I am building a coil denitrator

[madmax7774]

I have embarked on a DIY project, and have started building a coil de-nitrator. I have almost completed the build, and will be installing this on my reef tank tonight. Does anyone here run one of these, and what if any has been the results? Right now my nitrates have climbed to 40ppm and I want to get it down before I switch to my new 90G tank.

John

[HowardofNOVA]

John,

WHY SO HIGH??

Are you over feeding a ton, not doing scheduled water changes, stirring up sand, alot of plant life in tank???

[madmax7774]

Howard,

I think its a combination of all of the things you have mentioned.

First mistake: I grew complacent with water changes over the fall, and up until last month had not done any for 4 months. I (In the last month I have done 2 sepreate 20 gallon changes, and a 15 gallon change, each a week apart)

Second mistake: 2 weeks ago, I decided to clean the heck out of my tank and stupidly thought that irrigating my sand bed with a powerhead and stirring up all the "stuff" in the sand would help clean things more, and I did more damage than good.

As far as plant life, I have a large volume of soft corals (tons of anthelia) and I think that is contributing to my problem.

Next week, I will upgrading my tank from an old scratched up 75G acrylic to a new AGA 90G glass tank. I am deeply troubled about the nitrates, and I am concerned about how the switch will affect things. I am also very worried about how the movement of the sand to the new system will affect things. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

John

:(

[cbashaw]

I personally would use new sand whe you switch to the new tank and just use enough of your old sand to seed the new.

 

http://www.melevsreef.com/moving_a_tank.html

[madmax7774]

well the coil-denitro is up and running. No leaking thank God! Using bio-balls that are already loaded with bacteria, I am hoping to shorten the cycle time on it to hopefully less than the 4 to 6 weeks that others have said it will take. Time will tell. All told it is an extremely easy device to build, and If it works will be the best $39 I ever spent at Lowes. As of right now, my nitrates are at a hair under 40ppm, so I will update this post as things progress.

As far as the tank move, Even though I have ordered the new tank, I may just hold off on the move until the nitrate problem is in hand, and I can afford to buy new sand. ( this is going to be fun to try to explain to my wife after I went through the justification process for a new $300 tank so that I can get rid of all the scratches that she claims are not noticeable!)

[jason the filter freak]

I have read a ton on the stuff and can't see diffinitive evidence one way or another on the things. Makes me so frustrated !! Another idea thats awsome and I've see a lot of success stories with is remote deep sand beds. Extremely cheap, and quite easy.

[dandy7200]

I can understand your thinking but, please remember to take things SLOW! Even changing things for the better too fast can cause problems. I would encourage you to keep up with your large water changes 1 time per week even with the denitrator running.

[madmax7774]

update:

I have been testing the nitrites and nitrates in both the tank, and as they come directly out of the coil for comparison. I am starting to see some changes already.

at 20hrs after install, nitrates were 40ppm into CD and 40ppm out

nitrites were 0ppm into CD and 0ppm out

at 75hrs after install, nitrates are 40ppm into CD and 40ppm out

nitrites are 0ppm into CD and .25ppm out

 

After exhaustive research into this, I believe that this means two things:

one: the CD is starting to cycle, and the bacteria inside is growing nicely, and

two: the flow rate is too slow

from what I can find on this topic

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...mp;pagenumber=3

it seems that if you find nitrite then speed up the flow rate,

and if you find nitrate then slow down the flow rate.

I will try a small increase in flow and report back the results in a few days.

John

[madmax7774]

well the effleunt out of my denitrator is lower in nitrates by about 20ppm compared to the tank reading. This thing seems to be working rather nicely.

John

[Folta]

That seems pretty quick. From what I've read, they can take as long as a normal tank to cycle. (http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/nitratecontrol/a/aa092702.htm)

 

To any who are wondering what a Coil Denitrator is, simply put you run the water through a tube long enough that as it coils around and around the aerobic bacteria use up all the O2 and you get an anerobic bacteria section that works quite in the same was as a deep sand bed.

 

Keep us updated John!

Edited January 5, 2007 by Folta

[jason the filter freak]

Updates?

[madmax7774]

For those of you that were following this thread, I have gotten my nitrates under control through the use of az-no3. The coil denitrator is still running, but I have realized that so far all the nitrate reduction has been because of the az-no3 product, and water changes.

I am going to continue with the coil and see if it gets to the point where I start to see significant benefit from it. The test results from the Jan 4th post I am now convinced were faulty.

For those who were skeptical of the az-no3, it works as advertised.

John

[jason the filter freak]

How do you plan on testing the coil device... how can you prove whether or not it's the crucial factor in making a diffrence?

[madmax7774]

Jason,

as far as testing, I have been running parallel tests on water from the tank vs water out of the denitrator. I have yet to see any huge difference between the two. Of course this whole effort is not really scientific because I changed 3 variables at the same time. I have been running the de-nitrator, I have been adding az-No3 to the tank, and I have been doing major water changes over the last month. as of todays measurement I am down to 5ppm in nitrates. So I am happy with my over all results, but who knows what really did it.

In any event, my tank is happy now, so I'm happy too.

John