# Been trailing nitra-guard bio cubes



## Mark hastings (25 Aug 2016)

Hi all,

been trailing nitra guard bio cubes,had fantastic results...in my cichlids tank it took the nitrate from 100 ppm down to zero in 3 weeks,& it also eats away the phosphates too!

[MOD EDIT] - I've chosen to remove the large image, it can still be accessed from the attached files. This does feel a little bit spammy but I'm giving Mark the benefit of the doubt, feel free to discuss the topic maturely 

BigTom


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## Henry (26 Aug 2016)

You're not connected to the product in any way, are you?


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## ian_m (26 Aug 2016)

Why on earth would we want these in a planted tank ? To kill all the plants and turn the tank in an algae infested soup ?

Why on earth would we want to reduce nitrate to 0ppm ???

Nitrate causing algae blooms ???? don't know where your info comes from but nitrate does not directly cause algae blooms. We tend to run our tanks at 8ppm nitrate and don't have algae issues.

Please read the section on EI dosing, in future, before posting something that no planted tank keeper would ever buy or even ever consider buying.

If you were selling a nitrate adding product, we would be interested but as for this product this would be highly detrimental in a planted tank.


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## alto (26 Aug 2016)

did anyone bother reading Mark's single other post ... doesn't seem he deserves such a take down


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## dw1305 (26 Aug 2016)

Hi all, 
The advertising blurb made me laugh, but I'm not sure it actually tells you a lot about how they work. 

I found this thread <"Re: Nitra-Guard Bio-cubes...">, which does discuss mode of action (it would be fair to say it gets a bit heated as well). I can see in a marine aquarium they could be used in conjunction with a protein skimmer, but I'm not sure about in freshwater. The aeration requirement is interesting, it suggests that something else is going on other than anaerobic de-nitrification (but possibly just aerobic nitrification). 

If I was keeping Mbuna, in a tank where housing plants was problematic, I might look at anaerobic denitrification (but definitely not in the filter), but even than a refugium area (where you could keep plants) is likely to be a lot more successful. 

You can get ion selective polymer media that will remove both PO4--- and NO3-, but they are an expensive option. 

cheers Darrel


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## rebel (26 Aug 2016)

Hey Mark, how many cubes have you sold?


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## Mark hastings (26 Aug 2016)

& I thought this was a friendly forum .hmmmmm


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## ian_m (26 Aug 2016)

Mark hastings said:


> & I thought this was a friendly forum .hmmmmm


It is. But advertising products, especially ones of no use in a planted aquarium, is frowned upon.


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## zozo (26 Aug 2016)

Mark hastings said:


> & I thought this was a friendly forum .hmmmmm



Don't be to hard on yourself or others don't take it all to personal..  

misinterpretations are as common in forums as it is with messaging eachother via Whatsapp and or Short Message Service or e-mail discussions.. It's plain text, it contains no intonations and it mainly is read with the intonation of your own emotinal state of mind at the time of reading. This can put someone quite fast on the wrong foot and before you know you are bashing or maybe even hugging your PC monitor, ipad or mobile phone instead of a real person.. This way many people start to hate and even love eachother for all the wrong reasons all because of multi-interpretable toneless plain text. 

Don't do this to yourself.. Believe me, i know it happend to me too long time ago after sitting 16 years behind a PC. And i see it happen to many others around me as well in this rather virtual world. I nowadays even see people around me who have forgotten how a real one on one conversation works, they already talk in short message terms and abbreviations. I do not know if this is real development, but it's reality..  

Social media is a great tool, but it also is a virtual reality and has some dangerous trapdoors.. Make yourself aware of these traps and try to go around them.

It's the intonation which makes the song, the lyrics in it actualy have a minor role.


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## xim (26 Aug 2016)

Mark hastings said:


> & I thought this was a friendly forum .hmmmmm



Well, the attached (advertising) image is very big and gives a feeling of in-your-face. 
When I opened the thread and saw the image, I suddenly wondered what the reaction would be.


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## alto (26 Aug 2016)

simple enough to mark a suspected post as spam & admin will look at it ...

If nitrate comes out of the tap at over 50ppm - & this is not that unusual - there are many "loopholes" for this in the water safety guides  - I'd be looking for nitrate reduction products (that didn't cost $$$)

There are scientific studies linking high nitrates in natural waters with increased algaes ...  & pristine waters with almost undetectable nitrates that are relatively algae free
ie it's just not as simple as nitrate dictates algae - it's a "contributing factor" that may/may not be a "determining factor" 

My _sunlight-tech_ cube has no measurable nitrate/phosphate etc - none in the very soft tap water, no fertlizers added -  and no visible algae


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## Mark hastings (27 Aug 2016)

Hi all, sorry been working.... No I am not selling these it was just easier to upload the instructions rather than type it all out (it was off eBay).thanks for your feedback..I was in the understanding that lower phosphates & lower nitrates would control algae in a planted that's all. Please don't shoot me down,as I'm still learning...if this is incorrect please can u give me a link of a thread to explain it all . Cheers mark


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## alto (27 Aug 2016)

dw1305 said:


> The advertising blurb made me laugh,


same


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## dw1305 (30 Aug 2016)

Hi all,





Mark hastings said:


> I was in the understanding that lower phosphates & lower nitrates would control algae in a planted that's all.


I think there is some validity in that as an argument, the problem comes, particularly with the phosphate (PO4---), because the levels of depletion you need to get to to control algal growth are vanishingly low. 

I have relatively algae free low tech. aquariums, with <"limiting amounts of nutrients">, but many members successfully use <"Estimative Index"> (EI) dosing to stunning effect. 

In natural situations <"elevated nitrogen and phosphorus levels"> usually occur together as markers of eutrophication.

The exact mechanisms for the switch between plant (macrophyte) and algal dominated aquatic plant communities still isn't fully known, with both states occurring along a phosphorus gradient (PO4--- is thought to be the prime metric in eutrophication, mainly because it is extremely persistent in the aquatic environment).



 

cheers Darrel


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## PARAGUAY (30 Aug 2016)

Mark hastings said:


> & I thought this was a friendly forum .hmmmmm


It is but first day back at work so wrong side of bed for some members,welcome to UKAPS


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## Mark hastings (1 Sep 2016)




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## rebel (2 Sep 2016)

Haha Mark, apologies. I thought you were an advertiser. It would be pretty hard to prove either way though. Perhaps after a couple of thousand meaningful posts you will probably gain more trust. 

As a wise man apparently said, some in the forum just post the same thing 1000s of times. Hope you are not one of them. 

Welcome to UKAPS.


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## alto (3 Sep 2016)

rebel said:


> some in the forum just post the same thing 1000s of times


  

sometimes I feel like I'm on rewind, repeat, rewind, repeat, rewind, repeat , rewind, repeat, rewind, repeat

 





hah! I've not used those in a while


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## rebel (3 Sep 2016)

alto said:


> sometimes I feel like I'm on rewind, repeat, rewind, repeat, rewind, repeat , rewind, repeat, rewind, repeat
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Haha. It's all good. The same questions usually will deserve the same answer...


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## Paul L (11 Sep 2016)

Quite a bit of effort goes into making one of these but could be useful to some degree. . .?

http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?387870-DIY-Nitrate-Filter-Reactor

Please don't shoot me down either. . . . . .


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## dw1305 (11 Sep 2016)

Hi all, 





Paul L said:


> Quite a bit of effort goes into making one of these but could be useful to some degree. .


 Yes, it is a bit different if you keep a reef aquarium, water changes become more expensive and time consuming, you don't have access to many higher plants (only really <"Mangrove and Sea grasses">) to act as a phytofilter, and very low levels of nitrogen and orthophosphate encourage the growth of algae that most reef keepers don't want.

Because of these limitations reef keepers have tried various different techniques for biological filtration (trickle filters, plenums, denitrifying coils, deep sand beds etc), but I think the most popular option is now live rock (which will support both aerobic and anaerobic filtration) and a protein skimmer (to remove potential sources of nitrogen). I'm not a marine keeper but I know various members are (Foxfish, BigTom etc), and they should be able to tell you more. A sort of freshwater equivalent would be a HMF, where it is possible to have <"simultaneous nitrification and denitrification">.  

Another issue is that sea water has a known amount of chloride ions (Cl-) present (about 17ppt), and this means that this can be factored into nitrate testing kits. In fresh water we have problems with monovalent anions like Cl- interfering with NO3- testing, partially because we don't know what the Cl- ion content of the water is.

In a fresh water planted tank it is a bit different. We can use floating and emergent plants with access to aerial CO2 (or we can add CO2 to submerged plants). Non CO2 limited plants have the ability to take up large amounts of nitrogenous compounds (including NH4+ as well as NO3-), meaning that levels of nitrates tend to fall over time, rather than rise. 

Because we have easy access to water changes and plants we can take a different approach to biofiltration. Ammmonia (NH3) and nitrite (NO2-) are much more toxic than nitrate (NO3-), so our principal aim is to convert all the ammonia into less toxic compounds as rapidly as possible. 

Plants directly take up NH3/NH4+ and they also are net oxygen suppliers, and biological filtration is an oxygen intensive process. In a planted tank you can just ensure that all the filter media is aerobic and leave the plants to mop up the nitrate, we don't need to try and get the tricky balance between aerobic nitrification and anaerobic denitrification.

cheers Darrel


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