Denitrator + UV light

[shlim944]

Hi, about 2 months ago, I purchased a custom made denitrator (the deniball type) and after 2 months, it does not seem to help lower the nitrate in my tank. I have tested the output of the unit and occassionally it gives me 0 nitrate water but then can jump back to the same nitrate level as my tank the very next day.

I adjust the output daily to about a drop a second.

Heard that I should not use a denitrator together with a UV sterilizer - is this true ? the input of my denitrator comes from the UV sterilizer. Wonder if this is affecting the efficiency of my denitrator.

Anyone ??

[jojo22]

Sure is. The uv is killing any bacteria before it can get in the denitrator to colanize it!

[lReef lKeeper]

what kind of tank is this ?? FO, FOWLR, or reef ??

[shlim944]

It's a mixed tank - with coral, fish and live rocks. I've recently trying to reduce the number of fishes in the tank to reduce bio load and convert it to a reef tank. However, there's still a pretty big blue tang (it grew at least 3x the size since I bought it !) and brown tang there - wasn't sure if my other tank can take the load.

Does it mean that I can turn on the UV sterilizer after a while - after the denitrator is "mature" ? Frankly, the UV sterilizer has put in during the tank setup time (1 yr ago) and helped in clearing the early stages (eg white cloudy water). Don't know what it's helping now - but then don't know what will happen if I stop it - kind of scary....

[lReef lKeeper]

if you turned it off you would likely see much improvement in the tank. a UV sterilizer kills off ALL free swimming bacteria (even the GOOD ones that are helpful to the system).

[jojo22]

You could also plumb it so the UV is after the denitrator, I would still leave the light off untill the system has time to colanize with bacteria.