Considering building my own tubing based De-nitrator

[caferacermike]

I've kinda always wanted to build my own de-nitrator based upon the long tubing method. From what I've read many people say a coil of 1/4" tubing with a drip rate of about 1 drip per second will cause bacteria to build up within the tubing and by the time the water reaches the end it is supposed to have been processed through the whole nitrite, nitrate, ammonia triangle. I'm pretty sure it's the same method Aquaripure uses on their set ups.

So for about $60 I can buy a 500' spool of of John Guest 1/4" PEX place it in a 5g bucket and poke some holes in the lid, voila a clean looking set up.

My plan is thus,

Get a couple of Di resin canisters and the little bottles that go in them.

Fill 1 bottle with very small live rock rubble and the other with sugar fine reef sand.

Push water into the rock first, then through the sand then onto the coil.

The coil will be about 500' of tubing in a 5g bucket covered with a lid.

I'll pack the free space with insulation as I'll probably put it in the garage away from the tnak. Tnak is directly on the other side of the wall and will be easy to plumb as I already have several other tubes running through for 2 part solutions and ATO.

Now I'm going to cheat the system a bit. Once the tubing gets into the bucket I will put an inline check valve onto the tubing then about a foot further down I will place a TEE in the tubing, next I run some tubing out of the bucket to another inline check. This check will be open so I can use a syringe to force feedings into the system. The check will allow sugar to enter the coil while the other check will prevent it from backing up into the "pre-filters". I'll be able to carbon dose into the coils. I've heard that you don't need to do that if the coil is long enough, however carbon dosing certainly causes the system to work even faster.

All of that is the easy part. The part I'm having trouble with is figuring out which pump to use. A Maxi Jet might work if I glue tubing to it but I'm worried it won't be able to force the water the long distance to the coil and then have enough head to force it through the coil. Peristaltic pump would be perfect for this but they aren't meant to run continuous.

Anybody else ever build one of these and what do you think about my plan? Any pump suggestions?