jerrytheplater
12-19-2008, 02:20 PM
I have been reading posts on the Aquatic Plants Digest about using sugar to stimulate a bacterial growth that also eats nitrates. Stuart is trying to reverse engineer a Tetra product, and it is looking like he is getting it. If you go to the Archives, you can look at previous posts in this month to see some earlier trials. http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:28:20 +0000
From: Stuart Halliday <stuart@mytriops.com>
Subject: Re: [APD] Getting shot of Nitrate Xperiment
To: stuart@mytriops.com, aquatic plants digest
<aquatic-plants@actwin.com>
I've been doing more of this experiment on my 15L tank and ensured I had a working nitrifying cycle. So I monitored that ammonia was getting turned into nitrate.
The effect of the sugar doesn't last long. A few days with no nitrate probably caused the bacteria to die or go into a dormant state.
I re-added 0.5ppm ammonia daily and nitrate is getting produced with no nitrite.
I waited 24 hours but nitrate was still at the same level.
I added a 1/4 tsp of sugar and within 4 hours the water turned a little bit cloudy. Just noticeable. I waited a day and the 10ppm of nitrate had gone to zero again.
I see why Tetra say add their EasyBalance/NitratMinus once a week. You need to do this slowly to not cause a death of the O2 levels. I'm not providing any aeration of the water other than the output from the internal filter
breaking the surface. Tetra do advise you do this however. So I suspect their dosage amount is on the cautious side.
(Circumstances prevent me from operating an air pump on the test tank as its next to my bedroom and the noise from the tank will keep my wife awake.)
So adding sugar certainly removes nitrate. The trick is to add just enough and wait 24 hours for the result...
I suppose you could mix sugar in with Plaster of Paris (I think that's what is used in those weekend food pyramids) and as it dissolves it releases the sugar.
--
Stuart Halliday
http://mytriops.com/
200 Million years in the making...
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 11:28:20 +0000
From: Stuart Halliday <stuart@mytriops.com>
Subject: Re: [APD] Getting shot of Nitrate Xperiment
To: stuart@mytriops.com, aquatic plants digest
<aquatic-plants@actwin.com>
I've been doing more of this experiment on my 15L tank and ensured I had a working nitrifying cycle. So I monitored that ammonia was getting turned into nitrate.
The effect of the sugar doesn't last long. A few days with no nitrate probably caused the bacteria to die or go into a dormant state.
I re-added 0.5ppm ammonia daily and nitrate is getting produced with no nitrite.
I waited 24 hours but nitrate was still at the same level.
I added a 1/4 tsp of sugar and within 4 hours the water turned a little bit cloudy. Just noticeable. I waited a day and the 10ppm of nitrate had gone to zero again.
I see why Tetra say add their EasyBalance/NitratMinus once a week. You need to do this slowly to not cause a death of the O2 levels. I'm not providing any aeration of the water other than the output from the internal filter
breaking the surface. Tetra do advise you do this however. So I suspect their dosage amount is on the cautious side.
(Circumstances prevent me from operating an air pump on the test tank as its next to my bedroom and the noise from the tank will keep my wife awake.)
So adding sugar certainly removes nitrate. The trick is to add just enough and wait 24 hours for the result...
I suppose you could mix sugar in with Plaster of Paris (I think that's what is used in those weekend food pyramids) and as it dissolves it releases the sugar.
--
Stuart Halliday
http://mytriops.com/
200 Million years in the making...