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

[Loku]

High AFS fans!!!

I been using the AF since december 17 and it is working just fine!

My system:
Tank: 120x60x65 cm / 432 liters (115 us gal aprox)
Sump: 60x45x45 cm / 120 liters (32 us gal aprox)
Pumps: 2x2000 l/h + 1x1000 l/h brand resun.
Heater: 500w Finnex
Sump set up: Horizontal (with a 1.5" pvc bridge)
Filtration media: Guata (mechanical), a 12" cube BCB (Cat's Pride Natural + Seachem Flourite); Purigen (chemical), Carbon (chemical) and Phosfiltrum (chemical)

Substrate system:
Cat's Pride Natural + Seachem Flourite over a DIY plenum

Water change regiment:
Every 3 or 4 weeks

Life stock:
9 discus + several types of aquatic plants.

Feeading regiment:
1 or 2 blocks of DIY Food (4g to 8g) daily.

DIY Food:
mussel, mackerel, marlin and shrimp + spinach, spirulina, paprika, garlic powder, banana + New Life Spectrum Discus Formula and Nortfin Krill Gold in powder.

Usually ammonia: 0 ppm
Usually nitrate: 10 to 20 ppm (orange range API Master Kit)

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My AF is working just fine but no perfect, I think that I used less flourite than it needs. With that BCB (12" cube) my nitrates have to be 0 ppm. It needs more Iron in it!

Beause of that I have a big problem: Diatoms / That's why I using Phosfiltrum/carbon/purigen... but nothing... T.T

Maybe if I inject Seachem Iron in the AF it will work better than now... What do you think?

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Note: The Flourite is in the AF and I put a little over it.

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[farebox]

When I started my baskets I poured some Seachem Iron into each basket. Plus I dose iron daily for the plants. What affect it has I don’t know, but the bottom line have one amazing looking tank using the Anoxic Filtration.

[zhuls1]

Agree. That's eye wateringly expensive for cat litter. I thought £50 for the exact same as Novak's was expensive. For anyone in the UK I bought mine from P@H, £6 for 20l. Enough for 2x 30x30x15cm baskets.

For me, it cost $6 for 15l, that blows my budget for the year!

[Loku]

When I started my baskets I poured some Seachem Iron into each basket. Plus I dose iron daily for the plants. What affect it has I don’t know, but the bottom line have one amazing looking tank using the Anoxic Filtration.

How much you dose daily? It's a Low tech?

[farebox]

I dose once between water changes every four days, two caps for my 125 gallon tank so far.

[lastflea]

For me, it cost $6 for 15l, that blows my budget for the year!

Still a lot cheaper than Biohome Ultra, and less maintenance

[farebox]

Good Sunday morning to all, quick side view of my 125 gallon tank using 100% Anoxic Filtration System with an Plenum per Dr. Kevin Novak: https://youtu.be/_WomB0ywEkE

[lastflea]

Good Sunday morning to all, quick side view of my 125 gallon tank using 100% Anoxic Filtration System with an Plenum per Dr. Kevin Novak: https://youtu.be/_WomB0ywEkE

Great to see things have worked out better this time Roland. Tank/fish looking great

I had a nice welcome home this evening, after a weekend away....... Ammonia/nitrite reading 0ppm, nitrate also reading 0ppm. I've had a sponge filter in my return chamber during the cycle, and had the pump pressed right into it to make sure water being drawn in through the sponge. This has a double positive. My sponge has lots of BB in it, and it's done a great job in muffling the pump that little bit more. Happy days.

Now here's a thing though, I took the sponge out on Friday, before going away. Left it in a bucket of water. My nitrite was going up, up, up before I did this, and now I took it out, my tank appears cycled. The photo below shows where my nitrite was before I left the house (the rear tube), the three tubes in front were taken tonight when I got back. Obviously no water changes. So was the sponge stopping the tank from cycling by producing too much nitrite for the BCB's to cope with? I don't know really, could just be coincidence. The other, more obvious, observation is my nitrate has always hovered around 10ppm in the cycle, but now I took the sponge out, it's gone to 0ppm. Gotta be because the sponge was completing the nitrogen cycle, as normal, and producing nitrate. Right?

I wish I'd taken a more "scientific experiment" approach to the cycle. I've actually been advised that anoxic filtration does not complete the nitrogen cycle at all, and doesn't produce bacteria that turns ammonia to nitrite and so on. I have to say the argument was fairly convincing, that anoxic is nothing more than an ion exchange that neutralises ammonia, turning it into nitrate, which is then neutralised by anaerobic bacteria at the centre of the baskets. I am no scientist, so when some tells me about "ion exchanges" I have no argument against it, because I don't actually know what that means. This is one of the reasons why I removed the sponge. To see what the baskets do on their own. Well, they seem to have consumed everything. The 1ppm ammonia I added just before leaving, all the nitrite, and all the nitrate. So if all the nitrite has been consumed then there must be aerobic bacteria in the outer perimeters of the baskets, and in fact, anoxic does complete the nitrogen cycle. Must do.... To be sure, I've removed all my pre-filter sponges and added 2ppm ammonia tonight. I'll be testing around midnight for nitrite, and then again first thing tomorrow. If anoxic does produce BB for the nitrogen cycle, and my tank is cycled, then I should get a nitrite reading before tomorrow evening, and everything should read 0ppm by tomorrow evening, and I shall enjoy replying to this gent with my findings very much indeed...
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[HarryDk]

Hi all,

I haven't come back to this for months .
I have set up the basket for months, but still have not achieved the result I want. Still got nitrate over 20ppm at some state (i only do 1x 100% weekly now) at 1 time, it when 40ppm.
I read all posts in this topic and have a feel that most of you who using this anoxic system had removed your regular bio-media, is it crucial?
I still have some k1 rolling with some biopure block, they are expensive so I have not removed .

Would that be the reason why my baskets haven't done their jobs?

[farebox]

I removed all my bio media which included K-1 micro and Poret foam. Only the BCB baskets.

[HarryDk]

I removed all my bio media which included K-1 micro and Poret foam. Only the BCB baskets.

Thanks Roland, have you got any spike without the media? As you remove poret foam, what do you use for mechanical ? I'm actually scare to remove everything lol

[farebox]

For the mechanical filter I'm using an bottom layer of carbon and top layer of Pinky filter media cut to size to fit my pre-filter tray. No other filter media being used and I didn't have an spike, I just followed Dr. Novak, Salty Sphynx, and Shaun's Discus setups for the pre-filter. I assume all my water parameters are okay by the the tank looks and action of all the fish. I not into testing my water all the time, long as things look great I'm okay with it.

[Foxfire]

A good algae scrubber will remove nitrates. Combined with water changes, nitrates should be essentially zero 24/7. I never had nitrate readings (down to 0.1 pp) when using a scrubber and making 30% water changes a day (now I use continuous flow but I realize few have that option.) As for a deep layer of material to create a simi-anoxic volume (some oxygen, as I understand it, is required) where a type of bacteria reduces nitrate to nitrogen gas is an old trick used long ago but could be a rather slow process for a small tank since it tended to be passive (unlike a pond.) Not sure you will get a lot of benefit for a given system unless the volume ratio is large (a lot of semi-anoxic material and enough surface area compared to fish bio-mass.) As someone posted, using a separate slump can work but I guess it depends on the size and surface flow & diffusion rates in the material so the oxygen levels are low enough but rate of diffusion is fast enough. I will stick to a small, trivial to use and super efficient, in tank up flow algae scrubber as long as it keeps my nitrates (and other waste products) all reading zero (this was with 8 adult discus in a 75 gal tank.)

[farebox]

The whole idea for Anoxic Filtration is to cut time for doing water changes and being an slave to your tank, per Dr. Novak.

[lastflea]

A good algae scrubber will remove nitrates. Combined with water changes, nitrates should be essentially zero 24/7. I never had nitrate readings (down to 0.1 pp) when using a scrubber and making 30% water changes a day (now I use continuous flow but I realize few have that option.) As for a deep layer of material to create a simi-anoxic volume (some oxygen, as I understand it, is required) where a type of bacteria reduces nitrate to nitrogen gas is an old trick used long ago but could be a rather slow process for a small tank since it tended to be passive (unlike a pond.) Not sure you will get a lot of benefit for a given system unless the volume ratio is large (a lot of semi-anoxic material and enough surface area compared to fish bio-mass.) As someone posted, using a separate slump can work but I guess it depends on the size and surface flow & diffusion rates in the material so the oxygen levels are low enough but rate of diffusion is fast enough. I will stick to a small, trivial to use and super efficient, in tank up flow algae scrubber as long as it keeps my nitrates (and other waste products) all reading zero (this was with 8 adult discus in a 75 gal tank.)

I was going to put an waterfall algae scrubber in my sump, and did quite a lot of research into that. No doubt they're a decent nitrate remover, and I guess it's a matter of preference over how you like to run your tank, or maybe which areas of running a tank you like to put the effort into. I was put off scrubbers because of the build process with a DIY LED board, how that is positioned in relation to the actual scrubber. The problems that can happen with leaking water from the plumbing set up. Also getting the correct flow through the waterfall to get good growth with low noise. Then the maintenance of cleaning the scrubber, removing stray algae from the sump. Didn't really seem to add up to an easier schedule for filtration for me. Some people love all that stuff, growing algae to remove nitrate is pretty awesome and I see the appeal. As Roland points out though, some people don't have that time to tinker around with their set up, or they'd rather be concentrating on other aspects of their tank. Certainly not saying either is better, it's all about what floats your boat with fish keeping