Reef Discussion

[Rob]

At $ 130 for the inline version at a LFS, can someone buy the bloody thing & stop tempting us all in the nirvana of zero nitrates... I do think like others if this thing has been on the market for 2 years and its that good we would of heard about it sooner.

I was so close to buying it yesterday, even had the unit out if the box on the counter! however walked out with a $20 refill bottle of noxpox as i know this keeps my nitrates at 1~2 ppm.

I want to believe .....

 

[Buddy]

At $ 130 for the inline version at a LFS, can someone buy the bloody thing & stop tempting us all in the nirvana of zero nitrates... I do think like others if this thing has been on the market for 2 years and its that good we would of heard about it sooner.

I was so close to buying it yesterday, even had the unit out if the box on the counter! however walked out with a $20 refill bottle of noxpox as i know this keeps my nitrates at 1~2 ppm.

I want to believe .....

Is that why I saw you lurking around lol

 

[Agent M]

Is that why I saw you lurking around lol

Were you spying on a lurker @Buddy ?

@Rob buy it, buy it, buy it!

 

[Buddy]

I am assuming he was checking out the filter. He looked deep in thought so I didn't want to disturb him :p

 

[Rob]

@Agent M .... I probably would of given it a go HOWEVER I have been working on a NOPOX syringe auto doser as my first 3dprinter project. Its been 3 months in the planning and just finished the first prototype. It will kill me to bin it and buy something as simple as the Hydra-pure.

So its back to you to purchase :)

 

[holly]

I'd be interested in looking at it for our larger tanks... not sure if it will kill 'good' stuff with the 'bad' stuff. Will have to look into cost as each system is @1500lts

 

[holly]

More info:
http://www.justaquatic.com.au/shop/...am-1-inline-filter-300-2000l-p-for-tank-1200/

Has a better explanation of the function of the product (plus they have bigger ones for larger tanks, yippee!).

 

[Rob]

Anybody seen or taken the time to read any test data on how low nitrates will go with the Hydra, Coming from example 50ppm (with no nitrate control) down to 10 is a reduction but its not like coming down to 1-2ppm which I would aim for.

 

[holly]

If we get one we will test and track it. Would be good to see some data Rob I agree.

 

[Agent M]

There is some mention in the thread I posted above of ammonia & nitrite readings going up after installment because the test kits can't discriminate between the good & bad forms (if I have that right at this time of the morning) - so it definitely has an effect. Usual story of no one posting any more info after that.

 

[holly]

I'll try to see if Jeremy knows of a simple way to test for nitrogen rather than nitrate.

 

[BattleSheep]

The basic history of were it comes from is.
A long time ago a man in New South Wales put metal plates in dirty water and put a positive on one plate and a negative on the other, and came up with
electrolysis this was used for cleaning sewage and still is.
I have read there info and they have changed a copy of this from the original design as it seems they are using carbon coated metal plate but the original design was used the make the rubbish float so they drained fresh water from the bottom.
My interesting thought is they say "hydra has the capability to precipitate phosphate into solid form, and this can be more easily read by phosphate test kit however the good thing is that precipitate phosphate cannot be taken in by algae"
My understanding is the corals do require phosphate so do the corals die due to unusable phosphates?
Look forward to people's thoughts

 

[Polyps]

They really developed some very detailed, scientific looking graphics for their packaging and videos. :p

 

[dimitri]

So my wife was kind enough to buy me a new tank (gave the hobby up 6yrs ago but the itch never really went away)

So we go down to the LFS & the owner basically shoved one of these onto me and said it's the best thing since sliced bread, he even claimed I could have the tank fully stocked within 48hrs... fish and coral... I nearly fell of my feet, he must be pulling my leg.. past experience dictated otherwise...

My old marine tank took me 4-6 weeks to run in - yes I was a safety sam & a novice then.

So basically I have the following setup & its 1am and I have finished setting it up


350L tank inc the sump
1 x 3000l/hr pump for flow (this shat itself within an hour, bearing was making a rattling noise soon as I started the system up, using a spare 1500l for now till tomorrow morning) *Will be adding a wave maker, not happy with the flow in the tank with a single direction head
Red Sea C-Skim * the thing is enormous but he gave it to me for less then half price so, happy days, I guess.. this has its own 1500l/h pump *the one I'm using for flow atm
Hydro stream 1 + 1500l/h pump
a little bit of media in the sump socks
a few live rock
I've stuck about 10kg of salt in, which will hopefully be fully dissolved by the time i wake up in the morning.

I will do a test with the kit supplied & see what the story is when I wake up...

Sunday morning I am going to put 1 fish in and see if it survives, I don't like killing animals, but the curiosity can't be avoided, the LFS guy said it would be fine he's been using it on every new tank he sells and had 100% success rate.


*it should be noted the LFS guys said to not use to many types of media/purification etc as they have found it to cause issues/work against each other, rely mostly on the Hydra and just have a bit of media and LR for a 'backup'

 

[dimitri]

Well, I am a bit over 48hrs in..

All levels zero except Ph 8.3

I went and bought some well cycled live rock initially, 4 pieces and let that sit for 36hrs, no noticeable change to levels, everything perfect.

Today I thought I would test the system and see what the Hydra can really handle.

26kilos of 4-6 day old live rock, it was out the back of a different LFS, I am expecting it to have massive die off and a large ammonia spike in a few days... (if it does not then the system works as advertised and it really is as good as they claim) it came with a bristle starfish, 1 small shrimp, not sure if its a pistol or what yet, it is hiding and 1 sea snail...

I left that all afternoon, did a test after 4hrs and the ammonia on the test kit hit 0.25 - I then tested it again 2hrs later and it was back to zero...

This was at 4pm, so I went to my original LFS and bought one clownfish and one yellow goby, captive stock not wild caught.

7pm, little bit of food (dry flake) and everything perfect.

I also changed the skimmer to a Deltec 1350 - fits perfectly, built in pump, the red sea one didn't fit and the extra pump left no room in sump, and it was noisy

If anyone is reading this stay tuned until the morning.. where it may all be a disaster or not...



I will upload pictures when I work out how the hell airdrop and bluetooth and osx Y works

 

[MagicJ]

Hi @dimitri and :welcome

I will be interested to see how this goes - @Agent M might also be interested.

What test kits are you using?

.The fact that the fish survive does not necessarily prove anything - ammonia causes damage to the gills which can have long lasting effects, but it may not kill them overnight.

With 26kg of live rock, how do you know that it is not the natural bacteria breaking down the ammonia rather than the Hydro Pure?

Yes, I admit to being skeptical but happy to be proven wrong :)

 

[dimitri]

Hi mate,

I've only had the tank running since 7pm Friday, it is now 8:30pm Sunday....

2 small socks with media and 10kg of well cycled LR would not have generated enough good bacteria to stop the impending ammonia spike.

Fish seem to be doing well, lights are off, temp is 22-24deg c

I have just done another ammonia test, 0.25ppm, I will do another one in a few hours when I go to sleep and then again in the morning, by all conventional wisdom the environment should crash either very quickly or in about 4-6 days.

I am using API saltwater Master test kit, thats what the LFS gave me with the setup.

If you can hit me up with a better / more accurate test system now is the time, the wife is still unawares to the costs of things so I may as well get in while the irons hot and load myself up haha...

 

[MagicJ]

The general consensus seems to be that API tests are pretty much useless.

But, I wouldn't go and buy any other ammonia test as, hopefully, you shouldn't need to use it after a few weeks.

I like Salifert for nitrate - not sure what your future plans are for the tank so hard to suggest what else you might need.

 

[dimitri]

Well that is good to know, I will still bring back another kit tomorrow on my rounds from work just for piece of mind.


I guess I am super skeptical as well, and what I am trying to do here is clear some myth from fact, I don't like seeing any animal die or suffer, but if it comes down to losing 2 x $25 captive bred fish compared to a huge well stocked tank, I know what I would rather stare down the barrel of and if it helps others avoid total calamity so be it.

I don't believe in any silver bullet and that is what the LFS guy is claiming.

The second LFS i went to today, not where I got my tank from thinks it's all hocus pocus, as a matter of fact.

I am going for community tank with coral of varying sorts, if I can get a couple of pictures off my phone you'll get an idea of the setup.

 

[MagicJ]

The second LFS i went to today, not where I got my tank from thinks it's all hocus pocus, as a matter of fact.

:p

My main query has always been - if this technology is as good as they claim it to be, then why can't we find out anything about it on the net :confused: Surely somebody, somewhere in the world has proven the claims... that is, if the claims can be proven ...