Natural Nitrate removal

my coil is about 14 inches tall and about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, not a very big piece of equipment, but it does a wonderful job. i have started making them for the lfs i work for. i make them out of pvc and tubing and cut up hair curlers(yes hair curlers) 1 of our customers that bought 1 from me has seen his nitrates drop from 80 ppm to 40 ppm in 3 months.

 

So basically I can get a wide PVC pipe, cap the ends, do some magic with the coil (would I want to double up the coil inside to hopefully flush out all the oxygen?)
and just let it drain back out into the return?

I can branch my return pump (with a valve to reduce flow) into this thing or would it be better to get a new tiny pump to run it?

When you say "drip" how slow do you mean the water should be leaving? Literally dripping out or a light stream?

 

[quote author=crutkas link=board=Newbie;num=1091586284;start=15#16 date=08/05/04 at 16:12:49]Caulerpa macroalgae is not an algea I can feed to a tang or something, right?
.[/quote]

Tangs will eat the algae, they love it! The problem is that defeats the purpose. The Calerpa uses the Nitrate to grow, you harvest the Calerpa and therefore remove the Nitrate from the system. If, however you feed the Calerpa to the Tang, he will eat it and pass the rest through which ends up in the water again.

Make sense?

John

 

drip rate should be about 80 drops a minute until your nitrate in your tank drops to 10 ppm or less, once that happens, drip rate should be doubled. there are several ways to get the water to the denitrator, 1 way is to gravity feed it from the main tank to the denitrator (now known as cd cos i am tired of writhing coiled denitrator) another way is to tap off of a pump that is already in the sump( my fish tank has 1 tapped off of the main pump, my reef is tapped off of the skimmer pump) if you have a rio pump you can use the little ball valve that came with the pump. just hook up the ball valve inline with the main pump and use the venturi hole of the ball valve to feed the c d water. that is the way i have mine hooked up. if you do not have a rio ball valve never fear, there is another way to hook it up. just drill a small hole in the return line of one of your sump pumps and force airline or ice maker tubing in the hole(make the hole a little smaller so that the pressure of the pump doesn't force the airline out) run the line to the top of the c d and connect it to a fitting that is connected to the tubing that is coiled inside the pvc. don't forget to use something in the middle of the pvc for the bacteria to live on(bio balls, hair curlers, bio stars, sponges, whatever works) drill a hole in the side of the pvc for the return attach a fitting to that hole and use a needle valve to regulate the flow) i am making 4 of them tomorrow and if you would like i will post a pic of a finished one so you can get an idea of how it is made.

 

Here's a link to Don Carner's plans...
http://saltaquarium.about.com/library/blank/blcoildenitrator.htm

There are a lot of other ones out there...DaColts' is cool...I think mine's gonna be either 3" or 4" in diameter and a foot tall or so. I'll probably end up using acrylic, and like DaColts said hair curlers, bioballs, nylon pot scrubbers, anything that has a lot of surface area will do within the coil. You can go off your return pump or use a teeny tiny pump, Carners' article explains the drip amount pretty accurately.

Does anyone know if caulerpa will even grow after a coil denitrator is in place? [smiley=confused1.gif]

And as John said, once in place, set it and forget it with the exception of checking the regulator valve for blockage and that the drip rate is correct!!

 

I think that Caulerpa should still grow. The algae utilises both Phosphate and Nitrate as far as I know

John

 

as promised, here are some pics of my finished c d. they are not pretty, but they do the job.

 

and here is a pic showing the rio ball valve.

 

Cooooollll!!!! I'm gonna make me one of those too! I think I can do that!

Da Colts, what type of fitting did you use inside the PVC to attach the black hose to (looks like metal...), where can you get it, and did you glue them inside the PVC?
And, are those little spout thingys on the end of the return tube readily available? Where?

I am assuming it is entirely glued together? Some commercial denitrators state that you have to "feed" the bacteria when you first set it up...is this the case? I am guessing "No"

It looks GREAT! And this thread has convinced me that I should have one ;D

 

thanks for the karma birdlady. the fitting at the top is simply about a 2 inch piece of that rigid tubing that is used inside undergravel filter uplift tubes. it is available atmost pet shops, i get it from a local lfs here in town as the place i work at does not recommend undergravel filters so we do not have any parts. i have seen it at petsmart also. the fitting at the end of the return tube is simply an airline needle valve, it is used to regulate airflow from an air pump, but it works great on my c d. i have also used sprinkler regulators when we were out of needle valves, they are available at lowes or home depot. the needle valves are available at most pet shops also. the hardest part is getting the tubing inside the pvc, it must coil around the inside of the pvc so it leaves room in the middle for the bio balls or in my case hair curlers. hopw this helps and let me know if you have any more questions. i for got to log in, this is da colts