Review of Nitrate Reducers

Lots of great info in this thread. I just found it. I need to read it sometime when I am more wide awake so I can absorb more of it.

Thanks, everyone!

I have a large batch of the Seachem Matrix in a canister filter on one aquarium. It's been in there for a year or so. I can't say that it has done anything for that tank's nitrates. But I should check again.

Maybe I need to dose it with some Stability or something.

I reread the seachem website on matrix. If it hasn't impacted your nitrates, it may be that it's consuming nitrates at an equal rate or less.

Have you checked it recently?

Edit: @ anyone -- What's the scientific name for the Nitrate consuming bacteria?

 

ummm... my guess is that your matrix is clogged, sorry buddy. my question is the following... OR it is not enough..

Are you using a cheap canister that has a lot of bypass? If not, are you using filter floss before the matrix? If not bad, bad! Secondly, how big is a large batch and your tank size? I use 4L in my 75 G and it is not enough to bring to 0. Hence my denitrate reactor.

 

Yes, but you're way over stocked aren't you? You said 250% or something. 500ml or roughly a cup in my filters are enough to keep my "normal" stocked tank at 5 or less.

It's ok to have the matrix loose in the filter before the floss. I just rinse mine monthly when I do a thorough cleaning of the hob, impeller etc.
Grimund anaerobic bacteria for the most part I believe are bacillus and pseudonomas. They are heterotrophs vs the autotrophs that convert our ammonia to nitrites and then nitrates.

 

It should definitely be doing something, and you really shouldn't need to dose it with anything. I just put it in my filters and waited.

That's what I expected, too.

Yes, exactly. Just like our nitrifyers grow on their own so will the de-nitrifyers once a place is provided for them like matrix. I didn't add anything to my tank, just waited awhile, seems like over a month before I started seeing results.

That's what I expected to see, too.

I reread the seachem website on matrix. If it hasn't impacted your nitrates, it may be that it's consuming nitrates at an equal rate or less.

Have you checked it recently?

Edit: @ anyone -- What's the scientific name for the Nitrate consuming bacteria?

I just checked. It's been about a week since I did a 75% water change and thorough cleaning of the sand in this tank. It's the only reasonable sized aquarium we have set up without an undergravel filter. I used sand because I thought our crayfish would prefer it, and because of the sand, I didn't use a UGF because the porosity would have been too low to allow good flow through it (as compared to gravel).

Anyhow, Ammonia = 0 and Nitrites = 0, as always. And, as always the Nitrates are already pretty high. The color that the test tube gets never matches the color card I have, so it's hard to guess. My test tubes come out a nice cherry red, but the card I have has oranges in that range. Further, there is no perceptible difference between the 40 and 80 color patches on my card, so even if the test tube was a similar hue, you wouldn't be able to tell. But just guessing, I'm going to say it's between 40 and 80 based on the darkness of the color.

I gotta get me one of those fancy colorimeter gadgets.

ummm... my guess is that your matrix is clogged, sorry buddy. my question is the following... OR it is not enough..

Are you using a cheap canister that has a lot of bypass? If not, are you using filter floss before the matrix? If not bad, bad! Secondly, how big is a large batch and your tank size? I use 4L in my 75 G and it is not enough to bring to 0. Hence my denitrate reactor.

This is an el-cheapo SunSun.

I have two of the three baskets filled to their tops with Matrix. The bottom basket, though, has three layers of floss. One blue, and two white. And the intake for the unit (down in the aquarium) is always wrapped in a big bunch of fluffy floss to act as a further pre-filter. I started doing this after the filters "ate" a few hundred baby crayfish last summer.

I swap the intake floss once per week when it starts slowing the water flow down. It collects a pretty amazing amount of crud. But the inside pads in the canister stay pretty clean, of course.

Just for reference, the Matrix never showed me any nitrate reduction in the many months before I started using the pre-filter floss over the cainster's intake, either.

I bought a four liter bucket of the Matrix, and about 2/3rds of that is in the filter for this aquarium. It's a 55 gallon aquarium.

The stuff may be clogged, but it never did show me any noticeable nitrate reduction. It's been in for over a year.

I should take it all out and soak it in hydrogen peroxide or something, and start over with it!

What do you guys do to clean off your Matrix?

This tank also has a HOB filter as well. It's a Tetra Whisper 60 (Wal Mart marks them 30-60). It's actually been a good filter.

 

Jsigmo -what do you have stocked in your tank? What is your water source's nitrates?

I wouldn't start over, since you're other BB would suffer by doing that. It would suck to deal with spikes. I would just rinse the matrix off in old tank water, get a little rough with it

 

@Jsigmo -what do you have stocked in your tank? What is your water source's nitrates?

I wouldn't start over, since you're other BB would suffer by doing that. It would suck to deal with spikes. I would just rinse the matrix off in old tank water, get a little rough with it

This particular tank has three adult crayfish and maybe 20 minnows.

One thing is that none of our aquariums are heated. They just operate at room temperature, or slightly below due to evaporation. So they're always between, say, 65 degrees and 75 degrees F.

Since this aquarium has two filters, I could probably get away with totally sanitizing one of them and starting it over, and not have any spikes.

The water source has zero nitrates, nitrites, or ammonia. It's the raw water that comes into our water treatment plant from our presedimentation basin (AKA "The Pond"). That's a 3.5 million gallon lined "pond" where the incoming water, pumped from a nearby river, is allowed to settle for a while before it gets pumped into the plant.

So, effectively, this is raw river water from the nearby river. We never see any measurable ammonia, nitrate, or nitrite, and it has no chlorine or chloramine, of course. So it's pretty handy, and is the same water that these critters came from to begin with. The fish are just ones who made it past all of the pumps without being killed and ended up in our filters. The crayfish are ones we caught in the pond or its intake structure. There are a LOT of crayfish, and minnows in both! The pond also has carp and suckers.

One thing I've thought of is to install a drip system to do somewhat constant water changes in some of these aquariums. That way, you really don't get buildup of any waste products. But I'd have to figure out how to plumb in a drain system to carry away the "overflow", and feed in the new "raw" water from where the aquariums are located in the building.

I could just give the Matrix pieces a good scrubbing with a scrub-brush and pop it back in. But it never looks like it's covered in anything. And scrubbing every piece seems like a pretty tedious chore!

 

Yes, but you're way over stocked aren't you? You said 250% or something. 500ml or roughly a cup in my filters are enough to keep my "normal" stocked tank at 5 or less.

It's ok to have the matrix loose in the filter before the floss. I just rinse mine monthly when I do a thorough cleaning of the hob, impeller etc.
@ anaerobic bacteria for the most part I believe are bacillus and pseudonomas. They are heterotrophs vs the autotrophs that convert our ammonia to nitrites and then nitrates.

Well. I am actually going to catch some soon and take to the LFS. going to be a sad day. But for now they can stay. I do frozen food feedings and I find they add a lot of nitrates too

Right now my nitrate is 0 and they are happy.

Look at this tank. Lol.

Not there yet lol

 

Jsigmo, I just rinse mine when I rinse the hob itself monthly (I rinse the regular media weekly). I don't scrub it or anything.

You could dilute your water sample to get a more accurate reading of your nitrates. You could try 50% or even 75% to figure out what it really is. That nitrate test used to make me crazy!

Is this tank planted? You could add in nitra-zorb, many of us have had good results with it. My guess is that your matrix is working but that your output by the cray's and minnows is just too high.

Interesting thing, I've been waiting to receive my cedar pond (arriving this Thursday) and so have four small comets in a 30 gallon bin outside with the pond filter. My nitrates were 16ppm two days ago. I received about a dozen nice sized pond/water hyacinths that I ordered through Amazon. They were really nice specimens! large with great root systems. I put them in the bin and this morning my nitrates were down to about 5! I have never thought about keeping a few in my regular tank but I'm sure the fish would love the roots to hide in. The roots look like bird feathers.

I don't know what your crayfish might do with those? but just a thought.

 

I have some floating plants in this aquarium, but the light level is so low that they don't grow much, so they can't be doing too much good. The crays like it pretty dim, but it'd be fun to try a really bright light and lots of plants. That would have to eat up some nitrates!

Also, the tanks get fed by the two folks I work with and one of them's daughter, and sometimes, I think, the grandkids.

The guy gets that you don't want to overfeed, but the woman, and particularly her daughter tend to dump in too much food. I've scolded them about it, and pointed out that you NEVER dump food from its container into an aquarium. You must always just take a small amount out and then put it in by hand. But sometimes advising those two is like banging your head against a wall.

I've come in and found the bottom of aquariums having piles of the shrimp pellets such that about half a can of the stuff had to have been poured in. Of course, mentioning it was met with denials.

So I just don't feed any of the tanks at all. On days I work alone, the fish get to fast!

I think I've got everyone browbeaten enough that they're not dumping in huge doses of food, but I still see evidence of overfeeding.

And that tank is pretty overstocked, I'd say, too.

So it may be that the poor Matrix is doing some good, it's just not enough.

I vacuum the gravel or sand in all of them thoroughly every water change. Thus, I usually end up doing a large water change because it takes a lot of water to do that much vacuuming.

So I do keep the detritus from collecting. Still, with no real plant growth, overstocking, and potential overfeeding, it's a recipe for nitrate production.

But what is clear is that the nitrate removal is nowhere as effective as the ammonia and nitrite removal. And I'm not disappointed. I didn't expect the nitrate removal to actually do much, if anything, anyhow. I still think the Matrix works as a good bio substrate.

 

I bet nitra-zorb would help you out quite a bit if you're willing to throw a pouch into salt water once a week

 

That sounds easy enough. It sounds like it must be an ion-exchange resin of some sort that has an affinity for nitrates. The salt treatment is like what is used to strip the resin in a water softener.

I will have to look into that. Amazon is my friend, here, I'll bet.

 

That leads to a good question, if my tank has salt tolerant fish, will adding salt to my tank, with water changes, recharge the NitraZorb as it's removing the salt and nitrates?

 

Also. I want to state a great thing I've found in reducing nitrates. Turn off all water circulation during feeding. Then after 20 MIns turn it back on. This keeps a lot of food from going into the canisters.

My fish have learned to come out then lol.

 

Also. I want to state a great thing I've found in reducing nitrates. Turn off all water circulation during feeding. Then after 20 MIns turn it back on. This keeps a lot of food from going into the canisters.

My fish have learned to come out then lol.

Good thought. I might try that too! The nitra zorb has done the trick though, that's for sure

 

Hmm. That's quite the idea. It would let the bottom dwelling fish eat the extra food before losing it to the filter.

I'll have to try that

 

That leads to a good question, if my tank has salt tolerant fish, will adding salt to my tank, with water changes, recharge the NitraZorb as it's removing the salt and nitrates?

I don't think so. These ion exchange resins require an extremely high concentration of salt in the solution used to regenerate them. You basically make a saturated brine, usually, to regenerate IX resins.

Also. I want to state a great thing I've found in reducing nitrates. Turn off all water circulation during feeding. Then after 20 MIns turn it back on. This keeps a lot of food from going into the canisters.

My fish have learned to come out then lol.

That would be a good idea. It makes sense for the filters and the fish.

However, I'd have to train everyone who has access to these aquariums to do this. I guess I would set up a timer that shut off the pumps for 20 minutes with a pushbutton to activate that "time out" period. That way, at least they couldn't space things out and end up leaving the filters off for days on end.

I come in and find the tops off or askew on the tanks, the lights on, piles of food in the bottoms, etc.

So whatever I do, it will need to be very tolerant of various people.

I love that everyone gets into the fish and crayfish, and they enjoy them. That's very neat. But the downside is that everyone loves playing with things, and certain of them tend to space things out and/or not be very careful.

So the more automatic and forgiving things are, the better!

Another thing is that the crayfish tend to graze a lot of the time. They wander around and reach down into the gravel with their small "hands". So there is no clearly-defined feeding time except when we feed them worms.

And those get fully eaten, and aren't a problem.

 

I use ankuoo (its on amazon for 30.99) and you can set a timer for that... ;-) actually you do it on your iphone/ android phone/ iPad. it is really neat. It is remotely done

 

Okay. Question. Denitrate and GPH; can it be efficient at removing nitrates at 80 GPH?

I'm considering splitting a 10 gal for two betta and running a can, but the lowest gph and cost is a zoomed at $40 new

 

Why not just get the aquatop Mr 20 it's 45 new.... But It can be however if there isn't a lot of bypass you can make it lower by sticking a lot of filter material in there... I found it to be best at 20-40... You need to keep it clean. Bacteria are very small they can cross it to get in there while bigger stuff won't. A reactor is really best for denitrate.

It will include everything you need. Except filter floss material.

Or the two fishes one is good on amazon too

 

That's defeating half the purpose of getting the canister and spending more money on top of it.

A media reactor is cool and all, but it's a 10 gallon tank

 

well my purpose is that the denitrate will also house the nitrifying bacteria in the very beginning of it. So, you can put floss in it first. It will be like an all in one for you and it will actually work for both purposes.

Plus if you have only a 10 gallon tank 40 gph is plenty for a betta- they are poor swimmers

So to say it another way... 40 gph is fine for nitrifying bacteria, what happens is that they use all the oxygen* in the beginning of the tube and it doesn't leave much in the rest of the tubing. so there and within the denitrate is where that bacteria denitrifies...

But if the flow is too high this can never happen, oxygen will usually always be present and the nitrifying bacteria will be able to nearly completely outcompete the denitrifying for resources

I actually put a tiny bit of matrix on the very bottom of mine...and at the very top

So this is the breakdown...

nitrifying bacteria in the beginning of the tube use oxygen to break down ammonia, into nitrite then nitrate. Then there is a point in the tube where they used most available oxygen in the water, that then the denitrifying bacteria take nitrate in and convert nitrate into 95% nitrogen gas and 5% into ammonia/nitrite again. And the left over is just recycled back to the nitrifying bacteria. And they continue this cycle in the container.

In the canister what will happen is.. 95% of the ammonia into nitrite into nitrate all using oxygen. Then less than 5% of it denitrifies.

So if you set your canister up this way just be sure that it can't bypass (or if it can that the flow is slow enough, and realize that you will need to replace the stuff more often because it will get dirty/pores clogged) and that you can put enough floss in there to make the flow slow. Denitrate is expended when it is dirty.

With only 2 betas and a denitrate situation I think you only need to change water according to TDS. That will be interesting to see... lol...

Still; exception... for me- I do use and need both (reactor and canister), but my fish load is much higher.

 

It's that the reactor is taller than the tank and I can't hide it in a cabinet that isn't that tall

 

Even the Mr-20?

 

13" tank compared to a 15" reactor

 

ah, hmm... you can probably get one of the smaller ones on there, I just don't know which of those is best.

 

Each system has pros and cons. I'm not sure I'm happy with jamming a bunch of Floss in a reactor to avoid blow by

 

What would it harm? If you use a canister you would have to put floss in it anyway, and there is no bypass on the canister

 

Floss would only be there as a fine filter after the sponge as a coarse, not intended to slow the flow

 

Floss would only be there as a fine filter after the sponge as a coarse, not intended to slow the flow

Ah, well the stuff in my media reactors keeps my tank crystal clear, lol

 

I thought I would give an update on my tank status after using Matrix for over 4 months. My nitrate has been consistently at 0, even with the nitrate from my tap and using Flourish. It actually started to effect some plants (Hornwart is almost completely dead, lost a pothos, and my Java Ferns has lost several leaves). I'm adding Flourish daily right now and the plants have gotten dark green again. Flourish is gone in under 10 hours and my reading goes from 5ppm to 0. I'm trying to figure out how much Matrix to take out of the media box still.

 

I thought I would give an update on my tank status after using Matrix for over 4 months. My nitrate has been consistently at 0, even with the nitrate from my tap and using Flourish. It actually started to effect some plants (Hornwart is almost completely dead, lost a pothos, and my Java Ferns has lost several leaves). I'm adding Flourish daily right now and the plants have gotten dark green again. Flourish is gone in under 10 hours and my reading goes from 5ppm to 0. I'm trying to figure out how much Matrix to take out of the media box still.

Can you give us a recap on those numbers? I'm also curious, is that Flourish Nitrogen?

Tank size, Tap nitrates, stocking level (low/med/high), how much matrix is being used?

 

Can you give us a recap on those numbers? I'm also curious, is that Flourish Nitrogen?

Tank size, Tap nitrates, stocking level (low/med/high), how much matrix is being used?

29 gallon
Marineland 280 filter with bio wheel
Substrate is about 20 pounds pool sand with 5 pounds aragonite sand mixed.
Plants are 3 bacopa, very little hornwart, java fern, java moss, anubias nana, and 2 pothos (third rotted and died), and 5 moss balls. I also have 2 large pieces of drift wood, one medium and 1 small.
Sock is moderate with 5 cardinals, 4 Rummies, 2 Asian Rummies, a guppy, 8 shrimp, and lots and lots of snails (mts and Ramshorn) and limpets.
Even when I tossed in the 13 new fish (ended up loosing 9 to osmotic shock) my nitrate only went to like 2ppm for 48 hours then dropped back to 0. The hornwart was dieing long before that, and bought it 5 months ago (big bunch of it) and now only have like 4 stems that have some green on it. Rest as died off, even the ones that was floating. It was growing and doing great up to 2 months ago when it started dieing. All the plants have been slowly turning light green except the java moss and the moss balls, and lost about 6 leaves on my java fern. Since I started to use flourish daily, the leaves on all the plants have gotten darker and look healthier again.
Flourish I use 1/2 cap, test about an hour later and have about 2ppm nitrate, then next morning test and it's at 0
Matrix I'm guessing about a cup of it in my media box. Each slot has about 5 to 7 pieces of matrix, and there is like 8 slots in the media box. I'll take a picture of it later when husband is awake and lights are on.

 

This is a great thread because nitrates have been my nemesis for years--until Nitrazorb which was a life saver. Literally. I started using Nitrazorb in January, 2015. I have an overstocked 55 gallon fish tank and 50-60% water changes would reduce nitrates to maybe 40 ppm at its best then quickly rise again. I have two mechanical filters running: Aquaclear 350 and the Fluval C4. So I figured I have so much filtration getting to ammonia up front, how could I possible have nitrate issues? Well I did.

I actually use two #6 Nitrazorb pouches yet the nitrates will not go below 20 ppm. But that is far better than the alternative. I just began looking at other products and Purigen captured my interest. Unsure if would do what I need it to do I called Seachem. It was suggested by Seachem to use Matrix. So I just added it yesterday, 8/29/16. I should wait a few weeks to see an impact, the rep said. In the meantime the Nitrazorb will stay in place.

 

I think you'll be happy with it. I have a pound in my little outdoor pond and a cup or so in my 33g which is heavily stocked. My pond never goes above 10ppm, I have 4 very fast growing common goldfish, each about 6 inches, I change 25% a week and my tap nitrates this time of year are around 5. My 33g never goes above 10 either though it is very heavily stocked at 92% (according to AQ Advisor) with 6 otos, 6 cories, 7 rummy nose tetras, 5 glow light tetras, 7 guppies, 3 platies and one female betta (and loads of MTS). I change out 40% a week in that one.

Put it in and give it a month to start working as the anaerobic bacteria have to grow. If you add in Seachem Stability it will help seed it faster though. You may need a combo of the two and hopefully over time will not need the nitrazorb any longer.

 

Love your pond. Wish I could do that one day. Thank you for the input, Cindi. Thankfully my tank is several years established so I'm hoping for a fast growing colony. I will post my findings after a few weeks time after it gets going. It's always helpful to hear what's tried and true among fish keepers.

 

I have a new finding for NitraZorb regarding the size 30 insert.

It absorbs roughly 40-50 mg/L nitrates over a week.

Tap tested for 80 mg/L NO3 at the start. The tank it is in isn't cycled yet (just started showing nitrites) and read out 30 mg/L NO3.

I will test again in a few days to see if it's still absorbing, though I doubt it. Used API Nitrate test and readings are approximate due to possible color variations not listed with the test.

 

Wow, that would explain why I've had such good luck with it! NitraZorb has been an amazing find for me (and my tanks!). Grimund, can you link to what you found about it? I'm curious as to how often it will need to be recharged if I left it in my tanks for longer periods than I do now, hopefully the source you found might provide that info. Thanks in advance!

 

Wow, that would explain why I've had such good luck with it! NitraZorb has been an amazing find for me (and my tanks!). Grimund, can you link to what you found about it? I'm curious as to how often it will need to be recharged if I left it in my tanks for longer periods than I do now, hopefully the source you found might provide that info. Thanks in advance!

No link. Personal experience. I never realized it didn't come in anything but the size 6 pouch.

All depends on your stock.

I forgot to mention that it was in a 10 gallon, nothing larger

 

That is the size tanks I have. Why do you think the NitraZorb isn't absorbing anymore after a week?

 

That is the size tanks I have. Why do you think the NitraZorb isn't absorbing anymore after a week?

That's simple. The different size pouches and inserts have different amounts of the resins that absorb nitrates. Once the resin is exhausted, it must be recharged to absorb more nitrates. A size 30 has very little resin versus a size 6 that has a lot of it.

The real limitation of NitraZorb is the amount of resin in each pouch/insert, not really time, so sorry to mix that up. The amount of water passed through the package will also affect reduction. A package that's placed poorly with lots of water able to pass around it will take longer to absorb the same amount of nitrates than a better placed package that forces water through it.

Each situation is independent of the next, so there's lots of factors. Learning how much each size of NitraZorb absorbs actually helps people calculate when and to charge theirs.