Aquaripure Denitrator

[rwbama]

Hello, I'm new to this forum and I'm seriously thinking about starting a discus aquarium. Just doing the research right now to make sure I'm ready and able to do what it takes to raise discus correctly. Has anyone hear of a product called the Aquaripure Denitrtator? According to the website it's an excellent nitrate remover and claims to keep nitrate levels at or around zero. Seem simple enough and not terrible expensive. It's not supposed to eliminate water changes but claims to reduce the amount needed and the water quality is supposed to be very good. Any help would be appreciated. thanks

[Hollowman]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

To be honest, the best way to keep nitrItes down is to keep a healthy and mature filter running. Maybe more importantly, you need to keep the ammonia level at zero, nitrIte at zero and nitrAtes between 0 and 10

IMO Products that claim to reduce 'this' and bypass 'that' to reduce the need for changing water do not have any part in the Discus keepers cabinett. There is no substitiue for a water change.

I have a friend in Alabama, I am sure she could help you with some local knowledge.

H :)

[rwbama]

I'm sure your right and in most cases there aren't many shortcuts to doing things the right way. The "denitrator" as it was described is actually a filter of sorts. It uses the same bacteria that regular filters use but according to the website it just does a great job of removing all amonia, nitrites and nitrates all at the same time. You actually have to feed the filter device with either sugar water or vodka if you can imagine that. If you have the time maybe look it up on the web and let me know what you think. I do appreciate your advice and I would love to have someone in Alabama to ask my millions of questions or maybe see their setup. I'm determined to have a discus tank and just want to learn as much as I can. thanks

[Hollowman]

Hi Rw,

Yes I read all the info from their site, and to be honest, if you are serious about keeping discus, like the guys here on the forum, you will learn that like I said before, with a proper water change regime, you do not get huge amounts of nitrAtes antway.
As the nitrogen cycle works, ammonia is converted to nitrIte and then the bacteria in your filter convert this to nitrAtes.

Here is a quote from their website:

"Nitrates are less toxic than ammonia or nitrites, but they are still toxic to humans, animals and fish and are a primary cause of water pollution"

The last statement is in my opinion is clearly untrue and put in there to make the product sell to those who feel they just want an aquarium for fun, with no regard for the real fish's health and happiness. I know of no-one in my years of keeping fish that have had nitrAtes so high that it killed their fish, and if it got higher that 10ppm a good water change normally reduces to a safe level.

The very basics of keeping fish is to keep your water in such a way that your fish thrive. Keeping discus is easy.......but they do require the highest quality of water and this means regular water changes, and whatever spin manufacurers put on a product there is no substitute.

My advice is in no way to put you off, quite the contrary. But it is a sad fact that some people do not read up on fish like you are, and kill their fish right off the bat. I am glad you are looking into ways of making keeping fish easier, but the fact remains, water changes are part of the deal.

hth

H :)

[rwbama]

Thanks for your good advice and for taking the time to answer my questions. I really would like to have a discus aquarium but I want to make sure that I'm ready to take this on and do it properly. I'm still reading and asking questions at this point and opinions from experienced people really helps. thanks again.

[Hollowman]

You are in the right place to ask, and there are many more experienced than me here. But I'll help where I can.

:)

[AHC]

Hi RW,

Hollowman is always on the money and his experience shows. I just wanted to say, firstly welcome. I love that your researching first :wink: .

Secondly, water changes arnt so bad if you set yourself up to make it easy. As you now know, the waterchange will become your fishes next best friend (after you) and life support. Whilst products like you mentioned are designed to cheat, clean fresh water is the only long term effective method of keeping healthy happy fish. The only way of cheating at water changes is by purchasing yourself a good powerhead and hose.

Depending on tank location, the hose will be used to siphon out all the debris etc straight into the garden, lawn, drain. The powerhead & hose used in conjunction with your water storage container (for pretreatment) will be used to fill your tank back up. This eliminates the use of buckets and the pain stacking process of 'old school' water changes. You can also have a cuppa while the tank is filling back up. It makes it a lot easier and the fish love it more as your not dumping water on top of them.

You have probably already read to make sure your water storage is heated to the right temp and has had the PH changed to the same PH. Once your rutein is set its easy and it doesnt take any time away from enjoying the aquarium. :cheers

[Hollowman]

You can also have a cuppa while the tank is filling back up.

:lol: :lol: I like your style Aaron :lol:

[AHC]

HA! Cheers :lol:

[Xerxes]

I have now two Aquaripure biofilters, one medium for my 65g discus tank and a small one for my 25 g breeder tank. They work well, but I found some things you have to be careful about. My error cost me the death of my breeding pigeon-blood pair, my first discus breeding pair.

As background, I am testing the extent of the Aquaripure so I have purposely overloaded my 65g tank: 9 three inch discus, of two brown, and of 7 golden orange (I forget the specific name the breeder had), in a sugar fine substrate, drift wood, plastic plants (allows me to vacuum the gravel completely), one 2217 Eheim classic canister filter (physical filtration only), one sponge filter (for aeration), almond leaves in a bag, two heaters, 3 marine blue fluorescent light bulbs, and one ordinary fluorescent light bulb all on a timer. I use two Eheim rotating cylinder feeders feeding the fish eight times a day.

With the medium Aquaripure with this current set up, I am getting nil ammonia, nil nitrites, 10 to 25 ppm nitrates, with pH at 7.0, KH at 3 dH and GH at 5 dH. Before the Aquaripure, I had 5 three inch discus and the nitrates were off the scale at 100 ppm if I didn't do a 50% water change every other day. I now do one water change every two weeks, and I get these numbers before the water change.

What convinced me that this guy isn't a gimmick is that Seachem has these anaerobic rocks that get rid of nitrates too, that I read on the internet could be set up with a motorless Eheim 2213 filter piggybacked to physical filtration only 2217 Eheim classic filter. The set up seemed too complicated and prone to leakage. Not that many people seemed to have this set up too, except for my LHS dude who recommended it based on marine fish keepers who use it. The Aquaripure is expensive but so far works great.

Two things to be careful about though:
1) If you overdose the filters with too much vodka, you will have a massive anaerobic bacteria bloom that will spill out into the tank from the filter outflow, and it will clear up after a few days, yes. The link doesn't tell you that the oxygen that the bacteria takes up could kill your fish. Like my breeding pigeon pair. I had accidentally overdosed it as soon as it arrived, even though the instructions said to wait two to three days after arrival to dose with vodka.

2) The pump is weak and doesn't run sometimes. The weak pump is good since the things supposed to drip a few drops per second anyway, but to start it back up, I recommend turning the motor power to low, let it get a head start for a few seconds and then get it up to the recommended high rate before plugging back in the intake hose.

If the two recommendations don't make sense, they will once you start to use it. Maybe I'll start a thread about this, but I just didn't want to seem like someone endorsing this thing or that I'm working for the guy.

He is very helpful and very accessible though. However, on some of the YouTube videos, he does seem a bit rough around the edges. I suppose he could help himself and hire a CEO and a marketing team. He does have some thin skin in the posts I've seen, but his product is legit. There is a biochemical basis for his invention after all: the Seachem rocks, for example, uses the same principle.

[Ghoti]

The seachem rocks are called "De nitrate" and rely on anaerobic bacteria and low flow rates to do the job. I understand that De nitrate its justa smaller form of matrix. don't know how effective it is.

Scott

[Xerxes]

De Nitrate, yes, I even bought the tub of rocks and the motorless Eheim 2213 canister filter, before I returned it (seemed too involved and prone to leakage and inefficiencies). My LHS dude swears it works well for the guys who use it, and he's pretty honest about that sort of stuff with me since I give him a goodly amount of business. When I tried to set it up, I didn't see many posts online about its effectiveness or just plain users.

Once I saw that someone was using that method from Seachem, a legit and widely respected brand in aquatic fishkeeping, I figured it was only a matter of someone else making the science more efficient. I decided then to give Aquaripure a chance. I just joined this forum, but I'll post pictures soon. It works quite reliably. I'm still testing it out myself to see if my discus are spawning under these conditions and if the fry are surviving, a real test of the system since I figure the fry will be the most affected by impurities not shown by water testing equipment.

I use Salifert testing equipment, a step above API Master Freshwater Test Kit. I might try Elos if the sensitivity is greater for trace amounts. I'm still skeptical myself: I've even taken a full cup drink of the water after two weeks without a water change using the Aquaripure, and I couldn't taste any weird tastes. All I can say so far is that the fish seem very happy. Actually, happier without all that water changes freaking them out.

There is this too from the "Discus Keeping 101" forum in the OP of the "Water changes (http://www.discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6859)" sticky thread:

Seems to be a lot of interest in water changes - a how much, how often etc. I change 30% of the water once a week because I dont have time. I would like to change it twice, but I've gotta eat! Now heres the result from a little experiment we did back at the aquaculture center at Uni of Tas in 1992. We we looking at differing growth rates compared to water quality. The fish we used were discus and dwarf gouramis. The filtration in one group of tanks was a sponge filter, another group had a trickle system, one had an 'all singing and dancing system' consisting of trickle, nitratereductor,sulphur,carbonate, calcium reactors and another which I cant remember. The last system was getting a 50% water change each day. The results were interesting. The fish with the highest growth rates were from the tanks with the all-singing -and-dancing filters, next was the water change tank, followed by the sponge then trickle (I think). The lecturers do this experiment to show the importance of filtration. Now we wondered why this could be so. Upon examination of the fish (histo-toxicological), it was found that the fish with the highest growth rates given the same food had less blood cortisol levels. When a fish gets stressed, it produces cortisol which lowers the immune system, reduces resistance to infections/pathogens and ultimately inhibits successful spawning in some cases. The reason behind the higher stress levels in the water changed tanks WAS the water changing (physically disturbing them) or buildups of toxic metabolites (remember that biological filtration only removes nitrogen bases metabolites and converts it to nitrate). Also these fish were not used to being disturbed with water changes like mine are, but still - food for thought. Wild stuff, like Heckels wont tolerate any disturbances during spawing season, or they just wont breed!

So the results are interesting. I just thought I'de share this with you. Also, so only way I've bred Heckels out of the pond was by using a stable system with all the bell and wistles in the filtration end. Large water volume (as we fish disease guys say - 'dilution is the solution to polution!')

Someone answered one of the threads in this forum with ' there are too many vaiables with water changes' ie whos right or wrong about frequency of the changes. Dead right - a large tank with low biostock density needs less changes. More intensive systems EG fry growout are gonna need more changes. It really comes down to stocking density. If I walk into my fish shed and see some discus looking a bit dark or not eating with enough vigour or flighty, then I give them a water change. As most of you will know, each of your discus have their own personalitys and traits. I know each of my 20 or so adult brooders by name and personality and I know when somethings not right. Thats when I do my changes.

If anyone wants to try out some of these hi tech filtration systems, have a look at them on Proteus' APW site. They can be expensive but are well worth it (and yes - you'll still have to do water changes, but not as often) Food for thought

Squid

I am not in any way endorsing this Aquaripure equipment and am not recommending it to anyone. All I'm saying is so far so good, and I've had it for only two months. Again, the real test is when I get discus fry and they don't die off all at once: the eggs being soft enough in the water quality given for the spawn to be fertilized properly, the concentrations of poisons in the water not killing the much smaller and therefore much more susceptible fry.

[Ghoti]

Will be watching with interest

Cheers,
Scott

[Xerxes]

I'm not a real photo dude, so I'm not taking out my camera to take pictures fast enough. I will. Just wait till I get my day job sorted.

I just read the OP again, and I realized that you're new to this. I've been keeping tropical fish for about five years now and had been breeding angelfish for two until I gave them away (2 very highly productive breeding pair of super veiled marbled) after I was producing hundreds of juveniles (the size of quarters) I didn't know what to do with, and could no longer give away. Had a good bartering system with my LHS dude, though.

I've been keeping discus for about 6 months now. Still a discus noob. I don't recommend the Aquaripure use right away, especially with a high waste producer, sensitive fish like discus: you could kill your entire stock and not really know what happened (to prevent expensive future genocide). Keep discus the old fashioned way with a sturdy variety (I started with browns and pigeon blood, some of the hardiest out there though not preferred by the old hands). After you get your teeth cut on these ones, give them away or sell them if you can. You'll learn a LOT just changing the water and testing the water chemistry. Like I said, I killed my breeding pair of very low peppered pigeon bloods, and I practically felt my brother had died for a full two weeks. I still see them dead when I close my eyes.

[scoob]

65 gallon discus tank: 6 three inch discus (2 brown, 4 golden), drift wood, sugar fine substrate, plastic plants, Eheim 2217 classic canister filter for physical filtration, medium Aquaripure filter for bio filtration, sponge filter for aeration, 2 Eheim 3581 feeders feeding 8 times total a day, one 50% water change once two weeks

That is great mate, it will be interesting if you get good growth rates considering the fish are still juvies and fed 8 times a day.

I am currently growing up about 30 juvies sizes from 1-3 inch in a 4x2x2.5 running a Eheim 2080 and I am doing about 80% water changes a day.
If Aquarepure works and can cut down may water changes and still get the same growth rate.. I might have to invest in one...

[Xerxes]

65 gallon discus tank: 6 three inch discus (2 brown, 4 golden), drift wood, sugar fine substrate, plastic plants, Eheim 2217 classic canister filter for physical filtration, medium Aquaripure filter for bio filtration, sponge filter for aeration, 2 Eheim 3581 feeders feeding 8 times total a day, one 50% water change once two weeks

That is great mate, it will be interesting if you get good growth rates considering the fish are still juvies and fed 8 times a day.

I am currently growing up about 30 juvies sizes from 1-3 inch in a 4x2x2.5 running a Eheim 2080 and I am doing about 80% water changes a day.
If Aquarepure works and can cut down may water changes and still get the same growth rate.. I might have to invest in one...

I really should post pictures, but am currently going to be very busy until end of month. I plan on taking photos with a ruler at forefront to log regular growth rates, since I have now no real objective way of knowing how much and at what rate. I will share.

I do have just my tetras and rumy nose in my breeder tank now, and they are much smaller fish with the small Aquaripure going. They aren't dead yet, but I really need to feel assured with discus fry going that they won't die (I did kill my breeding pair by mistake, after all, and don't look forward to an accident like that again).

If the growth rates I'm getting continue (and I think it is really good--the fewer water changes and just fishing out the left over food with small gauge airtubing stiffened with hanger wire bent out into a spine sustains the crud levels at bottom of the tank), and I have good results for about six months without killing anyone with fry in the mix in the testing, I am secretly hoping I can raise and breed heckles. My reputable breeder/importer has excellent heckle specimens I am eyeing--not that I would ever sell out on and betray my goldens now...They are much much prettier than heckles...

[ILLUSN]

Denitartors do work but just a few things to concider.
You need to keep the levels of phenols and other organics in check. Maybe add a pouch of chemi pure , chemi zorb or purigen to your filter just to mop up the wastes other then nitrate.

[Xerxes]

The Golden Snakeskin Enterprise discus (name according to importer) range in size 7-8 cm from mouth to tail fin root. Are 6 month (? maybe 4 month old, will have to check with seller again). These 7 Goldens have been kept in Aquaripure medium filter 65 gallon tank, as shown here, ever since I got them 4 weeks ago. I remember them being much smaller. I will post more accurate information when I check my logs and talk to the importer. I remember them being about 5 cm from mouth to fin root when I got them, but I have been feeding them 8 times a day for only the past week though. Had been feeding them 4 times a day for the previous three weeks.

I couldn't find any image of such name discus in a google image search. Can anyone identify the strain?

Let me know what you think. I am a noob (about 2 months keeping discus, although had been breeding superveiled marbled angelfish for two years previously), so go easy on me, please.

[scoob]

The Golden Snakeskin's look fine, some are a bit on the small side but growth rate looks normal, they look happy with the water conditions, clear eyes, no clamped fins.
Will be interested to know the growth rate in a month or two, keep us updated.
Thanks for the pics and update.

[Xerxes]

The Golden Snakeskin's look fine, some are a bit on the small side but growth rate looks normal, they look happy with the water conditions, clear eyes, no clamped fins.
Will be interested to know the growth rate in a month or two, keep us updated.
Thanks for the pics and update.

I recently dosed the medium Aquaripure in my main tank with the usual 8 mm of vodka twice a week, and it had been cycling for about almost two months now with 10-20 ppm NO3- even with the overstocked density (nine 8-9 cm discus fed 8 times a day with two Eheim 3581 automatic rotating feeder in a 65 gallon sugar fine substrate, plastic plant tank, with Eheim 2217 classic canister filter doing only physical filtration). The instructions say to dose once a week at some point.

Well, it must have been that point because I noticed the water becoming cloudy after about an hour after the dosing. I remembered that my breeding pair of pigeon blood discus had DIED when this happened. Knowing from the instructions that the bacteria is anaerobic and said to require FAST surface water flow, I knew I needed to aerate the water with as much oxygen as possible to kill the anaerobic bacteria sucking up all the oxygen and asphyxiating the discus (strangely they were not coming to the surface, which makes me think something else could be happening or they don't know they are being deprived oxygen).

I pointed my outflow valve for my 2217 canister filter to the surface to maximize dissolved oxygen at the surface being circulated all around the tank and I unplugged the powerhead on the Aquaripure inflow tube to let the pump push water across the surface too (actually a very fast water flow pump, although not much power/torque). That must have done it because at the end of the day, the cloudiness had disappeared completely (I couldn't look at the fish the whole day, and when I finally got the guts to look, I kept looking at the top to see if any were floating and then the bottom if any were doing the death lie on the substrate).

I did read on some of the forums before I bought the biofilter that the poster "would not wish this on even my enemies" and had raved against the Aquaripure (that kind of testimony kinda sticks).

I can see this being the case, if I didn't take those steps and I had ended up killing MY ENTIRE STOCK of fish, which very easily could have happened AGAIN. So, I have about $800 of discus in my tank--and ok, easy on the flaming about I over paid or got otherwise ripped off--so their death would be bad. For me, I would be more traumatized about my losing them, since they are some of the most affectionate pets I have raised (I even love the runts and can't even imagine euthanizing them, although I may separate them to see if they will grow out better as a separate runts-only tank). I think I have a handle on this though.

True, there is no real risk of killing your entire stock doing the traditional 50% water changes every other day, like I was doing (or every three when I got lazy), and monitoring the water chemistry every week or so. (Although I have not had a major illness sweep through my fish stock yet...yet). Me, I'm bent on eventually trying this to raise heckles once I'm much more experienced or try to have a breeding pair of near competition quality fish (either route will be difficult).

All I can say is that squid posting about the blood cortisol levels as it relates to fish growth makes sense. I don't know about the hormone levels, but if stress causes higher blood cortisol levels, then the pecking order of the bigger fish bullying the smaller fish seems to cause the same blood cortisol levels to rise in the runts. I've seen my fish, and the bigger sibs are brutal to the smaller sibs with the smaller ones being pecked at once every 10 seconds or so the WHOLE day. That's gotta be stress like no other. To this end, I am experimenting with two feeding points, since the pecking seems the most severe and common during feeding. The more pecked at ones naturally gravitate to the less favorable but still viable feeding center at the other end of the tank. As long as the feeding isn't scattered all across the floor of the tank (having a hard time controlling this, and have tried feeding rings on the surface of the water with very little positive effect), I think that the pecking can decrease.

Just experimenting. And, again, I DO NOT recommend this product on someone who's kept tropical fish for less than a few years and discus with this product, unless you are willing to risk killing everything you own at one point (not a ringing endorsement, I know). I do think it has some potential, though not clear how it affects breeding pairs, grow out schools, fry. Lots to test. This product may be very good for one aspect but not for all aspects of discus keeping. May even be very bad for some aspects, and I suspect this might be for fry growing out because the poisons collect more in the higher eating and body mass accumulated, I suspect. But, how much, ya know? And, at acceptable levels?

I did notice, I am not blind to, a mass of hostility against such a product on such a traditional discus forum here. I am a newbie and I am an outsider, I realize, too, so you can say all you want but it won't really matter. If you are interested in how new technology can affect and improve SOME aspects of discus care, you are welcome to be cool about this all with me.

Ok, now let me have it. Flame on. Or, for example, make constructive comments or observations, as you prefer. I can take it; I have thick skin like an alligator gar, outlawed in most states.

[Xerxes]

This is an update on a post earlier.

I had nine originally in a purposely overstocked 60 gallon tank (to see how the denitrator functioned under different bio loads). The result was nil ammonia, nitrite, and about 15 to 20 ppm nitrate at once-a-week 70% water changes with aquaripure use.

I traded 4 of the original to my LFS guy for some equipment to fit the size of the tank. However, I lost one of the remaining five to a swim-bladder disease (I think it may have been the blood worms I was feeding? which I feed no more, and unsuccessfully nursed in my 20 gallon breeder/hospital tank). I lost another one to my stupidly forgetting to plug back in my heaters after a water change and leaving the house for a weekend back in January (winter then). I now have the three, and I think they may all three be female, although I am only guessing.

The middle: Jan
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss283/demuddy/middle--Jan.jpg

The littlest: Cindy
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss283/demuddy/smallest--Cindy.jpg

The big girl: Marsha Marsha Marsha
http://i584.photobucket.com/albums/ss283/demuddy/biggest--Marsha.jpg

In one of the photos, I have placed a centimeter ruler to gauge size, which I didn't have in the first photos in the earlier posts (then photos taken on date of post too). I am a newbie discus grower, but have kept fish for a number of years and bread superveiled marbled angelfish, which yielded me hundreds of juveniles. The jump to discus growing has been a steep learning curve, and I am humbled by the experience.