A quick Hiatt experiment - lowering nitrates...

[Bill S]

Richard, Mark & I have talked about this for a while. I kept one of the 3 Hiatt torpedoes I originally had. Well, my nitrates had crept up to 15-20 on my 215, and I thought, what the heck! I hooked up the single torpedo, turned off the skimmer & UV, and poured a bottle of bacteria into the intake. Here's what happened:

0 hours (11pm): 20ppm
10 hours: 10ppm
18 hours: 5-7ppm
24 hours: 5ppm
36 hours: <5ppm
44 hours: still <5ppm, discontinued test.

All tests were done with a pretty new Salifert test kit. Because of previous problems with being too clean, I didn't want to leave it hooked up too long, so once the values quit dropping, I took it off. I suspect that since my PO4 is zero, it may have become a limiting factor. So, thinking this thru, if I do this say, once a month for 24 hours... What's really cool is that this was a well used/abused Hiatt - so it can't be attributed to a bunch of carbon "doing it's thing".

[Richard]

That a really cool experiment Bill. Maybe using it intermitently is the way to go when you have stony corals.

I know the Hiatt system works, it just seems to work too well & the stonies slowly starve and fade away I think.

Someday I want to experiment with using it the way the waste water treatment people do. That is only treating a portion of the water at a time. For example, for something like your 215 you use a smaller tank like a 20 gallon setup as a full blown hiatt with the right amount of carbon and flow for the 20. Then you you drip water from the main tank to the 20 and it flows back to the sump. Make sense?

That way you can adjust the flow to the hiatt setup and leave enough stuff behind in the main tank for the corals. I think that would work but then again I think alot of things that end up being wrong LOL.

[Ram_Puppy]

well, that is certainly a testament to the method's power.