Aquaripure

[RTR]

All existing denitration filters (other than veggie filters or algae beds) require low oxgen levels.

BUT, (note large type -intentional) just what have gained by removing nitrate from your water without doing so by means of photosynthesis? You have removed the one easy and simple test which we have for general water quality. That means that you are hiding the truth about your water condition from yourself. Using chemical or biological means to remove nitrate does not necessarily mean that you are removing the myriad other poollutants from your water. Even heavily planted tanks need water partials. Photosynthetic nitrate removal does also remove a lot of other material from the water, but certainly not all that a water partial does. I really prefer not to kid myself. I know what a water change does and I can measure it. I do not not know what a denitrification filter does beyond removing nitrate alone.

All JMHO, YMMV.

But never forget that nitrate alone is not the enemy. It is the only thing that hobby test kits can measure easily from the dozens to hundreds to thousands of things which we call pollutants and which we can measure easily and cheaply.

[sevenyearnight]

I just created a new product called "Streakless" that eliminates the need to flush your toilet! At 46 lbs, the apparatus conveniently mounts caddy style to the bowl. It's a nice compact 3 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft unobtrusive and stylish design allowing a generous 12" to slide into your bathtub, but your toilet will be so clean, you'll be tempted to bathe in it instead! Just add 1 quart of Sunny D and rum to the yum yum reservoir, attach the Streakless unit directly to the side of the bowl, plug it in, and walah! You will never have to flush your toilet again! The urea negation chemicals and anti-caca crystals activated by the Sunny D and rum, biologically and magically eliminate all waste products; your toilet will be so clean, you could drink the water!

[J-P]

All existing denitration filters (other than veggie filters or algae beds) require low oxgen levels.

BUT, (note large type -intentional) just what have gained by removing nitrate from your water without doing so by means of photosynthesis? You have removed the one easy and simple test which we have for general water quality. That means that you are hiding the truth about your water condition from yourself. Using chemical or biological means to remove nitrate does not necessarily mean that you are removing the myriad other poollutants from your water. Even heavily planted tanks need water partials. Photosynthetic nitrate removal does also remove a lot of other material from the water, but certainly not all that a water partial does. I really prefer not to kid myself. I know what a water change does and I can measure it. I do not not know what a denitrification filter does beyond removing nitrate alone.

All JMHO, YMMV.

But never forget that nitrate alone is not the enemy. It is the only thing that hobby test kits can measure easily from the dozens to hundreds to thousands of things which we call pollutants and which we can measure easily and cheaply.

The need for water changes regardless is understood. That Aquaipure is stating the the contrary is foolishness. BUT, is it possible to have a remote DSB - anaerobic that doesn't require photosynthesis? As far as DSB's go, there is no light needed to complete the nitrogen cycle, both in FW and SW. (just a guess)

[RTR]

Either a DSB or a plenum will denitrify with reduced ORP (oxidation/reduction potential), but the plenum is safer if there is any chance of disturbance - such as FW. SW w/LR is safer for a DSB due to massive assortment of diggers which help alleviate deep/profound anoxia (sulfur and iron reduction are profound anoxia/very low ORP and chance disturbance can be a tank wipe-out).

But too many hobbyists equate low NO3 levels with no need or reduced need for water changes, which is a grave mistake. I had rater see the nitrate and know how well I am doing on routine partials.

The reason I came onto the hobby web originally was to search for info on plenums and DSB in other than marine conditions (the original Monaco work). Prior to that I had only been on the gov/military system. I di a good bit of hobby work on plenums and found that they do work fine, but too many folks have troubles with them and they are painfully slow to establish. Some (not my own) never did seem to function. I am unsure why not but suspect owner or fish disturbance - folks tried the technique and then added Kuhli loaches or eels or big substrate Cichlids....ten percent never get the message.

Such issues are also why I prefer to use sumps/circulating range systems. There you can cut the test equipment in or out as you wish - which is a great test platform. it is not hard to show that nitrate alone is of low short-term toxicity and only moderate long-term toxicity. It ain't the nitrate, it is the whole OTS water issue which is bad. The degree of toxicity also varies hugely with the specific fish involved and their age, and even with how rapidly the situation develops. Too many variables are involved for hobby testing to be very meaningful over a wide range of tanks.

So after all those test tanks and several years of play, I went back to veggie/algae filters - I set my first SW algae filter in the 1960s, connected to my first marine invert tank. That is now on the order of 50 years of playing with denitrification. I never did like the vodka coils - too fiddly and relatively high risk.

Veggie filters at least allow playing with the light cycle on the accessory tanks and supporting higher O2 levels in the operating system as a whole. Again that is less significant in SW due to the presence of skimmers, but 24/7 macroalgae refugia are still great additions - especially if can set for passive return to the display (preserve the 'pods).

HTH

[greenspottedlover]

I've always stuck to water changes for removing nitrate. Exfective, simple, and cheap.

[RTR]

Well, I have played a lot with nitrate removal techniques, but I really see no point in them. I agree with you that water changes are the cheapest and most effective means of correcting polluted water.

Nitrate is not the enemy in and of itself - it is one of the best and only easy indicator. remove that indicator without removing the other pollutants and what do yiou have? You have polluted water that you cannot tell is polluted.

[J-P]

currently in an online spat with the guy at:
http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/aqua ... eos-75428/

LOL!! RTR want to jump in?

[Pufferpunk]

RTR avoids drama at all costs!

[sevenyearnight]

That poor guy lol, he didn't understand it so he pretended it was non sense so he could feel better about his lack of understanding.

[RTR]

Meow! But I love drama!

surlaW!

Sorry J-P, I rarely go elsewhere these days, and fighting an unarmed foe who believes in things like "the TDS is controlled by the make-up water" is beneath me. It is not polite to belittle the mentally handicapped. That was sad.

It is impressive the insanity that the scientifically inept can spout. Base levels of TDS are in fact determined by the mineral profile of the water originally. But changes in the TDS over time when compared to the original or base levels are called and may be defined as pollution, with nitrate being the only one of those that most hobbyists can measure. But for unplanted tanks, most folks could also track phosphates and show similar pollution increases. Even if WFI (water for injection - the highest purity readily available) was the top-up water. You do wonder how some folks manage to get goldfish to survive.

Perhaps you should ask if that filter is good for planted tanks. That could be interesting and/or amusing.

The longer I am on the web, the more I amazed that any number of hobby fish live beyond two years. ATM, more than 1/2 my tanks are occupied but fish over 20 years old. My raimbows are younger (they, like many schoolers may be annuals or nearly so in the wild), but the strain is from the first shipment to this country which had both males and females. My guppy strain is pushing 40. Neither of those two lines look the any differently, no weaknesses or ills. I have a couple on Cichlids lines that are close to those in age and still excellent quality.

I refuse to buy any more catfish or Cichlids - they are too likely to out-live me.

[J-P]

He actually posted a coherent reply. I wonder if he got a lot of PMs.

[J-P]

having some technical difficulties posting to my blog so I will post it here:

Today was a busy day. I had posted a wordy reply to the owner of Aquapure. Of course he refused to read it because it is in fact correct. The claims he makes on his product are all totally false with one exception: It removes Nitrates.
John Strawn at Aquaripure had said:
"It's not that I do not want to address the last topic posted by "InvertPlanet", it's just that most of it makes no sense and I do not want to get into a flame war. In fact, I have asked that "InvertPlanet" make no more posts to Aquaripure's forum.

The entire post seems to be a repost of some 80+ year old ex-professor. My step father was an engineer who still used a slide rule and abhored computers. The point is things change. If you can not post some original content or thoughts then why bother.

As an example of what makes no sense the post's first line goes into, "First off, nitrate is inorganic, not organic, so they start out with an error, a.k. a. a lie." I honestly do not know what they are talking about? A "lie" ... why is an error a "lie"? Who is the "they" you are referring to? Are you referring to me? The first line of Aquaripure's website is " The Aquaripure filter is a comprehensive biological filter which will completely remove all organic matter and nitrates in an Aquarium. " The italics are even there on the website. This is just one of those types of posts that I would normally ignore but it is on a paid Aquaripure forum so I feel I have to defend myself.

I will now address some of slightly more coherent parts of the post.

In the post is the same old spiel about how there is a lot more in the water than nitrates and water changes are the only things that will work. Well, this is simply not true. I explain why here More on Nitrates

I offer as additional proof of my position over 100 testimonials and 10 videos demonstrating the actual real life results.

The simple truth is nitrate is in fact enemy #1 in an aquarium. It fosters an unnatural environment, fish stress and disease, and algae growth. It is the #1 source of water pollution WORLDWIDE.

Just because a single individual has personally have failed to correctly utilize denitrification does not mean I have not succeeded or it does not work. I have said it before and will say it again, the typical DIY "coil" model that most people "try" are very inadequate.

The post is still incorrect about the trace elements. Trace elements are also in the organic molecules of uneaten fish food. They replenish and will be plentiful in the tank and are not depleted. A partial water change every 2-3 months is more than enough to keep trace elements in balance and water quality extremely high.

The post then compares my product, an actual product that works with thousands of actual users to a fictional product in a movie. A pretty bad movie at that. No, the stuff is not still there ... NO3 is converted into gas ... it goes into the atmosphere. END OF STORY.

For all these reasons, I have asked "InvertPlanet" to PLEASE DO NOT POST TO THE AQUARIPURE FORUM AGAIN

Read more: http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/aqua ... z1VI6Seo00"

Because I was asked not to reply, I could only comment off the forum and this was the reply:

"Aquaripure doesn't want me posting on his forum because his product doesn't reduce the need for water changes.
See the Aquaripure forum under the topic New Aquaripure Videos
The simple fact is that when nitrates reach a certain level it is time for a water change. Not only to remove the nitrates themselves but to remove the organic waste material produced by the fish. We can't read those numbers. We can only read the nitrate levels. The aquaripure removes the nitrates and thus leaves us with NO WAY of testing or telling us when a water change is due. Nitrate removal, in itself, is fine and people have been doing it in salt water set up for a VERY long time. The are advanced users and have a strict dosing regiment. They do regular water changes and know WHEN to do it. A little filter doesn't remove the need for changes. The product simply can't and won't do what the owner claims it does.

Read more: http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/memb ... z1VI70bH1Z"

I can back this claim up with solid evidence. I do monthly water changes on a 60 gal tank for a client. The amount of detritus that comes out of that tank is disgusting. The nitrates are consistently in the 120+ range. If the Aquaripure Nitrate Filter does what it claims to do, how would it eliminate the black crap trapped in the substrate? It can't. Even if it the nitrates were to read 0, that water is so polluted with other biproducts that we can't / don't test for it truly has an adverse effect on fish health despite what Mr. Strawn believes.

Mr. Strawn believes " All animals including fish produce ammonia and other organic waste products which are turned into nitrites and then nitrates by bacteria. The fact is that in any mature aquarium high nitrates are the primary reason to do frequent water changes. Nitrates are less toxic than ammonia or nitrites, but they are still toxic to humans, animals and fish and are a primary cause of water pollution."

While this at fist glace may seem correct, it is in fact incorrect. Ammonia is produced directly from urea and respiration and is also a bi-product of organic material decomposing. As long as the organic material (feces and food) are present in the tank there will be elevated amounts of ammonia. The Ammonia (and only the Ammonia) is then turned is converted into Nitrite and and further converted into Nitrate.

Water changes are the easiest way to remove trapped debris that is rotting in the tank. The Nitrate level itself is an indication of how much rotting matter is in any given tank at one time. It is the ONLY real way we can determine the bioload of an aquarium. Removing or hiding that number does in fact NOT remove the physical decay.

"The post then compares my product, an actual product that works with thousands of actual users to a fictional product in a movie. A pretty bad movie at that. No, the stuff is not still there ... NO3 is converted into gas ... it goes into the atmosphere. END OF STORY.

Read more: http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/aqua ... z1VIEL75Jj"

This is simply only a half truth as outlined above.

By the way, I own an Aquaripure Nitrate removal filter. It is good at what it does: Removing nitrates from the water. It does NOTHING to remove the imbalance of organic and inorganic solids dissolved into the water. Nor remove the rotting material that is causing elevated nitrates (and possibly unwanted worms, bacteria and fungi due to poor water quality).

Don't believe the hype.

P.S.:
Read this BS:
"The Aquaripure filter is a comprehensive biological filter which will completely remove all organic matter and nitrates in an Aquarium."
Impossible.
http://www.aquaripure.com (the site is a little mismanaged.. if it works it works.. if not, it isn't my fault).

[RTR]

Idiots do not learn well, pretty much by definition.

Alkalinity replacement in FW, BW, and SW in intmately liked to nitrate generation. FOWLR can and does replace the two milliequivalents of bicarb consumed by ever mill equivalent of ammonia nitrogen oxidized to nitrate. LR replaces that alkalinity be sacrificing itself - part of the rock dissolves to replenish the alkalinity, or is an aragonite substrate is used in such a tank, it may replenish the alkalinity before the rock can, again by sacrificing itself. If the spokesman holds that nitrate is a macro-pollutant, then replacement of the used up bicarb requies 2x the nitrogen pollutant level to replace it. In my math, that ain't any kind of trace element. It is the natural buffer system of all water in the environment and everywhere intimately linked to nitrification. How the surlaW is a partial water change every few months going to manage that level of bicarbonate replacement? It is not sufficient by a huge margin. But for some folks, paradoxes do not exist - they have a product to sell, so get out of their way.

[J-P]

ohhh ... he PM'd me today: LOL!! he is not happy. The drama continues...


The full story:

http://www.invertplanet.com/forum/blogs ... re_com-11/