New denitrifying device... Wow or Worthless...?

S

spinjector

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Jan 24, 2005
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I just came across this new "denitrator" product...

Good description and available for purchase here:
http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_filters_korallin_biodenitrator.asp?ast=&key=

Manufacturer's web page here; less description, but more pictures:
http://www.korallin.com/s1501eng.html

Does anyone have any experience with this device? What about on a planted freshwater tank? Given it's insane price, I would be surprised if any plant enthusiasts would be using it, as we tend to be a big DIY bunch. It seems to be aimed at obsessed reef-keepers with lots of money to spend on their pretty saltwater fish... (I wish I did...) Mmmmmm Copper Banded Butterflies... And they're *only* $50 each...! :-)

Google pointed me to a number of posts about the unit in saltwater/reef discussion groups, and every message I looked at was people asking the same question as me, "is this thing any good?", and the other posts were people asking how to set the thing up because the directions are written in English which is badly translated from German.

The device seems to use some kind of sulphur-based media to feed a colony of denitrifying bacteria. According to the web page, it is not neccessary to seed the unit - you simply plumb it into your system, and it becomes colonized with bacteria on its own, just like a UGF.

Does anyone have any opinions on the theory behind its function? Snake oil? Hand-wavey? Or does this one seem for real...?
 
for $360-$700 ? the theory sounds fine, but so does as functional biological filter and it's ALOT cheaper.
 
liv2padl said:
for $360-$700 ? the theory sounds fine, but so does as functional biological filter and it's ALOT cheaper.
Click to expand...
Yea isn't that insane??? I would never pay that price. If I was going to go for it, I would buy a package of replacement media and build my own reactor.
 
Anyone who needs to use something like that on a FW tank has serious problems. Two great ways to remove nitrate...

1) Water changes

2) Plants
 
In my tank, I use waterchanges and live plants to take care of my nitrates. Since my tapwater has relatively high nitrates, I use an ion exchange resin to remove them before adding the water to the tank (nitra-zorb). This way I don't foul the resin with organics and still manage my Nitrates pretty effectively. On my testkit, my nitates are always < 10 which is the lowest it goes.
 
I don't mind doing them. Anyway, water changes remove much more than just nitrates. No gadget can do that more effectively than water changes.
 
I agree strongly w/Slappy. By removing nitrate, exactly what are you trying to do? Convince yourself that all the rest of the pollution which we cannot measure has magically disappeared? When you biologically or chemically remove nitrate, the accomplishment achieved is that now you are unable to judge other pollution levels in you tank.
 
I think if it does work and reduces nitrates considerably, I would buy one ,no matter the cost(with in reason ofcourse). But, as RTR and Slappy has said ,there are other toxins in the water that need to be taken out, so used in conjuntion with regular water changes(unchanged routine, same as if you had nitrates in the water) I can only see it as being a plus. As they say,"there is never enough filtration", and for those of you who can't have plants for some reason, this would be ideal. But as I said earlier, only if this really does work.
 
It's billed as low flow. In order to keep the biobed anaerobic it would have to be extremely low. So by the time you've turned your tank volume over a few times it's what? Next June? Reefers use deep sand beds for denitrification.
I could see it benefitting them to some degree if it works as claimed. The trade-off seems a mite thin for freshwater systems. $ 700.00 buys a lot of water changes.

Mark
 
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