DIY Algae scrubber

[tarheel96]

Angelphish - Sorry for the late response

Carbon is typically dosed by adding vodka, sugar, vinegar, or a combination of the three. I think vodka or sugar (sucrose) is fine. Aquaripure's carbon nutrient is a combination of alcohol, sucrose, and acetic acid. Those three ingredients can each be added but I don't know the exact ratios of each. White vinegar is typically only 5 - 10% acetic acic so vinegar contains only 2 - 4 % carbon which is why I wonder why people bother using it. Sugar mixed with water in a 1:1 ratio by volume is 21% carbon and 100 proof vodka is 26% carbon.

Dosing with carbon does help denitrifying bacteria grow by proving them with their most needed element (C) and at low doses (0.5 ml sugar water or vodka daily - 2-3x per week) it shouldn't create create a problem if you keep the dose at these low levels. However, at high doses it absolutely will cause hell without serious filtration of the output. You definitely want to get the dose correct using pippete or syringe.

Denitrifying bacteria are heterotrophic and need 5-8 times the amount of carbon than nitrogen (nitrate) to survive and carbon is very limited in freshwater aquariums. So dosing with carbon will fuel the growth of anaerobic denitrifying heterotrophs in the right environment (i.e. anoxic with nitrate and phosphate), *but* it will also fuel the growth of other types of bacteria which you don't want.

If too much carbon is added to a denitrator the tank will experience, at least, a bactetial bloom/cloudy water. Besides causing problems like depleting oxygen in the water column, the bacteria will decay and the result will be ammonia into nitrite into more nitrate, having a neutraling effect on the denitrators increased nitrate-reduction from the high level carbon dosing.

If you don't use too much carbon it won't cause any harm. My denitrator towers in series have just over 4 gallons internal media capacity and I'm going to add 0.5 ml, maybe as much as 1ml sugar or vodka every 2-4 days at first ... no more. That would be a little less than Aquaripure's instructions to dose 4ml every 4 days until cycled but I'd rather use a little less at first and watch for any bacterial blooms.

What volume/media capacity is your denitrator? What size tank is it going on? Be extra careful with carbon of the tanksize is small.

 

[tarheel96]

kno4te "Similarly like my diy denitrator, it hit a wall."

I wouldn't think your new diy denitrator is slowing down because of clogging already. That's way too soon. You used de*nitrate in it right? Remember your denitrator started reducing nitrate within only a few days? That wasn't a biological process doing that ... it was all chemical. Even seachem doesn't make a secret of the fact that their de*nitrate media is doped with chemicals in order to capture ammonia and nitrate. Those chemicals are now exhasted and have stopped working. What you should be left with now is a real denitrifying filter which, under the current conditions should remove nitrate at a rate slower than those chemicals did.

At least now you have a real biological denitrifying filter. That's something you can experiment with and improve upon greatly (e.g. flowrate, carbon dosing, C : N : P ratio, trace elements, iron especially).

 

[Angelphish]

Angelphish - Sorry for the late response

Carbon is typically dosed by adding vodka, sugar, vinegar, or a combination of the three. I think vodka or sugar (sucrose) is fine. Aquaripure's carbon nutrient is a combination of alcohol, sucrose, and acetic acid. Those three ingredients can each be added but I don't know the exact ratios of each. White vinegar is typically only 5 - 10% acetic acic so vinegar contains only 2 - 4 % carbon which is why I wonder why people bother using it. Sugar mixed with water in a 1:1 ratio by volume is 21% carbon and 100 proof vodka is 26% carbon.

Dosing with carbon does help denitrifying bacteria grow by proving them with their most needed element (C) and at low doses (0.5 ml sugar water or vodka daily - 2-3x per week) it shouldn't create create a problem if you keep the dose at these low levels. However, at high doses it absolutely will cause hell without serious filtration of the output. You definitely want to get the dose correct using pippete or syringe.

Denitrifying bacteria are heterotrophic and need 5-8 times the amount of carbon than nitrogen (nitrate) to survive and carbon is very limited in freshwater aquariums. So dosing with carbon will fuel the growth of anaerobic denitrifying heterotrophs in the right environment (i.e. anoxic with nitrate and phosphate), *but* it will also fuel the growth of other types of bacteria which you don't want.

If too much carbon is added to a denitrator the tank will experience, at least, a bactetial bloom/cloudy water. Besides causing problems like depleting oxygen in the water column, the bacteria will decay and the result will be ammonia into nitrite into more nitrate, having a neutraling effect on the denitrators increased nitrate-reduction from the high level carbon dosing.

If you don't use too much carbon it won't cause any harm. My denitrator towers in series have just over 4 gallons internal media capacity and I'm going to add 0.5 ml, maybe as much as 1ml sugar or vodka every 2-4 days at first ... no more. That would be a little less than Aquaripure's instructions to dose 4ml every 4 days until cycled but I'd rather use a little less at first and watch for any bacterial blooms.

What volume/media capacity is your denitrator? What size tank is it going on? Be extra careful with carbon of the tanksize is small.

The nitrate filter is 4 gallons, and the tank I plan to put in on is a 210 with a 75g sump.

 

[tarheel96]

In that case I wouldn't worry about any problems dosing a little carbon. I'd still keep it at 0.5 ml every 2-3 days and dose with bacteria supplement at the same and keep a sharp eye out for any cloudy water in the main tank. There's a thread you should read through.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...-carbon-dosing-in-freshwater-aquarium.660409/

 

[jaws7777]

Set up an ac110 on the 150 gal (pearsei and pbb) with arpund 1200 ml of purigen and it kept nitrates to under 5pmm from last water change.


Still not seeing any result with the denitrate towers smh

 

[Angelphish]

Set up an ac110 on the 150 gal (pearsei and pbb) with arpund 1200 ml of purigen and it kept nitrates to under 5pmm from last water change.


Still not seeing any result with the denitrate towers smh

It was going to be Nitrate Reduction Bros Inc., but you have to have a proven product to be my business partner. Currently it'll just have to be Nitrate Reduction Bro Inc.

 

[jaws7777]

It was going to be Nitrate Reduction Bros Inc., but you have to have a proven product to be my business partner. Currently it'll just have to be Nitrate Reduction Bro Inc.

Sheeeet atleast i have a product albeit it doesnt work ....u have an empty bucket

 

[Angelphish]

Sheeeet atleast i have a product albeit it doesnt work ....u have an empty bucket

My filter has been set up for about 5 days now, I'm just too lazy to post pics of it.

 

[jaws7777]

My filter has been set up for about 5 days now, I'm just too lazy to post pics of it.

Has it worked ?

markstrimaran how goes the algae scrappers ?

kno4te tarheel96 how are the denitrate filters going ?

This is really bugging me. Mine hasnt done anything. Im thinking about dosing with biodigest. What do you guys think? Im not planning on carbon dosing btw. Would inhave to continually dose ?

This is my last attempt if it fails again im more than likely going to fill one or two of the towers with purigen andd see what 3 or 4 liters of that will do

 

[kno4te]

Still going. Water change about 2 times per month. Cont to hold nitrates around 40ppm. Not much higher than that.

No new projects.