Things are still rolling along. Nothing new to report. NO3 - 5 mq/L, CA - 400, PO4 -.05, ph 8.3, total alk 4.

Reefcentral has a new thread going on this method. I'd suggest reading it to see different points of view. Here's an interesting abstract from some research in the 90's regarding the purported strain of bacteria that the Hiatt uses:

Aerobic nitrification and anoxic denitrification are the two main steps of the biological nitrogen removal processes. However, studies have shown the ability of pure strains to consume simultaneously oxygen and nitrate. These properties of co-respiration were used to combine nitrifiers and aerobic denitrifier (Microvirgula aerodenitrificans) in a single aerated reactor under continuous and Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) cultures. The aerobic denitrifier was maintained by discontinuous addition of carbon. Under these conditions, nitrifying and denitrifying activities were observed with aerobic reduction of the N-oxides produced by autotrophs into nitrous oxide and nitrogen.


D. Patureau*, N. Bernet, T. Bouchez, P. Dabert, J. P. Delgenes and R. Moletta
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Laboratoire des Biotechnologies de l'Environnement (LBE), avenue des Etangs, 11100 Narbonne, France


Received 26 September 1997;
accepted 24 November 1997.
Available online 24 November 1998.