Denitrators

[hakova]

Hi all,

Has any one had any experience with Aquaripure denitrators? They claim that this canister filter has a grown bacterial colony that is able to breakdown nitrates into CO2, H2O and N2(gas). Now I am not sure if the same colony is capable of taking care of ammonia and nitrites as well. You feed the bacterial colony through an injection site on the canister by vodka or sugar solution twice weekly.

It is fairly pricey, but may significantly decrease the need for water changes if it is as efficient as they claim. They also sell the bacterial suspension separately ($15), but there might be a special (anaerobic?) environment in the canister for the nitrate breakers to survive. Otherwise, we could all have similar bacteries colonize our filters to break nitrates, don't you think?

Please share your thoughts and experience if any.

 

[hakova]

I did a little reading about this. Apparently denitrification takes place under anaerobic conditions in nature, and this is the primary way the oceans convert nitrates to N2 gas. The bacteria which are capable of denitrification are of Pseudomonas and Clostridium strains, some of which are facultative anaerobic, which means they will switch to use nitrate for respiration instead of oxygen, when the latter is not available. By doing so, they are able to convert nitrates to nitrogen, fully completing the nitrogen cycle. There are advanced waste management facilities built around the world, which can utilize these bacteria to convert nitrates to nitrogen in waste water. The key prerequisite here is the oxygen-free environment. Evidently regular aquarium filters do not provide an adequate oxygen-free environment for this bacteria to develop and colonize. The company I sated in my first message might have found a way to make this happen. There is another brand, which produces denitrifyers that don't need feeding, too. I wouldn't be surprised if these guys get a patent of this technology and make a good profit out of it since it will decrease the maintenance (i.e. partial water changes) significantly.

 

[Tw3lv3]

sounds good if it works probly mega expensive tho lol

 

[hakova]

Poseidon brand costs $110 for up to 75 gallon tanks. It is not expensive IMHO. That's why I wanted to see if there was anybody here that tested this product. That price is too much if it not working, you know .

 

[waterdrop]

I am not familiar with the Aquaripure or other products cited but I did go through a curiosity period about nitrate removal filters and devices early on in my stay here. What I discovered was that there have been a number of very long threads and discussions over the years on TFF, making it not a new topic (came as much of a surprise to me at the time.)

The conclusion I came to was there were indeed a number of approaches to nitrate removal by filtration, some leaning in the expensive direction and some in the somewhat complicated direction and many in various mixes, but in the end there were different issues to the overall question that I hadn't thought about. The overriding issue is that the role of nitrate(NO3) in our aquariums and the regular testing of it is not at all about the simple removal of nitrate! Nitrate is a "canary in the coal mine" chemical, by which I mean that it serves a warning role for other things in the tank. There are hundreds of other inorganic and organic molecules in an aquarium that we don't want building up forever, because they become toxic to the fish or plants or both. It turns out that nitrate plays this wonderful role of warning us about our maintenance (if its our own tank) or perhaps telling us something about someone else's tank that we're trying to help with (if the information is not known or not forthcoming.) When nitrates get a little too high, its a sign that other, potentially worse, things might also be getting too concentrated. So a water change is called for.

Having a nitrate filter only takes out nitrate, not the other hundreds of trace things that need to be removed too. So taking away your nitrate only serves to take away your "canary" and make your problem worse if you then perform fewer water changes. The conclusion for most normal aquarists was that water changes turn out to be the cheapest route and an ultimately necessary maintenance duty, regardless of whether nitrate is taken out or not.

Now, it should be stated that there are circumstances like special species tanks where you perhaps have a species that's especially sensitive to nitrate, where nitrate filters can be a good thing (I don't remember any examples given but I think there were some.) And of course as a very knowledgeable aquarist, users of these would still know to do water changes just like before. I believe one of the ultimate feelings was that maintenance of nitrate filters in the end was sometimes even a bit more troublesome than water changes, unfortunately. Also, its good to note that nitrate filters with respect to the marine side of the fish hobby is a whole different subject with different recommedations I believe.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[hakova]

Thanks for taking time to write that very informative note waterdrop. I really appreciated it. It helped me to realize that nitrate was not the ultimate toxin (duh!). This forum is a better place with you .