Algae Scrubber Basics

[rishma]

thinking about a small turf scrubber. I found my tank paramters were best when there was a nice turf algea layer on my bare bottom. it looked like hell but no algea grew anywhere else and the water was pristine....

Is anyone using a hardware store 3000K or 5600K LED spot light? seems like way less hassle than builing a reflector for a CF bulb. I am a neat and tidy kinda guy.....

cheers and thanks

[Whip316]

awesome thread. i read......most of it.hehe its alot of reading and my adhd keeps me from reading it all.
i have a tank setup different from most. i am a clown breeder and i have a total of 200g. i have 16 pairs of clowns and i feed them frozen and pellet food 6 times a day or more. so i feed a ton and they poop a ton.
i got a nice skimmer thats SRO-5000xt. but the skimmer cant get it all and i want to keep the water a little more cleaner. i was gonna try the bio ball route but i maybe want to try an ats.
i got 16 pairs of clowns in my system and i would not know what size of an ats i would need. i seen somewhere someone made one out of a vinyl gutter. i dont want to do the 3D one. i got some room to work with and i can make something of a good size. my sump is a 75g tank. my hammerhead pump is large enough to make a seperate ats tank or system.
anyone have a good idea what i could do?

[breakdanc3]

my tank has made big improvements .. thanks to this thread

[srusso]

Originally Posted by rishma

thinking about a small turf scrubber. I found my tank paramters were best when there was a nice turf algea layer on my bare bottom. it looked like hell but no algea grew anywhere else and the water was pristine....

Is anyone using a hardware store 3000K or 5600K LED spot light? seems like way less hassle than builing a reflector for a CF bulb. I am a neat and tidy kinda guy.....

cheers and thanks

LEDs need to be "grow" lights. ~660nm red and ~440nm blue

"LED spotlights" sold in hardware stores are not suitable for algae scrubbers, I am not saying it wont grow something... just not what we are looking for...



Chlorophyll.jpg

[srusso]

Originally Posted by Whip316

awesome thread. i read......most of it.hehe its alot of reading and my adhd keeps me from reading it all.
i have a tank setup different from most. i am a clown breeder and i have a total of 200g. i have 16 pairs of clowns and i feed them frozen and pellet food 6 times a day or more. so i feed a ton and they poop a ton.
i got a nice skimmer thats SRO-5000xt. but the skimmer cant get it all and i want to keep the water a little more cleaner. i was gonna try the bio ball route but i maybe want to try an ats.
i got 16 pairs of clowns in my system and i would not know what size of an ats i would need. i seen somewhere someone made one out of a vinyl gutter. i dont want to do the 3D one. i got some room to work with and i can make something of a good size. my sump is a 75g tank. my hammerhead pump is large enough to make a seperate ats tank or system.
anyone have a good idea what i could do?

Scrubber sizing is based on feed requirements, so its now based on how much you feed your 16 clowns, great to hear a breeder is ready to give an algae scrubber a try, the information your looking for is found in the "Latest Summary - Post #3251 - #3264" of this thread.

The vinyl gutter design is known as a trough style scrubber, basically x4 less effective then the waterfall design.

Use LEDs if you can, they don't need to be changed very 3 months like the CFLs among other benefits...

Lastly please post your scrubber and post your results here, thank you and happy scrubbing!

[srusso]

Originally Posted by breakdanc3

my tank has made big improvements .. thanks to this thread

Do you have before and after photos? Can you describe what it has done to your tank?

From the looks of your video, your scrubber could still use some tweaking, can you cut circular holes into the side of the bucket to allow the lights to point directly at the scrubber screen?

[breakdanc3]

My acropora was brown with no polyp extention.
Birds nest dieing/receding and growing hair algae
My torch coral continued to dwindle away. (its all gone now. had it for two years)
zoanthids were a tan/ brown sorta color.
Mushrooms stayed shriveled and never reproduced.
Green star polyps stopped opening up when they got covered in cyano and lost fluorescence
Sand and rocks covered in cyano and hair algae

method? every 2 week 10g water change(60g system) 100g rated eshops skimmer. reverse lighting refugium in sump. with cheato and caulerpa both didn't grown and became a mess of hair algae. feeding with 1 cube a day from a petsmart marine blend frozen food. no carbon. I began vodka dosing one capful everyday to see if it had an impact. After 4 weeks nothing noticeable, things continued to get worse.

I believe it was a mixture of underfeeding, Horrible Nutrient export. Over skimming, and buildup of nitrate or/and phosphate from a bad RO filter in top off water. (i haven't changed it in two years)

New Method: No skimmer. A ceramic biomedia chamber in its place. Bucket style algae turf scrubber clean every 4-7 days on average. Added Carbon filled sock in baffle. I used erythromycin in a effort to rid of cyano instantly. This combination of changes has had awesome results.

Result?
Acro has polyp extention and is now bright Green!
Birdsnest is growing quickly and now has polyp extention again. even growing over dead skeleton and hair algae!
Zoanthids now Teal/blue and Green
Mushrooms now twice their size.
Greenstar polyps came out again and had to regained its green fluorescent color.
Sand is clean cyano free. Hair algae slowly going away. I did remove most by hand in display.

My algae screen is still not green. It's brown. I was told Green is the best.

Fish seemed fine in both systems. maybe more lively now.

I would like to think that what i had in the past was terrible nutrient export, Removal of any Good FOod, and allowed the N and P to build with top off from bad RO filter. Though without any sort of water testing i don't know. All i know is i love my tank and corals. they're much happier

[breakdanc3]

Sadly i don't have any pics of it in its worse state. It was just embarrassing.

[rishma]

okay, thanks rsusso. I guess I'll just go with a cfl. If I like the results I'll have you guys advise me on which eshine unit to get.

[srusso]

Originally Posted by breakdanc3

My acropora was brown with no polyp extention.
Birds nest dieing/receding and growing hair algae
My torch coral continued to dwindle away. (its all gone now. had it for two years)
zoanthids were a tan/ brown sorta color.
Mushrooms stayed shriveled and never reproduced.
Green star polyps stopped opening up when they got covered in cyano and lost fluorescence
Sand and rocks covered in cyano and hair algae

method? every 2 week 10g water change(60g system) 100g rated eshops skimmer. reverse lighting refugium in sump. with cheato and caulerpa both didn't grown and became a mess of hair algae. feeding with 1 cube a day from a petsmart marine blend frozen food. no carbon. I began vodka dosing one capful everyday to see if it had an impact. After 4 weeks nothing noticeable, things continued to get worse.

I believe it was a mixture of underfeeding, Horrible Nutrient export. Over skimming, and buildup of nitrate or/and phosphate from a bad RO filter in top off water. (i haven't changed it in two years)

New Method: No skimmer. A ceramic biomedia chamber in its place. Bucket style algae turf scrubber clean every 4-7 days on average. Added Carbon filled sock in baffle. I used erythromycin in a effort to rid of cyano instantly. This combination of changes has had awesome results.

Result?
Acro has polyp extention and is now bright Green!
Birdsnest is growing quickly and now has polyp extention again. even growing over dead skeleton and hair algae!
Zoanthids now Teal/blue and Green
Mushrooms now twice their size.
Greenstar polyps came out again and had to regained its green fluorescent color.
Sand is clean cyano free. Hair algae slowly going away. I did remove most by hand in display.

My algae screen is still not green. It's brown. I was told Green is the best.

Fish seemed fine in both systems. maybe more lively now.

I would like to think that what i had in the past was terrible nutrient export, Removal of any Good FOod, and allowed the N and P to build with top off from bad RO filter. Though without any sort of water testing i don't know. All i know is i love my tank and corals. they're much happier

Great write up, thank you for that! Dark growth is normal for a recovering tank. The more often you clean, the faster green growth should start. Cleaning every three days will help a lot, its a PITA but worth it. How old is the scrubber?

[srusso]

In the ReefThreads podcast #88, Craig Bingman briefly discusses algae scrubbers "Another really important and maybe to this day underappreciated thread that was starting with Dr. Adey at the Smithsonian. And he was championing algal turf scrubbers for as a nutrient export mechanism and I think we probably don't pay enough attention to that even today. That is a really exceptionally good way of getting nutrients out of a reef aquarium system. And it tends to be a balanced way of removing nutrients as well…” (22:30 minutes into the podcast)

[breakdanc3]

Thanks I'll start cleaning it every 3 days. Can't really remember when i installed it. But its been more than a month. Its starting to go green with some patches .. woot

[Whip316]

i had another question. i was thinking of adding bioballs into my stock system. then using the srain from the BB to trickle into my ATS. are bioballs benificial or just a waste of time? i am looking to try to get my water healthy as i can not only for the fish, but for the eggs. alot of times we breeders feed massive amounts of food. i know i feed atleast 2 large ice cube tray frozen food i make. plus some pellets 2x a day. so with all the food my water is clear, but in the sump its a yellow tint. when it gets darker i will do a water change. with our systems dirty and i know the ammonia and n and p are prolly thru the roof. when we transfer the eggs to the hatch tank we take tank water to add sometimes and we are bringing in the dirty water. this sometimes kills the babies in the tank cause the ammonia will spike very fast from the fry poop, rotifer waste and the algae paste we add. so i want to make the parent water as clean as possible to try to avoid ammonia spikes and killing the eggs.

[srusso]

Originally Posted by Whip316

i had another question. i was thinking of adding bioballs into my stock system. then using the srain from the BB to trickle into my ATS. are bioballs benificial or just a waste of time? i am looking to try to get my water healthy as i can not only for the fish, but for the eggs. alot of times we breeders feed massive amounts of food. i know i feed atleast 2 large ice cube tray frozen food i make. plus some pellets 2x a day. so with all the food my water is clear, but in the sump its a yellow tint. when it gets darker i will do a water change. with our systems dirty and i know the ammonia and n and p are prolly thru the roof. when we transfer the eggs to the hatch tank we take tank water to add sometimes and we are bringing in the dirty water. this sometimes kills the babies in the tank cause the ammonia will spike very fast from the fry poop, rotifer waste and the algae paste we add. so i want to make the parent water as clean as possible to try to avoid ammonia spikes and killing the eggs.

With a properly built/sized scrubber, I would be surprised if you ever saw Ammonia again! Alga love ammonia and it is used the quickest by plants from what I understand. Therefore its common for ANY available amount to be used as soon as its made available. My 2 cents is to skip the bio balls...

[Whip316]

so once the ats gets up and running tha algae will remove all the bad 3 from my system if properly done correctly? i really need sit back and figure out how big i need to make this thing as per my massive feedings i do each day. my water always has a yellow tinge to it no matter. plus it would be awesome to not scrub the front glass every few days to get the algae off it. i am gonna get those leds off ebay or buy them myself and make a 3d one. so i dont have a massive thing added to my system. this way it can be a decent size and work awesomely.

another goo idea would to build a removeable ats system to be able to hook onto nano's and then unplug it and move it onto another. i got a solana and a jbj 24g nano that would benifit from a little ats. be cool to make a small removeable kit to place it on the ground and run it for a few weeks.

i am gonna actually make a small one in my second chamber perhaps. lower the water level and remove the media basket i have. i have the jbj led light i can use, or make a new magnetic one.

[Whip316]

so once the ats gets up and running tha algae will remove all the bad 3 from my system if properly done correctly? i really need sit back and figure out how big i need to make this thing as per my massive feedings i do each day. my water always has a yellow tinge to it no matter. plus it would be awesome to not scrub the front glass every few days to get the algae off it. i am gonna get those leds off ebay or buy them myself and make a 3d one. so i dont have a massive thing added to my system. this way it can be a decent size and work awesomely.

another goo idea would to build a removeable ats system to be able to hook onto nano's and then unplug it and move it onto another. i got a solana and a jbj 24g nano that would benifit from a little ats. be cool to make a small removeable kit to place it on the ground and run it for a few weeks.

i am gonna actually make a small one in my second chamber perhaps. lower the water level and remove the media basket i have. i have the jbj led light i can use, or make a new magnetic one.

[SeanT]

It has been about 6 weeks since I started my ATS and I only have very light brown algae.
There must be something I'm missing.

[TheHoove]

2nd cleaning, let it go almost 4 weeks:



Figured Id break even more rules, and not clean it untill i got good covering of algae.

[SeanT]

Lucky bastage (Johnny Dangerously).

[Dustin1300]

Originally Posted by SeanT

It has been about 6 weeks since I started my ATS and I only have very light brown algae.
There must be something I'm missing.

Share details about your ats as well as your system and feeding.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S3 using Tapatalk 2.

[patbob]

Originally Posted by Whip316

another goo idea would to build a removeable ats system to be able to hook onto nano's and then unplug it and move it onto another. i got a solana and a jbj 24g nano that would benifit from a little ats. be cool to make a small removeable kit to place it on the ground and run it for a few weeks.

This might not work. Others have reported that, even when getting a pre-cycled screen from someplace else, it still goes through a cycle. Try it and let us know how it goes, just be prepared if it doesn't work.

[Dwerbs]

So I know I read back awhile ago that algae scrubbers can cause cyano to bloom after it has removed the algae from the display. How long have people had this go on for typically. I have had my algae scrubbed set up for 4 months now and I have ZERO algae in my display but my sand keeps getting covered in cyano, with a little bit popping up on the rocks here and there. Anyone have any idea how much longer this will last for? My tank is a 140ish gallon tank 96x18x18, with an inch to two inches of sand on the bottom. I clean my scrubber weekly with a decent handful of green hair algae. I have tried 3 days of no light and it cleared up but game back the following week. Tried feeding less but still thrives. Thanks a lot for the help you guys.

[srusso]

Originally Posted by Dwerbs

So I know I read back awhile ago that algae scrubbers can cause cyano to bloom after it has removed the algae from the display. How long have people had this go on for typically. I have had my algae scrubbed set up for 4 months now and I have ZERO algae in my display but my sand keeps getting covered in cyano, with a little bit popping up on the rocks here and there. Anyone have any idea how much longer this will last for? My tank is a 140ish gallon tank 96x18x18, with an inch to two inches of sand on the bottom. I clean my scrubber weekly with a decent handful of green hair algae. I have tried 3 days of no light and it cleared up but game back the following week. Tried feeding less but still thrives. Thanks a lot for the help you guys.

Its most likely a flow issue. I have never heard of Cyano issues caused by an algae scrubber.

[srusso]

The LEDs and drivers have finally arrived for (hopefully) the final build of a waterfall scrubber of this tank. This new build will have a full set of LEDs both ~660nm and ~450nm at a 4:1 ratio. I have a 7-12 led driver to run 10 LEDs total. (at least that's the plan now) all of the equipment was from satisled

Hope to build this weekend.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1341878482.206102.jpg

The extra driver and LEDs are for play

[Floyd R Turbo]

Originally Posted by Dwerbs

So I know I read back awhile ago that algae scrubbers can cause cyano to bloom after it has removed the algae from the display. How long have people had this go on for typically. I have had my algae scrubbed set up for 4 months now and I have ZERO algae in my display but my sand keeps getting covered in cyano, with a little bit popping up on the rocks here and there. Anyone have any idea how much longer this will last for? My tank is a 140ish gallon tank 96x18x18, with an inch to two inches of sand on the bottom. I clean my scrubber weekly with a decent handful of green hair algae. I have tried 3 days of no light and it cleared up but game back the following week. Tried feeding less but still thrives. Thanks a lot for the help you guys.

It's not so much that a scrubber can cause cyano. What can happen is that when you have a long term nutrient problem, then you fix it by running a scrubber, you can set up a situation where the nutrients that are locked in the sand and rocks being to leech out, and the cyano gets to it first before it can reach the scrubber. If your scrubber is strong enough, it will eventually beat it out, but it may take some time. Feeding less for a period of time can help the nutrients get leeched out and absorbed by the scrubber rather than the scrubber taking care of the nutrients from the food, or you can make your scrubber temporarily more powerful (more light)