nitrate remover

dbosman

Member
Dec 5, 2010
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1
East Lansing, Michigan, USA
I've not used one.
They will work. Mostly.
The listed "filter" contains anion filter resin. Given the asking price I'd question the quality. Your local water filter shop or online water filter supplier can provide standard cartridges for standard water filter modules. The resin modules are re-chargeable and re-fillable as needed.

Purigen will work as well, and can be recharged by following the directions precisely.
 

dw1305

Global Moderators
Staff member
May 5, 2009
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Wiltshire nr. Bath, UK
Hi all,
need something to drop the nitrates in my tap water.
You don't really, you have got plants already. As a rule of thumb, the more nitrates you have in your water, the more your plants will grow. Plants are probably the single factor that has the most beneficial effect on water quality.

Unless your plants are deficient in one of the other macro-nutrients (phosphorus P or potassium K), nitrogen is the element that regulates plant growth. All UK tap water is treated with phosphates, so they definitely won't be limiting. Potassium could be limiting, but that is very unlikely in the S. of Britain where the environment is severely eutrophic and water supplies stuffed with nutrients from sewage and agricultural run-off (this is where your nitrates are coming from).

Chlorophyll is a protein and plants need a lot of nitrogen to grow and produce more chlorophyll. If your plants are both dark green and growing they are definitely assimilating nitrogen. More nitrogen in the plant means less in the water.

When you prune your plants, you export the nitrates.

cheers Darrel
 

Jacqueline

Member
Jan 19, 2011
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Holland
I use a nitrate filter on my breeding set up. It contains a resin that holds the nitrate. I have to regenerate it with salt every 2 months. I also work with biological nitrate bacteria (sorry, don't know the wright word in english) wich break down the nitrate in small tanks.

I think it works great and I wouldn't want to do without is anymore. Specially with breeding WC fish it helps getting them to spawn more easily. It also is very useful with rearing the fry. Less nitrate means less deformaties and the fry also grow quicker.
 

dan1801a

Member
Aug 10, 2010
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Derby
I use Purigen in all my filters, works great, easy to recharge. Has kept all my tanks water quality at a steady level. All my plants are thriving and growing great.
 

macvsog23

Pleco Profiles Team - RIP FRIEND
May 1, 2009
2,671
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70
Bristol
I totally agree with Mr D
I have never added any thing to remove any thing it seems to me counter productive.

I keep a couple of pots with Crypts in every tank they grow well and keep a balance.
 

dw1305

Global Moderators
Staff member
May 5, 2009
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Wiltshire nr. Bath, UK
Hi all,
I think it works great and I wouldn't want to do without is anymore.
They will work. Mostly. The listed "filter" contains anion filter resin. Given the asking price I'd question the quality. Your local water filter shop or online water filter supplier can provide standard cartridges for standard water filter modules. The resin modules are re-chargeable and re-fillable as needed.
There is nothing wrong with these products at all, they work and will reduce your NO3 levels, but they are unnecessary in the planted tank, the plants do it for you very effectively and cheaply.

If any-one is interested in how these canisters work, they active bit is an "anion exchange resin" polymer as dbosman says. In this case it swaps the NO3- ion for a chloride ion (Cl-) in the incoming water. The unit is re-charged with a strong salt (NaCl or KCl) solution when the exchange sites are exhausted, in this case replacing the NO3- ions with Cl- ions in the reverse of the active process. We used to use a lot of Amberlite resins in our waste water work, but again they were a lot more expensive than the posted link.

The only other way to get rid of nitrates (if you don't have a nitrate free source of water for water changes) is to reduce them to N2 gas, this process is bacterial and occurs in anaerobic (oxygen free) conditions. It has had a vogue in Marine circles with people using de-nitrifying coils, deep sand beds and Jaubert plenums, but it is a difficult process to control and has mainly fallen out of fashion.

If any-one is interested in a bit more reading, I'd recommend these pages from the "Skeptical Aquarist" <http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/nutrient/nitcyc.shtml>

cheers Darrel
 

Tener ds

Member
Mar 22, 2010
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Crawley (uk)
Cheers darrel for that. Shall read it at work. Talking off work, what do u do, work wise. You seam to know tons about water and planted tanks ect.