after this weekends waterchange on my four tanks it occured to me that in three weeks when i get my new tank for my jags (upgrading form my 90 to a 125)that it will almost take all day to do water changes. so this got me thnking on how i can reduce the work load. since the only reason i do water changes is to reduce nitrates i started looking at denitrators. to make a long story short im am going to build myself a denitrator and test it out on my 220 gallon tank. i will keep you posted on the construction and the results in nitrate reduction.

i cant wait !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! coil/tower type ???

looking forward for the design and result.

I believe I got myself one without planning for it. Since my surface floating plants began adapting to the tank (I brought them from a fish farm where they raise them in ponds with direct sunlight), I am having incredibly low readings for nitrates.

When I started this tank, nitrates climbed to 25ppm in a week if I overfed a bit, and surely hit the 40+ppm in less than two weeks. After being able to keep some submerged (mostly potted) plants, I got in the neighborhood of 10ppm in one week but rarely hit 25ppm. As for the last two weeks, I'm having readings below the 10ppm, which for me was unexpected. I know my cycle is intact since I have zero ammonia, zero nitrates and the fish look healthy.

My fish seem to stress during water changes when I'm taking water out, but they surely enjoy the fresh water once I'm done with it.

I have been doing weekly water changes of close to 50%. I use a submersible 6,000LPH (1,320UK GPH) pump to take water out and use a hose to bring water in (since I live in the warm weather Caribbean, tank temp and tap water temp are almost equal year 'round). I do this in 45 minutes, taking 5 for a coffee brake.

I might wait 2 weeks and see how it goes.

Pepe
Santo Domingo

keep us posted on how your nitrates levels are after a week then after 2 weeks. im curious to see how low they are.


btw bgh yes i am going to try the coil tower type denitrator.

necro i have all the parts to go on my own one for my new tank but i cant get the 1/4" ID bulkhead conectors for the inlet and outlet on the tower and the 1/4"ID ball/flow valve ???????????????????? here in the uk i can only get them in metal and they are realy hard to find so im stuck.if you manage to source them can i buy 2 bulkheads and a flow valve from you through the sales section on here PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

any developments or is it still in the think tank:)

i havent gone out to pick up the materials yet(going on saturday) but when i do ill pick up a couple of extra for you(if you still need them).

i sourced the 1/4" barbed bukheads x2 and a 1/4" barbed flow valve from a company in the laboratory supply trade they are £21.00 plus vat plus postage, i have the tower and end caps here in my garage and the coil material and a spare box of bioballs i would love to take your offer as i asked you to see if you can get the hardware fittings for me and i am sure you will get 2 bulkheads and 1 flow for less than £30 sterling!!!!!!!!!!AND POST THEM FROM CANADA!!!!!! how can i pay you!!!!!!!!!!

i sent some info to you via pm

got it ....you got pm 2:)

pepetj wrote:

thank you pepe..... you are now one of my living proof that plants do reduce the nitrates in the tanks. this is how i was able to raise my fishes in 17 months without water change. right now, i am back to that practice but from time to time i do give my fishes a new water dose specially when about to spawn. the only difference with us is that i am practicing hydroponics in a mapal beds while yours are floating water plants.