recieved my reactor today, so I'll be starting it up shortly. Should be an interesting experience...

[Delphinus]

Just tested nitrite tonight and it was off the chart again. Guess increasing the flowrate was the wrong thing to do.

Cranked it back to 1 drop per 7 seconds.

I have to wonder that something's wrong with this scenario. There must be too much O2 coming into the unit preventing a proper anaerobic zone. Next time I'm at Home Depot I'm going to buy maybe 50' of 1/4" tubing to add to the inlet. Not sure what's left to try after that.

[Delphinus]

Someone at RC has suggested to me maybe the problem is that the sulfur interferes with the test kits.

If that's the case, it could explain a LOT.

However if that's the case then I don't know how to tell if the unit is working, or when it's time to increase the flowrate.

Hopefully my nitrate monitor arrives back soon. American Marine did confirm it was faulty, and repaired it and sent it back. The only thing is it took almost a full two weeks to get to them (and this was the "U.S. Parcel Expedited" service from Canada Post), and so I would expect it will take at least as long to return. Been about a week and a half since they sent it back so with some luck it does come this week. At least I feel a little vindicated on that one, he had told me that of the hundreds they've sold I was the only one to complain it wasn't working, then when he looked at it he confirmed it had a wiring fault. Anyhow at least it's been fixed but it would be nice to have the thing back soon!!!

[andresont]

I was just thinking ... would it be possible that your recirculation pump sucking in micro air bubbles? That would change a lot of things what do you think? Can this be the unnotocied problem?

[Delphinus]

Ask, (or maybe in my case, whine) enough and ye shall receive.

Yesterday the nitrate monitor arrived in the mail! "Woot!"

It looks like it's immune to the sulfur interference. I tested the tank and it read 26ppm and I measured the reactor effluent and it read 13ppm.

So maybe this thing has been working all along... I guess the lesson is learned, you need to take a leap of faith (or find a test kit that's immune to sulfur interference, and FWIW that's neither Salifert or Elos).

[Farrmanchu]

There you go! Now you can get the reactor dialed in right. 13 ppm is allright, betcha it takes a few weeks to get the output down to 0ppm. It WORKS!

[Delphinus]

One week later and the effluent still reads 13ppm so I'm going to try slowing it down somewhat in an effort to get it to read zero (so that I can increase the flowrate and have it attack the "ambient tank nitrate level").

In the space of one week though my tank has tested as low as 21ppm NO3 (which I thought was pretty good) and as high as 31ppm. In fact, it tested 21ppm 3 days ago and yesterday it tested at 31ppm, so a full ten point increase in two days.

I'm at a complete loss to comprehend such a jump in nitrates. I haven't fed my anemone at all in a couple weeks, and I've been lightly feeding the one fish in there (a juvenile S. virgatus rabbitfish). His tankmates are 2 cleaner shrimp and 2 peppermints, plus some snails and 2 urchins. This is a 110g tank so I would consider this to be on the low end as far as bioload is concerned. The big question mark is the anemone ... near as I figure it is some kind of weird nitrate producing beast but I would have thought that output would correspond to input but it seems as if it doesn't matter if I feed it lightly or feed it heavily, the nitrate is always there.

I am starting to think that the tank needs a major overhaul.. maybe a larger sump so I can increase the rock volume, and maybe a skimmer overhaul or upgrade. I guess there's the possibility of testing errors on my part but it seems suspicious that I'd get a reasonably steady level on one thing and at the same time such a wild fluctuation on the other.

I think this is just a weird tank to be trying this experiment on. Something is just not typical/average here.

[Delphinus]

Today = February 13
Started = January 2
-> So exactly six weeks

Today's readings:
Tank = 30ppm (up from 23 two days ago again, it crept down over the course of the week until now)
Effluent = 23ppm, 2 drops per second

At what point does one accept that something is just not going to work? I don't know where to go from here. It's bad enough to see a lack of tank nitrate reduction but to see such huge inexplicable jumps is insult to injury. I haven't fed my anemone in weeks, the only thing I can think of is that I fed my ONE fish some NLS pellets and an extra pinch for the shrimp, but to see a 10 ppm increase overnight in a 115g? That has a skimmer and a denitrator AND a remote-DSB AND a chaeto growout AND some mangroves? Doesn't make sense to me.

[Psyire]

Compared to my setup I think that the Mag 2 is possibly too big for your application. A slower flow through your sulphur bed would create a more ideal environment for the anerobic bacteria. I'm running an eheim 1250 (a tad smaller than a Mag 2 for flow) on a much bigger reactor and it seems to be running great. Other than that, the only real difference between our setups is that I seeded mine with bacteria. (even though the CaribSea LSM is suppose to have some bacteria already seeded into it)