Nitrate Phosphate Remover

[SHAKEEL]

Just wondering if anyone has ever built one of these algae scrubber
and if so do you have any pics and how well do they work thanks.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45873

[One Dumm Hikk]

Oh geez, not him again.

[One Dumm Hikk]

After reading it, I see where my reply could be read as pointed at Shakeel when it isn't. The "him" I was referring to was Santa Monica. To answer the question, there was a thread he started here (and nearly every forum on the Internet) and he slowly got banned from them. Now, it seems people aren't posting in his thread but simply point to another site and ask about them.

There is a thread here that SM started as well.

[SHAKEEL]

huh i was just asking was this diy project really worked or was it crap but umm thanks for the response.

[sunsetSPS]

I don't see why it doesn't work. As long as you have light, and place for algae to stick on (screen in this case) it will promote algae to grow. The advantage of this method is having the water to pass through the screen which gives more contact between water and algae and the whole surface has light (more light overall). But it look dirty and hard to clean to me (some maintenance required). I like to see my cheatos growing healthily in my fuge instead. If you don't have place for fuge then it's something you can try.

[chaoscat]

I read those threads, and bought into enough to give it a try. I didn't have an expensive protein skimmer purchased for my new 72 tank and figured if this didn't work, I could always rip it out and buy a skimmer. I mean, why not try it? The alternative was about another $600-$700 worth of hardware I didn't have. (ie skimmer, phosban reactor, etc)

Does it work? I really don't know yet. I've only had it up and running for a little over a month. I have yet to build up the really thick mats of algae that you see in all the pictures. Possibly this is being slowed by the fact that my pump runs all the time, I don't have an intermittent cycle set up on it yet, but I'm working on it.

So far, I have no algae or cyano in my tank. This wasn't a completely new tank. I transferred over the contents of a 40. That tank did have a small algae issue. There is a mess all over the sandbed in my sump, cyano and algae under the AS, but nothing in the tank. My nitrates are 5 right now. I think I'm going to add some cheato to help out until the algae really gets going.

If good for nothing else, this thing essentially acts like a chiller. That continuous fall of water cools the water in your tank. I have halide lighting on the new tank with a canopy and was concerned about overheating, due to no chiller. With this running, temperature is very stable and I've had no issues. If need be, I could always add fans blowing at it for additional cooling. Now if your house gets up to 85-90 degrees it may not help much, but I have central air.

One thing, I could never make that design he shows work, where you pump all the water in from one end and let if fall downward thru a slit. Even with a restricting valve and grossly opening up the inlet side of the slit, the water still spewed too fast/far to work. I redesigned it with spraybars one on each side of a hanging plastic sheet and that works fine.

[padgett152]

just built a smal, 4" x 11" algae scrubber that will catch the flow coming from my refugium to my return section. the same light that lights my fuge will light this thing. just curious to see how or if they work. want to monitor my parameters before, during, and after established or algae starts growing. i simply had too much time on my hands and some extra acrylic lying around. i'll keep pics and post on the progress..

[g8gxp]

I was initially looking into this too. I'm pretty sure it will work, as commercial aquariums do have things like this, however, his claim that you can use ONLY the scrubber and throw out everything else is probably not a good idea. There are many methods to control nutrients, this is just one of them, but it seems like the maintenance is a pain in the butt.

Skimmer and Chaeto is all I've needed (so far).

[CHOMPERS MFK]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14672911#post14672911 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by One Dumm Hikk
After reading it, I see where my reply could be read as pointed at Shakeel when it isn't. The "him" I was referring to was Santa Monica. To answer the question, there was a thread he started here (and nearly every forum on the Internet) and he slowly got banned from them. Now, it seems people aren't posting in his thread but simply point to another site and ask about them.

There is a thread here that SM started as well.

Why did he get banned? I haven't seen anything from him that was "ban worthy". Sure, he was all over the internet like white on rice, but he has some good information to share with the world. I realize that he was pretty adamant about getting his information out but he wasn't trying to cram it down anyones throat that didn't want it (at least not what I saw).

[CHOMPERS MFK]

My take on algae scrubbers is that eventually they will revolutionize the hobby. There have been many people that have had success with them (fresh and salt water).

Back in the 80's wet/dry's revolutionized the aquarium hobby. Freshwater hobbiests quickly adopted them from the saltwater side. With the intro of the Berlin Method, the saltwater side has mostly abandoned wet/dry's. I see the same thing happening with Skimmers. They revolutionized the hobby starting as simple devices with just an airstone at the bottom. They have come a long way, but the best design is never good enough (everyone rushes to the newest sparkly design). It wasn't that long ago when tall skinny skimmers with the best dwell times were the rave. Now short fat skimmers are the ones to have and no one cares about dwell times. Still the best skimmers aren't good enough. They are getting more "technical", flashy, and much more expensive. I think the algae turf scrubbers will be catching on soon. Many tanks are now successfully running skimmerless and with very good results. Algae turf scrubbers show the most promise to providing a reef tank with the most natural conditions as those seen out on the reefs.