DIY "Anoxic Filtration System" eliminates nitrates? Anyone tried this?

[lastflea]

Is there anything under your BCB baskets to make sure water can flow under them as well? Like egg crate or something?

I can't believe I missed that...!

Ta very much...

[Salty Sphynx]

Here's an extremely raw video showing the construction of a BCB, and my feeble attempt to explain the science, lol. Please pardon my errors in terminology; I did this in one take, in pain, battling the video bombing of one of my sphynx cats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbTCPQ9U71E

[lastflea]

Ok, it's day 7 of my cycle. Ammonia remains at 4ppm and no sign of nitrites or nitrates yet. Not recalling anyone else starting a fresh cycle with BCB's, but any thoughts very welcome? Or am I just being incredibly impatient.....?

[Luke in Phoenix]

Seems like you should at least have some nitrites... Did you "seed" the tank in any way?

[lastflea]

Seems like you should at least have some nitrites... Did you "seed" the tank in any way?

No. Just added hh ammonia. I've read that even seeded cycles can take up to 10 days, so not too concerned. I'm going to ask my LFS for some media to help it along, and put a bag of fish food in there as well. I'm not going to try chemical additives. I'd rather start again, as I disapprove of this method.

[Salty Sphynx]

Ok, it's day 7 of my cycle. Ammonia remains at 4ppm and no sign of nitrites or nitrates yet. Not recalling anyone else starting a fresh cycle with BCB's, but any thoughts very welcome? Or am I just being incredibly impatient.....?

We started our cycle with the BCB's (11 to start; just added the 3 more at the 4 month mark). We had the initial ammonia "spike" very early on, but have never registered any nitrites nor nitrates. To this day, our readings are 0s across the board.

92 gal planted tank
20 gal sump
7 discus
10 rummies
3 sae
3 corys
2 plecos
PH constant 6.5

The AFS handles the load like a champ.

[Salty Sphynx]

Correction: Not entirely zero readings... this is today's results just prior to a spot cleaning:

IMG_8979.jpg

[lastflea]

We started our cycle with the BCB's (11 to start; just added the 3 more at the 4 month mark). We had the initial ammonia "spike" very early on, but have never registered any nitrites nor nitrates

Glad to hear someone cycled successfully. Thanks Heather. Can you tell me, how long before your ammonia started dropping, if you can remember? I'm on day 8, and no sign of ammonia dropping from 4ppm

[Salty Sphynx]

Glad to hear someone cycled successfully. Thanks Heather. Can you tell me, how long before your ammonia started dropping, if you can remember? I'm on day 8, and no sign of ammonia dropping from 4ppm

We did a 15% water change when we saw the spike (at about 30 days in); ammonia readings were 0 within 24 hours and have remained at/or very near 0 ever since. We didn't add any ammonia to the tank. Started with a fishless cycle, converted to planted, fish-in after 2 weeks.

Here's the 4 month AFS update with our 3 newbies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISvZFB5JaWQ

[lastflea]

We did a 15% water change when we saw the spike (at about 30 days in); ammonia readings were 0 within 24 hours and have remained at/or very near 0 ever since. We didn't add any ammonia to the tank. Started with a fishless cycle, converted to planted, fish-in after 2 weeks.

Here's the 4 month AFS update with our 3 newbies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISvZFB5JaWQ

So you did a "fish-in" cycle??

[Salty Sphynx]

So you did a "fish-in" cycle??

Yes, basically. We started the cycle fishless, with just the plenum, sand, rocks & wood... but our impatience got the best of us and we switched to fish-in with plants after 2 weeks. It really seemed to jump start things, and water tests have been virtually perfect since day 45

[lastflea]

Yes, basically. We started the cycle fishless, with just the plenum, sand, rocks & wood... but our impatience got the best of us and we switched to fish-in with plants after 2 weeks. It really seemed to jump start things, and water tests have been virtually perfect since day 45

Wow....!! There must have been some seeding going on with the plenum substrate, but none the less, these are pretty amazing results....

[lastflea]

Made a bit more space in the middle chamber for the BCB's and started the cycle over again. Also popping into my LFS to ask for some media.

My return pump is only 3000lph and the tank around 760l. This is what came with the tank and was going to upgrade at some point, but then thought it would suit the BCB's more, because of reduced water flow. Anyone think this might actually be an issue?

[Salty Sphynx]

Made a bit more space in the middle chamber for the BCB's and started the cycle over again. Also popping into my LFS to ask for some media.

My return pump is only 3000lph and the tank around 760l. This is what came with the tank and was going to upgrade at some point, but then thought it would suit the BCB's more, because of reduced water flow. Anyone think this might actually be an issue?

Our pump is 3170gph and we run it at 50% power. The important thing is that the pump be in a separate chamber from the BCBs - you can run it at a nice clip as long as the water in the actual basket chamber is low flow.

[Salty Sphynx]

Wow....!! There must have been some seeding going on with the plenum substrate, but none the less, these are pretty amazing results....

Hubby reminded me that we did add Seachem Stability just prior to adding the sacrificial fish for the fish-in cycle... so am sure that is what helped the initial cycling.