Candydiscus
11-24-2016, 04:15 AM
I made a reactor today hoping to grow anaerobic bacteria on the seachem matrix/denitrate i bought. I bought 2L of the stuff, and made my reactor out of a ziptie container i found in walmart. I have it plumbed into another reactor which holds 1L of media and it plumbs into my eheim 2217.
So bascially what i did was take the eheim2217 outlet and instead of running it into the spray bar i ran it into my 1L reactor using 1/2 inch barbed fittings to keep the flow the same and not to put more pressure on the pump. In this reactor for now i have some API nitra Zorb, 3 bags and so far for the last week its kept my nitrates at 5-10ppm, usually after 1-2 days it would be at 20 already. So the stuff deff works the nitra zorb was just an experiement to see how it works. I plan to remove it once its exhausted after a month or so and put regular media in it.
Anyway this 1L bottle has 2 outlets on the lid. One is a 1/2 outer diameter inch outlet that goes to the spray bar. The other is a 1/4 outer diameter outlet very small, that goes into the 2L reactor i made. I put 1L of matrix on the bottom (where the water flows into) and then i put a polishing pad on top and then put another 1L of denitrate on top. Sealed the lid and ran a 1/4 tube to the tank. I tested the flow and very very low.. I wonder if i should have made the 1/4 outer diameter, to a 1/4 inner diameter barbed fitting for higher flow rate. I measured the flow into a 750ml cup i had and it took 3 minutes to fill that cup up. Do the math 3785ML divided by 750 is 5, so 5x3.00 is 15 and 60 minutes divided by 15 is 4. So my flow rate going through the Matrix/denitrate reactor is 4 GPH..
Thats too slow isnt it ? For a 92g corner take.. It would take 23 hours to flow the entire tank volume, so it probably wouldnt remove any noticable amounts of nitrate am i right ? What should I get the target flow rate too if i need to raise it ? I know the denitrate bottle says 50 gph or under, but im not sure what idealy it should be at.
I've seen some nitrate removing products online one from aquariepure and the intructions on it say to put flow to like a few drops lol.. I always wondered how a few drops would filter a large tank of nitrates.. but maybe it does ? I dunno.
Should i rework my reactor, and put a bigger fitting on it to get more flow from the first 1L bottle ? Or maybe i can remove that polishing pad i put between the 2 medias it might be holding flow back a little. I mean i dont need it to polish or catch debris as this water is coming from the outlet of my canister so it should be clean already. I just put it there to act as a seperation between the matrix and denitrate
So bascially what i did was take the eheim2217 outlet and instead of running it into the spray bar i ran it into my 1L reactor using 1/2 inch barbed fittings to keep the flow the same and not to put more pressure on the pump. In this reactor for now i have some API nitra Zorb, 3 bags and so far for the last week its kept my nitrates at 5-10ppm, usually after 1-2 days it would be at 20 already. So the stuff deff works the nitra zorb was just an experiement to see how it works. I plan to remove it once its exhausted after a month or so and put regular media in it.
Anyway this 1L bottle has 2 outlets on the lid. One is a 1/2 outer diameter inch outlet that goes to the spray bar. The other is a 1/4 outer diameter outlet very small, that goes into the 2L reactor i made. I put 1L of matrix on the bottom (where the water flows into) and then i put a polishing pad on top and then put another 1L of denitrate on top. Sealed the lid and ran a 1/4 tube to the tank. I tested the flow and very very low.. I wonder if i should have made the 1/4 outer diameter, to a 1/4 inner diameter barbed fitting for higher flow rate. I measured the flow into a 750ml cup i had and it took 3 minutes to fill that cup up. Do the math 3785ML divided by 750 is 5, so 5x3.00 is 15 and 60 minutes divided by 15 is 4. So my flow rate going through the Matrix/denitrate reactor is 4 GPH..
Thats too slow isnt it ? For a 92g corner take.. It would take 23 hours to flow the entire tank volume, so it probably wouldnt remove any noticable amounts of nitrate am i right ? What should I get the target flow rate too if i need to raise it ? I know the denitrate bottle says 50 gph or under, but im not sure what idealy it should be at.
I've seen some nitrate removing products online one from aquariepure and the intructions on it say to put flow to like a few drops lol.. I always wondered how a few drops would filter a large tank of nitrates.. but maybe it does ? I dunno.
Should i rework my reactor, and put a bigger fitting on it to get more flow from the first 1L bottle ? Or maybe i can remove that polishing pad i put between the 2 medias it might be holding flow back a little. I mean i dont need it to polish or catch debris as this water is coming from the outlet of my canister so it should be clean already. I just put it there to act as a seperation between the matrix and denitrate