Review of Nitrate Reducers

[CindiL]

Thanks so much for the informative thread. A couple of questions:

Does anyone know if the salt recharge of Nitra-zorb would be harmful for a tank with corys (salt sensitive IIRC)?

And along the same lines, is instant ocean's natural nitrate reducing product also a risk for salt sensitive cory's? I have extraordinarily soft city water and like the concept of increasing the buffering capacity.

Thanks!

I would use crushed coral in a media bag in your filter to increase your buffering capacity. I'm not sure exactly what they're saying. Are they saying 1) your buffering increases because nitrates aren't being formed thus the acids of the nitrogen cycle are not taking a toll on your carbonates or 2) that their product increases buffering. I am inclined to think #1 and so you would be better off using coral.

As far as nitra-zorb and salt, there should not be any salt left. It exchanges salt ions for nitrate ions and then the excess salt is rinsed away.

 

[Grimund]

How would NitraZorb work with tap water that's already high in nitrates? Just thought of this, while keeping it in the solution, wouldn't it just try to absorb the nitrates in the water as it takes the salts ions?

 

[CindiL]

Yes I would think so. Better to soak in nitrate free water. Bottled perhaps.

 

[angelfishguppie]

Yes I would think so. Better to soak in nitrate free water. Bottled perhaps.

ah, thank you for that thought too!

The NitraZorb should be safe. You rinse it off before each use, getting the salt off.

As far as the Instant Ocean, it doesn't seem like it's got salt in it, just initially designed for marine applications but entirely freshwater safe.

Have you tested the GH and KH of your water to be sure?

Yes, I have the API GH/KH test. Tap GH can be as low as 3 drops at times. Usually 4 or 5, KH is almost always 1 drop more (5-6). Tank is never as low as 3 but I still get excited when I can get to 5's and 6's. I keep Angels so I don't want the pH to go too high but it could really use some buffering capacity so the pH doesn't bounce around. Pondering both driftwood and crushed coral!

 

[Bithimala]

Pondering both driftwood and crushed coral!

That is precisely what I do for my tanks. My KH is really low out of the tap, but my pH is good, so I have a lot of crushed coral, and then some driftwood. Between the two, my pH holds sold at the same number it is coming out of the tap, which for me, is 7.8

 

[uncclewis]

My denitrate factory. This is the aquatop 30 reactor. This is 2.5-3L of denitrate on my 75G.

It's also a water flosser as a bonus. I had to redo it with more floss and new denitrate, bc the denitrate was getting dirty. 30 gph. Approximate

Also. I have had good results with a small amount of matrix first. Bc the aerobic bacteria use the oxygen first in matrix.

My 1L one will be Purigen and floss. Setting it up soon. That's the aquatop mr20.

With my current stocking 1-1.5L of denitrate even with plants and 4.5-6L of matrix was insufficient for 75Gallon. Fyi. I wasn't using Purigen. I've been treating with meds... So that's why I haven't used Purigen lately.

I'm heavily stocked. 28-40 juvenile clown loaches (can't count them all and many were sick, so I dunno how many have lived), 6 Siamese algae eaters, 60-150 shrimp, 2 guppies, 1 clown pleco, 10 otocinculus, 20 snails. Eventually many of my loaches will be given to a LFS

This stuff allows for weekly or biweekly water changes despite my fishload. Before I was hitting 80 ppm in a few days ( I do feed Bloodworms too and 10 ppm is in my tap water). Now it's 40 ppm by 1-2 weeks.

 

[Annie424]

How would NitraZorb work with tap water that's already high in nitrates? Just thought of this, while keeping it in the solution, wouldn't it just try to absorb the nitrates in the water as it takes the salts ions?

Wow, I never thought of that! I use Nitra-Zorb, and when I store it I'm using straight tap water with added aquarium salt. My tap contains 10-20ppm nitrates. I don't know if this will eventually lessen the efficacy of the Ntra-Zorb, but can tell you that every time that I've put it back in my filter to get rid of higher nitrates that it still zaps them out in my tank very quickly.

 

[Bmur05]

Wow, I never thought of that! I use Nitra-Zorb, and when I store it I'm using straight tap water with added aquarium salt. My tap contains 10-20ppm nitrates. I don't know if this will eventually lessen the efficacy of the Ntra-Zorb, but can tell you that every time that I've put it back in my filter to get rid of higher nitrates that it still zaps them out in my tank very quickly.

Do you just store it in a zip lock bag? I just put some nitrazorb in two days ago. I've been battling nitrates that climb to about 40, now they are already down to between 5 and 10! I'm so happy with this!

 

[Grimund]

Do you just store it in a zip lock bag? I just put some nitrazorb in two days ago. I've been battling nitrates that climb to about 40, now they are already down to between 5 and 10! I'm so happy with this!

I think the package says to store it in the salt solution. I'm going to use a larger Tupperware container.

I'll buy two so I can switch every week or two, rather not pull a canister apart twice or leave the filter off for a few hours. But I've got time before that. I'm going to be battling nitrates that start at 40, so I'm jealous

 

[Annie424]

I store mine in plastic tupperware also. Rinse out real good when I take it out of the tank filter, then add tap and aquarium salt to the container and put the bag of Nitra-Zorb in and put on the lid. I just keep the containers near the tanks. When I go to use it again, I just rinse really well, then add back to the filter housing.

 

[uncclewis]

I would use denitrate in a reactor bc it wouldn't potentially need to be changed as often... But honestly. I'm looking at a 6 month change schedule on mine. I think

 

[angelfishguppie]

I would use denitrate in a reactor bc it wouldn't potentially need to be changed as often... But honestly. I'm looking at a 6 month change schedule on mine. I think

Thanks for sharing the reactor, I guess I thought those were only for saltwater tanks so hadn't looked into them at all. The unit you have seems to be an affordable solution!

 

[Jsigmo]

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.

 

[Grimund]

I just found an article, posted by Coradee, about nitrite producing bacteria. Though I haven't found much luck with nitrate or nitrogen producing ones yet of any caliber close to it. Information on the last two of the nitrogen cycle are hard to come by.

I'll keep looking for the nitrogen producers though, as they are what matrix was designed for.

Maybe your canister has too high of a gph flow?

 

[Bmur05]

I think the package says to store it in the salt solution. I'm going to use a larger Tupperware container.

I'll buy two so I can switch every week or two, rather not pull a canister apart twice or leave the filter off for a few hours. But I've got time before that. I'm going to be battling nitrates that start at 40, so I'm jealous

Let us know how it works. Mine was at 40 when I put it in, and the nitra zorb cleaned it right up. And thanks for the tip, I'll get some Tupperware ready.

 

[uncclewis]

I just found an article, posted by Coradee, about nitrite producing bacteria. Though I haven't found much luck with nitrate or nitrogen producing ones yet of any caliber close to it. Information on the last two of the nitrogen cycle are hard to come by.

I'll keep looking for the nitrogen producers though, as they are what matrix was designed for.

Maybe your canister has too high of a gph flow?

I Use a flow meter to measure my reactor. Right now it's at 28 gph... Later I'll increase it slightly when the floss gets dirtier. The denitrate houses denitrifying bacteria.

 

[Bithimala]

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.

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.

 

[uncclewis]

I don't gravel vacuum. I could probably get to 25% of my gravel by moving stuff, but blah lol. I rely on my plants and bimonthly WC. and my denitrate reactor to remove nitrate even though aquaadvisor says I'm 250% stocked at their current sizes

So I recommend it strongly

My denitrate factory keeps nitrate at 40 ppm by the end of 2 week period look at the video of my stocking

The biggest is about 4 inches.

My filtration is 1 hydor professional 600 + 1 fluval fx6 and matrix

28-35 clown loaches, 12 otocinculus, 50-100 shrimp, 20 snails (golden and nerites), 7 Siamese algae eater, 2 guppies, 1 clown pleco.

 

[CindiL]

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.

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. I don't need nitrazorb anymore because it worked so well but I will probably start using it in my pond filter along with the liter of matrix I put in there.

I also always have one stored in a Tupperware container so it's ready to swap out. It's nice to see this thread is still so full of informative postings!

 

[angelfishguppie]

I don't need nitrazorb anymore because it worked so well but I will probably start using it in my pond filter along with the liter of matrix I put in there.

I also always have one stored in a Tupperware container so it's ready to swap out. It's nice to see this thread is still so full of informative postings!

Yes, truly useful. I bought nitrazorb as a sort of insurance policy when I removed all my old gunky gravel and switched to sand. I should probably store it in a salt solution to have ready to go in case an emergency arises!

That is precisely what I do for my tanks. My KH is really low out of the tap, but my pH is good, so I have a lot of crushed coral, and then some driftwood. Between the two, my pH holds sold at the same number it is coming out of the tap, which for me, is 7.8

Thanks for the nudge. Boiling driftwood as we speak. Added cuttlebone in the HOB (because it was more easily obtainable than the crushed coral). Hopefully I can break even on the pH and increase the stability by increasing the buffering capacity (wish me luck).

 

[Grimund]

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?

 

[uncclewis]

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.

 

[CindiL]

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.

 

[Jsigmo]

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.

 

[Grimund]

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]

@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!

 

[uncclewis]

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

 

[CindiL]

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.

 

[Jsigmo]

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.

 

[CindiL]

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

 

[Jsigmo]

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.

 

[Grimund]

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?

 

[uncclewis]

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.

 

[Bmur05]

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

 

[Grimund]

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

 

[Jsigmo]

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.

 

[uncclewis]

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

 

[Grimund]

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

 

[uncclewis]

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

 

[Grimund]

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

 

[uncclewis]

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.

 

[Grimund]

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

 

[uncclewis]

Even the Mr-20?

 

[Grimund]

13" tank compared to a 15" reactor

 

[uncclewis]

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

 

[Grimund]

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

 

[uncclewis]

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

 

[Grimund]

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

 

[uncclewis]

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

 

[Dragones5150918]

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.