Sump with built in folded ATS. Suggestions?

[kcress]

I'm building a sump that's also going to house an Algae Turf Scubber (ATS). As you probably know the standard ATS is a vertical screen. The problem with a vertical screen, in this case, is that to get the screen area required, (1 sqin per DT gallon), the screen would have to hang almost to the bottom of the sump. This would, of course, set the working depth of the tank to only a few inches. In effect a 55g sump would end up being only about 10g which is not acceptable to me.

My solution is to switch to a horizontal screen. This means I need twice the area. But that means I'd need about the entire 55g tank area. Instead I've folded the screen in to two stacked screens.

For actual filtering I am going to use a gravel/sand filter. Yes, yes, I can hear the cries of "Nitrate Factory" now. However the ATS will rip it all back out anyway, so I'll take the trade-off of more nitrates for more mechanical filtering. This 'filter bay' will be removable for occasional washing out.

Here's what I've got. Any suggestions or improvements?


http://www.box.com/shared/static/04ek224773uv4z86b81r.gif

[tahiriqbal]

Like the idea of folded scrubber to save space, it seems all water have to pass over the ATS before being dumped over your sand filter! ATS tend to do better with a moderate flow or with wave motion setup etc. and may take longer to establish. I have also noticed that to light up bottom folded screen you will be beaming LED light from outside the sump glass which could only mean that algae will grow on the glass and reduce the light penetration to grow algae on the screen.

Tahir

[kcress]

Yes thru the glass on the bottom screen. Growth on the glass is a concern but theoretically no water should land on THAT glass... I hope.

[2Quills]

hmmm...is this a standard 55g tank you're working with or are you building the tank? Dimensions?

I'm kind of in the same boat and this is the way that I've been going with it. Build is still in progress.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa3/lonewolf007_2007/036.jpg

[tahiriqbal]

Maybe a very lazy or should I say wide (V) shape type of scrubber. This would also enable you use single light and avoid bringing light though the glass wall.

Tahir

[widmer]

You know you want to stay vertical though. You should totally just do two vertical screens in a V shape. This way you can alternate which ones you scrub. I drew you a picture.

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk10/widfis/kcressats.jpg

You could do a vertical bar of LEDs on the side BEHIND THE GLASS for free protection from salt spray. And the lambertian emission pattern of the Cree LEDs that we've come to know and love would probably give you a ~even distribution of light down the length of the panels to boot.

[kcress]

Thanks for the picture 2Quills! Yes it's a standard 55g glass tank. About 48L x 12W x 14T. In my case I have much less vertical clearance then you appear to have. :(



tahiriqba, widmer; Nice idea. Except. You're not solving the working depth issue.. :p. I need 260 sqin. If I make the screens short enough they have to get wider. I have 960gph to work with. That means the total screen LENGTH can only be about 960/35gph = 27 inches maximum allowed screen width..

If I keep the screen short enough to give me a measly 6" of water in the sump I only get about 14T"-2"(pipe)-6" = 6" tall screen. 260sqin / 6" = 43 inches of linear screen.

43" - 27" = 16" too long for the flow I have available. Hence the horizontal plan.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Do you need 260 sq. in. according to the old sizing standards, or the new "food based" sizing standards? I was really surprised when I saw the proliferation of the new standards. It meant my initial design was about 3 times bigger than it needed to be.

My biggest beef with vertical screens is the standard "slotted PVC" approach to getting water on the screen. It has been VERY difficult for me to get reliable flow at the required rate without random trickles of water spraying off into nowhere every few hours/days.

If you needs more height, why not just raise the top of the ATS up above the lip of the tank? You could always build simple thin acrylic "extensions" of the tank walls to contain salt spray.

[widmer]

Apparently I haven't been around for a while. Any chance you can link to this "food based" stuff?

[2Quills]

Do you need 260 sq. in. according to the old sizing standards, or the new "food based" sizing standards? I was really surprised when I saw the proliferation of the new standards. It meant my initial design was about 3 times bigger than it needed to be.

My biggest beef with vertical screens is the standard "slotted PVC" approach to getting water on the screen. It has been VERY difficult for me to get reliable flow at the required rate without random trickles of water spraying off into nowhere every few hours/days.

If you needs more height, why not just raise the top of the ATS up above the lip of the tank? You could always build simple thin acrylic "extensions" of the tank walls to contain salt spray.


Agreed. I actually downsized my original design after much research and seeing the new sizing standards.

Personally, I have a 120g display and a 65g sump that holds 44g in normal operation. That's about 165g more or less. My screen is actually 160 sq in. but I'm only focusing in on a 10x10 square area or 100 sq in although I know I'll get more spread than that from my lights. With the option of having more than enough light and flow with full control over either one I should ultimately end up with the equivalent of a scrubber on steriods if I wish I don't think I'll be sacrificing much in growth and filtering potential.

Sorry I cannot report on how well it works yet. But my best edgumucated guess is that it will perform much better than the majority of designs that I see floating around the net.

Raising the scrubber above the tank would definitely necessitate the use of some type of splash shield. I've tweaked and modified the basic vertical design quite a bit before I ended up with something that made me happy. I've also found that I get the best possible control of flow over my screen when feeding the screen with water from both sides of the spray bar with a valve on each side for fine tuning. I gave up trying to modify spray bars to get even flow across the screen and finally found what I believe to be the best way to achieve it, if that happens to be a concern for some or not. Although I'm sure I'm not the first to try it.

[2Quills]

Apparently I haven't been around for a while. Any chance you can link to this "food based" stuff?

New Sizing Guidelines...it's stickied in the Algae Scrubber Talk forum over on the scrubber site.

[kcress]

DWZM I couldn't agree more. I never got uniform flow down the screen. It was always a mess off onto adjacent surfaces.

I intend to completely cover the ATS side of the sump to constrain the evaporation. If I rise into the space above that becomes a large task by itself instead of a simple lid.

Besides I spent a week designing, routing, and fabricating the two trays. I have to at least try them!! :)

Look at the rest of the design. Do I need the "bubble trap"? Do they even work?

Where in this whole thing do I monitor water level for make-up???

[Rybren]

Have you considered the horizontal flow approach as used by PaulB? He uses a half-vinyl fence post (I suppose an eaves-trough would also work) lined with a cement infused window screen. One end is slightly higher than the other to encourage flow and the trough is fed by the output of his skimmer. Paul swears that the cement really encourages algae growth.

If you need more surface area, I suspect that you could attach a U fitting and have another length going the opposite direction.

[widmer]

I know that thread over in the advanced techniques forum was a monster the last time I looked at it, which was a few months ago. Maybe someone can fill me in on a couple of the highlights. Are people really moving away from the vertical screen and going toward flat or slanted?

[kcress]

Rybren; Thanks. I think I'd need about a mile of gutter to add up to 400+ square inches.

Widdy; No! I doubt horizontals will ever be big. They are less efficient. They need more flow. They need twice the lighting. And they have lots of operational problems. I ran one for a year and had marginal success. You can see my write-up on the scrubber site. It's the longest thread unless something has finally unseated it.

[stevetcg]

I solve the random water spray issue from my slotted pvc by running a toothbrush along the screen/pipe junction daily.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

For the sake of ease, this is a cut and paste from SM's "new sizing guidelines" post on the scrubber forum:

New Scrubber Sizing Guideline (Sept 2011)

Scrubbers will now be sized according to feeding. Nutrients "in" (feeding) must equal nutrients "out" (scrubber growth), no matter how many gallons you have. So...

An example VERTICAL waterfall screen size is 3 X 4 inches = 12 square inches of screen (7.5 X 10 cm = 75 sq cm) with a total of 12 real watts (not equivalent) of fluorescent light for 18 hours a day. If all 12 watts are on one side, it is a 1-sided screen. If 6 watts are on each side, it is a 2-sided screen, but the total is still 12 watts for 18 hours a day. This screen size and wattage should be able to handle the following amounts of daily feeding:

1 frozen cube per day (2-sided screen), or
1/2 frozen cube per day (1-sided screen), or
10 pinches of flake food per day (2-sided screen), or
5 pinches of flake food per day (1-sided screen), or
10 square inches (60 sq cm) of nori per day (2-sided screen), or
5 square inches (30 sq cm) of nori per day (1-sided screen), or
0.1 dry ounce (2.8 grams) of pellet food per day (2-sided screen), or
0.05 dry ounce (1.4 grams) of pellet food per day (1-sided screen)

High-wattage technique: Double the wattage, and cut the hours in half (to 9 per day). This will get brown screens to grow green much faster. Thus the example above would be 12 watts on each side, for a total of 24 watts, but for only 9 hours per day. If growth starts to turn YELLOW, then increase the flow, or add iron, or reduce the number of hours. And since the bulbs are operating for 9 hours instead of 18, they will last 6 months instead of 3 months.

HORIZONTAL screens: Multiply the screen size by 4, and the wattage by 1.5

Flow is 24 hours, and is at least 35 gph per inch of width of screen [60 lph per cm], EVEN IF one sided or horizontal.

Very rough screen made of roughed-up-like-a-cactus plastic canvas.

Clean algae off of screen every 7 to 14 days, so that you can see the white screen material.

Basically, if you assume lighting two sides, at one watt per square inch, you need 12 square inches per "cube of frozen equivalent" food you put in the tank.

Upon reading this and giving up on the old sizing guidelines, I went from two gigantic screens (something like 14 x 12", I forget exactly) to one gigantic screen and it's still technically way too big for what I feed. If/when I get around to a total redesign it'll go even smaller.

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Look at the rest of the design. Do I need the "bubble trap"? Do they even work?

Where in this whole thing do I monitor water level for make-up???

I do think you will need the trap. In my sump, the scrubber is pretty much the only source of bubbles and I definitely need a bubble trap.

Water level changes from evap will show up in the return pump compartment, unless the water level in the sump is above the top of the last baffle in the bubble trap, at which point the whole sump's level will drop with evap.

[Paul B]

No! I doubt horizontals will ever be big. They are less efficient. They need more flow. They need twice the lighting. And they have lots of operational problems. I ran one for a year and had marginal success

I don't necessarilly agree with all this but in either case, if you don't use a sump, like me, then that is the only way to go.

[widmer]

I don't necessarilly agree with all this but in either case, if you don't use a sump, like me, then that is the only way to go.

If you don't use a sump, horizontal is the only way to go? I wouldn't be so sure about that. Stay tuned. ;)

[der_wille_zur_macht]

SM's own (commercial) design is vertical, and can be used sans-sump.

[mick243]

New Sizing Guidelines...it's stickied in the Algae Scrubber Talk forum over on the scrubber site.

where does one find "the scrubber site" . . . . could you please post a link?

[2Quills]

where does one find "the scrubber site" . . . . could you please post a link?

I don't think you can post links to other forum sites here. I tried it before and it got moderated. I believe DWZM posted the new guidelines above. But if you oogle search Algae Scrubber it will probably be the first and or second link that you see.

[kcress]

I do think you will need the trap. In my sump, the scrubber is pretty much the only source of bubbles and I definitely need a bubble trap.

Water level changes from evap will show up in the return pump compartment, unless the water level in the sump is above the top of the last baffle in the bubble trap, at which point the whole sump's level will drop with evap.

Thanks a bunch for posting the "New Rules".. Most interesting.

Horribly more complicated... I'm not sure I agree with them yet. They're sure a lot harder to comprehend. Look at my case. I don't feed at all. That means I need a 0.0sqin screen.:uhoh3:

There is the whole issue of needing a lot of screen to get to the low levels that invoke the most efficient algae. That was the my original failing - not enough filter so I was stuck in realturf land instead of reaching the HA promised land.

I can see someone with an established tank converting successfully by knowing what they feed and using the "new" sizing rule. But otherwise I think you HAVE to use the original rule to start out.

In fact I think the original rule should be followed in all initial builds. Once everything is running for months then size modification could be made using the "mature system rules".


As for my sump levels.. I have the pictured trap I don't see how any one of my areas will ever be a level indicator. Wouldn't the whole sump straight across fluctuate?

[kcress]

I don't necessarilly agree with all this but in either case, if you don't use a sump, like me, then that is the only way to go.


On my old tank I built the sump standing on top of the DT:

http://www.box.com/shared/static/rk35hzffg1.jpg

http://www.box.com/shared/static/ypf0uqjjrp.jpg

So non-sump applications don't necessarily demand horizontal scrubbers.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in horizontals for the many cases that verticals just can't fit. If mine works without the flow problems my last horizontal had, I will be beating the horizontal drum harder. :D

[2Quills]

That's a neat looking build. How did that acrylic screen work out if I may ask?

What's your plans for the leds?


I made a little change to your sketch in regards to the water level and evaporation in the return/sump chamber....

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa3/lonewolf007_2007/SumpGifj.jpg

[widmer]

where does one find "the scrubber site" . . . . could you please post a link?

The lore goes that a long time ago there was a super hot debate on here about the merits of algae scrubbers vs skimming. It resulted in the founder of "the scrubber site" being banned from this forum, his name never to be mentioned again like he was Voldemort or something.

To find it, you can google "algae scrubber" and at least for me, it is the first site that pops up on google. It is a .net website...

Similarly, you can always wander over to the Advanced Topics section on RC, where there are a couple very successful algae scrubber threads stickied.

[kcress]

Ahhhhhh, Thanks a bunch Quills! That makes it much clearer. Man that was hard to fathom for me.

Yes! That was a truly awesome looking build wasn't it. Really first class looking.

Then, like anything associated with fish-water cleaning systems, teaming with battling life forms, it started looking yucky in about 2 weeks and hideous in a month.

I had lots of minor issues that cascaded. You know, minor + minor + minor = major. The weir thing allowed some water to rivulet down the sides and water would also eject off the screen and hit the front window and algae would start growing there. Hard algae. Really H A R D algae.

The acrylic proved truly hopeless. I finally took an angle grinder to it. I completely mangled it. Cut-your-hands mangled it. Still, attempts at cleaning it would have huge square patches shedding right down to the acrylic.

I converted that whole thing into a horizontal. I had a horizontal porous ceramic plate made for the screen. That worked pretty well. Unfortunately it only grew, true, actual turf. The incorrect (and undesired), namesake of incorrectly named AlgaeTurfScrubbers. It grew turf because the scrubber was woefully undersized since I made the bad decision to just 'try" an ATS instead of the required 'all in' that's actually needed.

Algae Turf Scrubbers should actually NOT be called that. They should be called Hair Algae Scrubbers. Something like "HAS". The mis-naming of these scrubbers confuses people trying to run them, just as it confused me for months. This is because I actually grew Turf. I had gorgeous turf and no usable nitrate removal.

Algae Turf looks a lot like AstroTurf with cylindrical blades of grass instead of flat ones.

[2Quills]

That's pretty much why I just call them algae scrubbers or scrubbers these days. I do still see folks throwing the name turf scrubber around rather loosely here and there. Even though they are very capable of growing turf, it is no longer the desired type of growth to have.

Enter the age of GHAS's...or GAS for short. :P

I wonder what would have happened to that turf if you blasted it with twice the light over a shorter period of time more often...

[kcress]

GAS works for me.

Nothing would change if you doubled the light on turf. The stuff is tough as nails. When you take a credit card to turf nothing happens. When you take anything more serious to turf you get extremely wet because the round 'leaves' just pop like so many water balloons. Still none comes off.

Turf is a much more advanced plant than HA. WaaaaaaAAAAy more complex. But to pull that off it needs really high nitrates. I was running 1,000ppm. Like pure plant food. That let the complex turf thrive and choke out the HA completely. Unfortunately the turf is kinda stodgy and doesn't mass-out like HA.


You asked about light and I forgot about that. I'm going to use 3 XMLs per screen. I'll probably push them to about 2A. If I don't get the spread I want I'll interpose cracked-ice sheeting.

[Paul B]

If you don't use a sump, horizontal is the only way to go? I wouldn't be so sure about that. Stay tuned.

Actually I forgot about that. My first one was above the tank almost exactly like that. It started out years ago as a wet dry, then I converted it to a algae filter and now I converted it to a chiller.