Sulfur based Denitrator (again)

[ILLUSN]

Hi all just throwing an idea out there for a sulfa based denitrator in an amazonian tank.

heres the problem.

the main tank in the lounge room doesn't and wont ever get the waterchanges it should. its ~800L with sump and gets 50% once every 4-6 weeks. the sump holds 60L of pondmatrix and aquaclay and runs a FBF with 500ml of purigen. It has a nice dense planting of watersprite but is heavily stocked (10 geos, 20 angels 4 Ospot BN's) so far so good my NO3 is never above 5ppm.

I'd like to move away from the water sprite as it wont fit with the biotype i want to setup.

the design is simple enough for a sulpur denitritor just wonderin if anyone can think of any other drawbacks?

[ILLUSN]

heres a diagram of the old (in use) v's the new, most of the parts have arrived I'm just waiting on some carib sea LSM for the denitrater.

i'll be using all the old existing gear just adding the FBF/denitrater system to it. for those who remember the 5' tank in a honda Jazz thread http://discusforums.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19502&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=jazz&&start=0 here's a photo of the old sump

http://discusforums.com/forum/files/dscf3948.jpg

as a result the new add on will pull water from the second section of the sump (where the matrix is). the FBF will return water to section 1 the denitrator will return water to section 4 where the purigen reactor is.

I'm tossing up wether to pass the denitrator effluent through a degassing/carbon drip tray or not before it reenters the sump, also not shown on the new diaragram is a UV sterilizer to take care of any stray anerobes, still tossing up wether i need an Aqua Ultraviolet 8w or the 25w, the 15w would be ideal giving me in excess of 90000uw/cm @~900l/h but no one in Australia stocks it.

[ILLUSN]

Carib Sea LSM arrived at work today appologies for the iPhone pics i dont bring the SLR to work with me..

To be honest I'm a little amused by the disclaimer on the side of the bottle.

should have it all up and running over Xmas, I'll run the effluent into a bottle for the first few weeks to test the pH, and odor, i dont think I'll have it running on the tank untill the UV arrives

[ILLUSN]

Moving this post to the DIY as it's progressed from a concept to a project.

Began work today on getting this monster up am running and hit a few snags. The build quality of the BOYU Fluid bed filters wasn't as good as I hoped 1/4 leaked. Also due to their assembly they were useless for crushed coral. As a result the old phosban 150 was retained for the carbonate reactor. This reduced the volume of coral in the system from 1L to ~600mL.
No real problem it just looks a little funny next to the 3 massive FBF's. Also as it runs 12mm hose and the BOYO's use 16mm I needed to raid the eheim cupboard for reducers to make it all fit.

While not "display quality" it's reasonably neat for one of my DIY's.

[ILLUSN]

more...

water turned on and the Calcium reactor leaked, however the flow rate was perfect for the sand FBFwith the denitrater running at ~3ml/min

[ILLUSN]

the sulphur reactor and calcium reactor are filled with water and turned off, this way in a few weeks they should be fully anerobic and ready to function.

hopefully by then I'll have my UV sterilizer.

[taksan]

I suspect .... those Boyu FBF's may possibly be the ones I saw down here that leaked badly. Have you had any leaks ?

[ILLUSN]

I have mate of the 5 I bought for this trial run 2 have leaked I've fixed that by just silicone everything together if this prototype works I'll be upgrading all modules to phosban 550's I just can't justify the expense for a prototype. I guess I'll know when it matures fingers crossed this system will keep the water quality top notch in between changes for some more delicate Amazonian fish

[ILLUSN]

turned the system on on the weekend (got sick of waiting), no smell from the discharge from the sulfur coral reactor, also 0 nitrate,

tank water 0 nitrate
sump section 1 0-5 nitrate
sump section 2 0-5 nitrate
sump section 3 0-5 nitrate
sump section 4 ~0 nitrate (i think i can see the slightest tint of pink against a white paper in blue/white light)

as for the fish, i have the black velvet angels on eggs, the blue angels on eggs, the superveil angels with fry (wont last the night) and EVERYBODY beating the living heck out of the geos.

you'd think 800L would be enough for 18 small (ish) fish.

did some minor mods put in a carbon drip tray with an airstone for the effluent. intristingly the pH of the effluent is 6.8 when the tank ph is 4.3, last week before i turned the sulfur/coral reactor on it was 4.02 hopefully the extra carbonate and minerals will help protect against a pH crash.

FYI its been 6 weeks since the last water change will keep monitoring daily for changes to pH and fish health.