Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all. I was just wondering if anyone has ever built or has plans for a DIY nitrate reductor. Thanks in advance.
Eric

You mean those things that get nitrogen completely out of the tank, so you don't have to do water changes?

I never really believed such a thing would work, but rumors seem to claim there are two ways:

The first way, is to add a slanted piece of slate under the gravel. Beneath the slate, anaerobic bacteria are supposed to decompose the nitrogen compounds, and cause it to bubble up, and out the slanted side. My gut feeling is that this will just cause anaerobic bacteria to produce hydrogen sulfide, and kill off most, or all the fish in the tank.

The second way is to make a trickle filter set up above the tank. The drip plate is supposed to go above a whole lot of bio balls, micro tubes, lava rocks, or something else with a lot of surface area. I guess this would give you some very good filtration at least, but I don't know if it would get rid of the nitrogen.

Yes AF the unit im looking to build would remove or lower nitrate levels to reduce water changes. I had a freind that was in the hobby for many years that built what was basically a capped piece of pvc pipe with an inlet and outlet. Inside the pipe he said he used airline tubing wound up in coils and attached it to the inlet.
The outlet was attached to another piece of airline tubing that had a valve of some sort I think a ball valve but not really sure and then ran to his wet dry trickle filter. My friend past away not long after I
started in the wonderful world of saltwater fish and I never got the chance to get the specs of his unit. have you ever heard of anything like this? I have seen some commercial units with a similar idea but they cost close to 300 dollars. I figue i could build one for 40 if i knew the specs, how much tubing is needed inside the pvc pipe(coiled up)? what rate should the water flow into the unit? The commercial units seem to adjust to around a drip a second. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Erich

Boy, umm, My practice is in freshwater. I didn't know about the tubing coils.

I believe there's a way to calculate the amount of tubing needed, but a guesstimate would be about 10 times the length of the pipe you're coiling it into.

Airline tubing can go bad eventually, so it might be worth your while to just buy a spool from the LFS. OR, I believe hardware stores may sell plastic tubing that looks, feels, smells, and tastes exactly like airline tubing, but is MUCH cheaper.

Sorry I'm not much help. Sorry about your friend too.