Aquaripure Progressive Review

jozwikjp

I purchased two units
X-large: started December 05, 2012For 220+Gallon Discus tank
Medium: November 30, 2012 for 72 gallon exotic Goldfish tank

Water Change source: RODI + Minerals - I have well water in a sodium chroloride contamination area so have to use RODI cause too much salt in water.

Currently setup

Tank 1:
220-Gallon: FX5 with bio-and mechanical, and Eccosystems heavily planted refugium wtih filter sock. Also the tank is heavily planted..
Objective: get nitrates to 10ppm or lower, as Discus are very sensitive just about everything. Current water change regime sucks, uses to much eletricity. Also trying to grow Discus out so I feed them 4 times per day beefheart, so lot of food.

Stocked: 14 Discus, 30 neon tetras, 75-100 shrimp, 1 affrican frog, and 6 bottom feeder types, 4 small plecos
Water changes: 60 gallons RODI + Minerals 2-3x per week



Tank 2
72-Gallon: 2 aquatop canisters with bio, mechanical, and chemical media, and UV which is turned off. and HOB Eccosystems planted refugium, glass bare bottom tank.

Stocked: 1 Pearscale, 1 lionhead rachu, 1 telescope, 3 orandas, 2 snails, product a lot of waste.
Objective nitrates under 20PPM
Current water changes: 50-60 RODI+minerals gallons twice per week.



X-Large Progress-
After 3 days and first 20ml vodka injection effluent is reading
-0ppm nitrates
-0ppm nitrites
I am guess the unit is removing about 15ppm nitrate from the inflow. Not goupy bacteria yet but cloudiness from bloom is present.

Medium Progress -
After 8 days and two injections of 8ml vodka the effluent is reading:
-5-8ppm nitrates
-5ppm nitrites
The tank appears to be at 40ppm nitrates so it is removing about 35-32ppm nitrates.
Effluent has a white goupy bacteria coating inside of outflow. Effluent also looks a little slow but I have already adjusted today so I will not do it again..


Positives - Appears to be working as expected.

Looking for Improvements-
I find measuring the outflow rate to be difficult for me personally. I am a programmer as a professional so I really try to get exact on measurements, and directions.


I found myself having to measure the 10ml for 33 seconds over and over after adjusting to get close enough.

I calculated that filling a 5ML test vial
Medium: 15.8 seconds 5ML
X-Large 3.8 Seconds 5ML or 7.7 seconds for 10ML

Flow rates:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...mJfOWxzYUxzb1E

I was looking for a meter that could measure the slow rates but could not find anything under a couple thousand bucks.. It would be awesome if there was a reasonably price ($200-300 range) digital flow controller for this flow rate that could automatically adjust based on the amount of clogging.

I saw some medical IV Pumps that will do 0.1 - 999 mL / h but that is not enough flow, and probably would not work with a continous feed. But still they aren't too bad used $45-89 bucks.


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Aquaripure

Hello,

I would say that the best thing to do as far as flow rate is concerned is to get into a routine and try not to worry about being too exact.

The best thing to do is over the first month or two get a feel for the correct flow for your tank and try and learn to adjust it visually so you don't have to worry about measuring it every time although some users like to measure it every time.

I would love to find a low cost automatic flow solution as well, but it doesn't exist yet.

jozwikjp

Update after 12-weeks -

I increased my vodka dosing to dosing a smaller amount somewhat water down with ro water every day. The effluent nitrate reading has dropped like a rock and stayed low consistently.

My medium aquaripure tank nitrate is around 20ppm, effluent is around 5ppm
My X-large unit hooked to my 220 gal planted Discus effluent is showing 0ppm nitrate and the tank is reading about 10ppm nitrate.
This is the first week I have tried this but it seems to be working really good for me. I will drop the vodka dosing once I get the tanks in check.

Aquaripure

That is good news! I would expect you to be able to get to zero nitrates in both those tanks within a month. The Aquaripure filters typically continue to mature for up to 4-6 months after you first connect it to the tank. If you do not find it easy to keep both tanks at zero by then e-mail me to see what we can do to tweak and improve your settings.