Do it yourself Denitrator

Unless you remove the 3" pipe from inside the coil before you seal it then actually all you will be passing water through is the 1/16 or so of space between the coiled tubing and the inner wall of the 4" cylinder from the way I'm seeing it..

Drip rate works just fine that has little to do with it. Less is most time more then enough.

 

Tangster you have inspired me to make one of these. That is a crazy drop in NO3. I have to witness this for myself. Right now my nitrates are 25ppm so i think that it will do the job. Thanks

 

My pictures didn't make that part very clear, sorry... But the end of the water tube enters the center chamber of the 3" pipe through a hole that is drilled at the bottom. I didn't get any photos of this, but the water is filling the center first, then is filling the outside. I have it running, and it seems to be working very well. Siphon driven is working great!

 

Lotzo you are still loosing surface area doing it that way. Reread that and no your not.

Double, the way this thing gets the nitrate eating bug that Tangster mentioned is by having the oxygen out of the water and they thrive in this anaerobic water. The first process to get this happens in the 1/4 tube. The normal bacteria(aerobic) will eat the ammonia and nitrites and in the process use up all the oxygen in the water. It grows wherever it can (on the tubing wall). When the water exits the tube it should not have any oxygen in it, Tangster says 40' should be enough and I trust his experience and it worked in mine too. Now this water fills up the tube with the bio-balls and the special(anaerobic) bacteria grow here and they eat the nitrates. Very simple and low-tech as Tangster says, but very effective.

 

How is you NO3 reduction coming along there jakeR ?

 

Somewhere between 10-25 PPM

It is actually closer to the 10 color then the 25 so I'm happy as a fly on a turd!

 

Its still new what is it now ? 5 weeks or so ? They will go zero sooner or later.

 

LOL, poor fly... My display tank is at a steady 5ppm if nitrates (before the coil), I'm hoping to get it to zero with the coil.

 

About 2 months but remember that it was way up there before it was at the highest reading so who knows hat it really was. I also screwed up at one point and had the valve all the way open so it may have whiped out the bacteria.

Lotzo, I just noticed something with your design that would worry me. Your output is above the over flow of the inner PVC. This means that once this fills up, the water that is trapped between the two pipes will not get much if any turnover. That would worry me because when you move the denitrater all that water will get into the system. I would tell you to do one of two things. Remove the inner pipe or move your output to the bottom of the tube to keep the water movement inside the tube.

A third idea would be to drill some holes in the bottom of the inner pipe.

 

HEHEHE!! You are absolutely correct, and I did drill some holes at the bottom due to my concern about lack of flow. With the holes drilled, now it's using the coil surface area AND the bioball surface area for the bacteria. I have had this thing running for a day now, and it seems to be putting out .5 nitrites and 5ppm nitrates.... I have the output running into a bowl to prevent the nitrites from entering the tank, but my question is, is this normal? i am running about 1.5 drips per second.