Aquaripure denitrator

offshore80

offshore80

Member
Has anyone had any experience with this product? I purchased one and hooked it up last week. It seems to be of good quality and is functioning as advertised. It needs to cycle so I won't no how well it removes nitrates. From what I've read in the advertisement it should help save on water changes. I currently have to make 30-40 gallon water changes a week on my 270 gal system and that's just to keep the nitrates at 50 ppm. It's an aggressive set up with large fish. As you can tell it's expensive to maintain. I'm looking for the silver bullet to get back to just water changes once a month.
Any feed back on this product will be appreciated.
 
hernan

hernan

New Member
Hi, I saw that you post this message in the year 2003, I want to know your opinion for this product Aquaripure Denitrator. Tks.
 
offshore80

offshore80

Member
I posted that question on 5-10-05. I bought one and so far it's not working. It's pretty much stayed clogged up since I got it. So we'll see. So far nothing positive. I'm waiting for it to start flowing again. I'm getting about a drop every 3 seconds. I should be getting about 8 drops per second. Not good.
 
cyal8r

cyal8r

New Member
Originally Posted by Offshore80
Has anyone had any experience with this product? I purchased one and hooked it up last week. It seems to be of good quality and is functioning as advertised. It needs to cycle so I won't no how well it removes nitrates. From what I've read in the advertisement it should help save on water changes. I currently have to make 30-40 gallon water changes a week on my 270 gal system and that's just to keep the nitrates at 50 ppm. It's an aggressive set up with large fish. As you can tell it's expensive to maintain. I'm looking for the silver bullet to get back to just water changes once a month.
Any feed back on this product will be appreciated.
I am by far no expert on the subject, and am only a beginner in this whole hobby. So please take whatever I say here with a grain of salt ;-). I have been attempting to start a FOWLR tank for about a year now, with plans on migrating it to a reef setup once I got the hang of it. I followed all the information I could find, performed 50% water changes every week to try and keep the nitrates down - which incidently were not really all that high. I was plagued with green hair algae - it covered EVERYTHING ! Live rock, glass, snail & hermit crab shells, every couple weeks I was scrubbing it all off. About two months ago I purchase one of these Aquaripure Denitrators. BEST INVESTMENT I EVER MADE. After two months of running, not a sign of algae anywhere. Nitrates, Amonia, Nitrites and phosphates all at undetectable levels... all inhabitants appear to be happy. I haven't performed a water change for the past month, and still no rise in levels. The cost savings in salt alone will soon pay for the denitrator. I personally highly recommend one.
 
offshore80

offshore80

Member
What size system are you running yours on?
I've had mine hooked up for about 7 months now. I still haven't had great progress with it. I'm glad it's working for you. But, I think in my case the bioload (7 Fish) is just to much for the system. It's been a consistant battle to keep the water flowing at the correct rate through the unit and I'm not sure that it has really helped. I was trying to avoid the weekly 30 gallon water changes if possible. So far my Nitrate levels are maintaining about 50ppm.
 
cyal8r

cyal8r

New Member
I have a 40gal tank. Habitants include : 2 Tomato clowns, 40 hermit crabs, 20 turbo snails, 1 cucumber, 1 brittle star, about 20 lbs of live rock ( I do need more ), and enough aragonite to fill the bottom to 2.5 inches deep. I tried to follow the "recipe" from http://www.tbsaltwater.com/thepackage/contents.html I use a Rena canister filter, as well as a Marineland Penguin 170 Bio-Wheel Filter. I purchased the small size denitrator, and try to keep the drip rate at about 1 drop per second. I don't have a sump, so the included pump is direclty in the tank, and the return drips direlty into my Penguin filter so as to mix with the oxygenated water before re-entering the tank. I did wrap some filter media inside the pump so as to try and filter the water before it goes to the denitrator. With the algae problem I had, I'm sure the unit would have been plugged a few days after installing it. Perhaps your unit is simply to small for your setup ? Maybe you can apply some higher preasure into the hose and see if it disloges whatever is cloging it. You would likely need to recycle it, but at least it will be working for you. Maybe even contact Orders@aquaripure.com and ask them what they recommend. Let me know if you would like any other info or clarification.
 
offshore80

offshore80

Member
My system is rather large and my fish are rather big too. My smallest is a 4" maroon clown. The largest is a 16" puffer, Two hand size tangs, a 8" Huma trigger, 8" Lunar wrasse and a 5" clown trigger.
300 lbs of LR and 270 gallons of tank, sump & fuge. I bought the large unit. Not the huge unit though. I just couldn't part with the 500 bucks. They were very nice and offered me a full refund if I got the commercial size unit. I've been thinking about it. But, it's too close to Xmas to buy it now. I'm glad it's working for you.. It gives me hope.
 
cyal8r

cyal8r

New Member
OK, this past week I think I started to run into similar problems you encountered. I could only get a drop every 10-15 seconds, and this was with the outlet valve wide open. I'm sure it would come to a complete stop eventually. I went to the Aquaripure website, and followed the recommendation they listed - pretty much what I had suggested earlier. They recommended injecting air into the OUTLET valve - not the inlet. I took a pump used to fill your regular everyday air matteress, and pumped in a few shots. It worked in that I got my steady rate of 1 drop per second, but that was still with the valve wide open. This worked for a couple hours then it slowed down again. Did this four or five times, and eventually I got a nice steady stream and had to quickly shut the valve again. I'm pretty sure its now good for a while. The web site also recommended not to "feed" the unit for a week or so, as the problem is a build up of the "good bacteria" and feeding it more would compound the problem.
 
offshore80

offshore80

Member
After reading about it. It looks like a very good option. My nitrate is still around 50-70 ppm.
My fish seem OK and very active. But, I still have to do a 30 gallon water change weekly. To maintain that. Which leads me to believe my system can't be balanced out without some more outside help.
Thanks for the info.
 
cartman101

cartman101

Active Member
What size sump do you have? Is your refugium loaded with rocks,sand, and plants? What kind of skimmer? Are you using bio-balls?
 
offshore80

offshore80

Member
My tank is a 175 BF with 300lbs of LR... with 3 interconnected sumps. A 30 gallon fuge with a DSB filled with micro algae. A 30 gallon sump under the tank with all my pumps for the Chiller, UV sterilzer & EV180 skimmer and a 40 gallon Emergency medical tank that has a AquaC Urchin skimmer running in it along with the Aquaripure Denitrator that feeds back into the system. Here is a picture of some of my fish. They are all very big.
 
tony detroit

tony detroit

Active Member
I'm running the H&S sulphur denitrator, works very well. Actually be careful upon first adding it tot the tank it will drop nitrate levels pretty quickly.
 
offshore80

offshore80

Member
Which one do you think I should get Tony. Cause I just checked the Aquaripure and it's going in at 50ppm and trickling out at 25ppm. And that's after almost a year.
 
jclark

jclark

New Member
i just purchased the large denitrator and i was wondering what you fed the denitrator and if you used vodka like the aquaripure website says, what proof of vodka are you using
 
nolan_nike

nolan_nike

Member
I set up the sulfer denitrifier by Midwest Aquatic 6 days ago. It comes with freeze dried bacteria in the sulfur for a quick start. This morning I got a reading of -0- nitrate at the outlet. If my math is correct, I should be pushing 13-15 gallons a day through the sulfur denitrator. My tank is pegging any Nitrate test kit I've tried. I would guess 200+ nitrate. (Short version of the story - I had a bad test kit and was ignoring the obvious signs of runaway nitrate, the old test kit said 20)
I have a 120 gal tank. If things progress as I'm calculating they should, Nitrates should be around 40 within approx 10 days from now.
 
reefguy888

reefguy888

New Member
6 days, 0 nitrate. What is the reading in you tank? What kind of alcohol are you injecting into the denitratorfyier?
 
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