Results of my new nitrate filter

I plumbed my new nitrate filter into the sink where my python gets attached for water exchanges. In the short run it definitely works. Now it is hurry up and wait and see how many gallons of water it will process before it Poops out.
Top tube is water from a sister sink. Bottom tube is water from faucet with filter. API test kit

What sort of filter is it?
I assume the red phial was the nitrate reading before going through the filter and the yellow phial is after it has been treated?

It is some kind of resin that binds nitrate, but it is not zeolite. It is FDA approved for drinking, but I will be using the faucet only for water exchanges. Yes the red vial is pre-filter and the yellow vial is post filter.

Yes , it will be interesting to see how long it works and how much water it treats . Looks like a great improvement .

Can the resin be recharged?

No. It’s not rechargeable. There are all home systems that automatically recharge starting at around $2200.

gwand said:

No. It’s not rechargeable. There are all home systems that automatically recharge starting at around $2200.

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If you ever want to try something else later. You can buy a rechargeable bag of API Nitra-Zorb that does the same thing in the tank. I used it to establish a biofilter while fish were in the tank and it worked. The bag is recharged using aquarium salt.

Fishfunn said:

If you ever want to try something else later. You can buy a rechargeable bag of API Nitra-Zorb that does the same thing in the tank. I used it to establish a biofilter while fish were in the tank and it worked. The bag is recharged using aquarium salt.

http://www.apifishcare.com/product/nitra-zorb

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If my filter poops out early I will go that route. I actually tried it in the past and it worked. However, it also even more effectively binds up ammonia. I was told this would kill off the necessary cycling bacteria that live off of ammonia. What do you think?

gwand said:

If my filter poops out early I will go that route. I actually tried it in the past and it worked. However, it also even more effectively binds up ammonia. I was told this would kill off the necessary cycling bacteria that live off of ammonia. What do you think?

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According to their study, it prevents ammonia spikes that could kill fish but does not prevent bacteria from establishing in the filter during a fish cycling method. I used it and it worked for me too.

Thanks. Good to know. I wonder how many times can it be recharged? After the sodium bath I have to rinse it in distilled water or spring water since my well water is full of nitrate.

gwand said:

Thanks. Good to know. I wonder how many times can it be recharged? After the sodium bath I have to rinse it in distilled water or spring water since my well water is full of nitrate.

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I attached the instructions

I read their study and what a piece of fish poop it was. They did a fish in cycle with their tests. They reported the test readings but said not one word about the condition of the fish. Next they did the tests at a pH of 7.0. If your tank is 8.0 the ammonia becomes more toxic. And then there is this in the discussion section:

The results also prove that using NITRA-ZORB will not prevent the development of the biological filter, though it may cause it to either grow more slowly or to form a smaller colony, as evidenced by the slight rise in ammonia after the NITRA-ZORB was removed from the test aquariums.

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If you want to cycle a tank, please do not do it with fish, especially if you have no clue about the chemistry and microbiology involved. At the end of a fisless cycle one can fully stock a tank and not ever see any ammonia or nitrite.

I would not use that product for anything, there is no need for it as far as I can tell. Well there is one reason API wants you to use it, API makes money from your doing so.

Also, what exactly was the fish load in their test? They say: "All aquariums had 1 6g of fish which were fed 30mg of food twice a day." What the heck does that mean What sort of food? Was it all eaten/ if not, did they vacuum out the leftovers?

Also, an RO/DI unit will remove nitrates from water. It removes ions. But it removes a lot more than nitrate. The RO membranes can remove between 85% and 98% of any nitrate and a DI module would catch anyt nitrate the RO did not. But a DI unit on its own will also remove nitrate but it remove a lot of what an RO membrane does. DI resins cannot be recharged unless they are exchanging the nitrate for something else like chloride or salt. Better chloride than salt, but only up to a given ppm level, after that it can harm or kill fish.

Nitrates will show up as part of TDS. So if you run water through and RO/DI unit your output TDS should be 0. So it is easy to tell when the RO/membrane and/or the DI module need to be changed.

@TwoTankAmin I temporarily used it on two tanks while I had high nitrates and couldnt lower them. I packed my filters with biohome and matrix to deal with the high nitrates but it took time for those products to work. I can say this product did help my filters build up their anerobic bacteria because now, after I removed the Nitra-Zorb, both tanks have 10ppm nitrates where before I have 30-50ppm. I cant say it is a bad product or their study is fictitious.

Monitoring tanks while doing something like this is very important. My one tank is a 40 gallon that has a monster pleco in it with a very large angelfish, and the bio load was very high. The image below has a pic of the pleco on a 4 inch high flower pot that has a skeleton of a large amazon sword that he ate all the leaves off it. The 40 gallon always had 50 ppm nitrate level with the big eaters. I took the Nitra-Zorb from my 40 gallon filter last Saturday. Below I took the nitrate, nitrite measurements right now.

I never could get the NITRA-ZORB to really do anything to reduce the nitrates I had. I do have ammonia in my tap so decided to use API Ammo Lock for water treatment which has seemed to help with the reduction of nitrates over time. Good old fashion water changes I what I do to get rid of the nitrates now and nothing else. Also adding lots of plants helped prevent the ammonia from even converting to nitrates have helped as well.

My nitrate problem comes from my tap water. Water exchanges will not help.