Waterfall Turf Algea Filter: CHEAP and EASY to build

[SantaMonica]

Been busy working on the build-thread. Built a second bucket as part of the thread, and have it running now next to the original bucket. Is anyone else building / designing / wanting one?

[herring_fish]

I am re-starting my old dump bucket in a new configuration. Unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate so I am going very very slowly. Since it is a standard dump bucket design, I think that I will start a new thread for it. If so, I will post a link to it. I also believe that I will add a set of plans so that others can build it if they want to.

The down side of this true Algae Turf Scrubber/dump bucket is that you would need to get the Plexiglas and the correct glue from a plastics company. Then you would probably need to go to some place like Ace Hardware to get it cut up.

For this particular AST design, you would need to go to a steel supplier to get the counter weight. The last time I went, they cut it to size for me for very little money. I believe that it was only a few dollars total.

It’s all a bit of a pain in the neck to get the stuff to build it but it’s cheaper than a skimmer.

[herring_fish]

.

[SantaMonica]

That's a lot of work. Why not just throw together a bucket for now and get it going, and work on your large one long term? Then when the large one is done, if it ever breaks you'll have your bucket for a backup.

[herring_fish]

I am going to use the old dump bucket. It worked great for year so why not? I need to get a new counter weight again and an enclosure to catch the water spills. I will design that on CAD first so I know that it works for my setup and fits in the cabinet.

Right now, I am dosing my tank with sodium silicate to get a diatom bloom per Charles Matthews which is supposed to suppress feature hair algae. I accidentally did something like that in my oldest tank and it work great. Next, I will cut back on the silicate and seed my (mined) dead reef rock from Carib Sea with reef Grung from GARF. I will use the additives that they recommend to hopefully get the calcareous algae to turn the rock purple and to bring the rock to life.

At the same time, I am setting up the lighting, shopping for a Red Bull Mini Refrigerator to keep my dendro food fresh in and working on the tank cabinet. I was promised a rebuild four station peristaltic dosing pump from a distributor but that has not come yet but that has to be incorporated as well.

I put the old ATS outside in the sun filled with water and some Metrical Grow in it but that did not work. I just build my light fixture with 4 T5 4100K Compact fluorescents and am about to set it up right on top of the ATS with a small pump to add circulation and aeration. I will use the MGrow again but I will not have it hooked up to the tank. I don’t want the two chemical soaps to get mixed up before they both come to fruition. Hopefully, I will get algae to grow right on the plastic like it used to do.

In the past, after messing with the screen for quite a while, I noticed that the algae had taken hold right on the plastic so I threw the screen way and never looked back. About every one or two a week the bucket would stop in the down position, letting me know that it was time to harvest. I simply grabbed a hand full of the Easter basket grass algae and through it away with no scrapping. Then the bucket went right back to dumping regularly.

I have a lot of stuff to package in my unfinished cabinet. I also have a lot of other projects that demand my attention. It’s very slow but I hope to get there.

[SantaMonica]

Forgot to post Friday's screen pics. Now that I'm getting a feeling for how this all works, I'm seeing that the key is to grow the real turf (reddish/brown and stiff like astro turf) and remove the green hair/slime. I did not do this to start with. I (along with others, I believe) thought that the green stuff was part of the "turf" too. But it's not. It's nuisance algae covering the real turf. But it grows much faster and longer than the turf. This explains why it's the first algae to grow on the new un-seeded screen, and why if you do buy a pre-grown screen, it seems to morph from brownish/red into green.

But it's not morphing; it being smothered by the green. So my weekly process has changed from scraping all the algae off the screen, to scrubbing the green algae off of the turf algae. Unfortunately I already completely scraped the right (originally seeded) side, but the real turf is slowing coming back. This all explains why after the first two weeks the N and P started showing again: The green hair/slime had completely covered the turf. While the green is good in and of itself (it does do some filtering, and it will be the first to grow on a new screen), it does not compare to real red/green turf. So in effect when I completely scraped the seeded side I removed almost all my filtering.

Fortunatly, the unseeded left side is about 1/3 covered by real turf, and is probably doing most of the filtering. The right side is now two weeks past the scraping and is starting to show real turf again. But the trick is to keep the green hair/slime off of the turf so the turf does not get shaded. It's really easy to scrub the green off, like washing your hair. Green comes right off, and turf stays right on (you'll need more than your fingernails to remove real turf.) From now on i'm going to just scrub the screen clean, and I'm going to hold off scraping the turf until it is completely full of it. This whole process reminds me of adjusting a skimmer to get that sweet spot of just the right amount of foam.

Anyways, here are the pics; this one is the left side, unseeded and never scraped, but now scrubbed every few days. In the center you can see the real turf starting to rise up:

Hi-Res: www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenLeft4weeks.jpg


This is the right side, scraped once two weeks ago, but since then only scrubbed every few days. Since the real turf was scraped down to the screen, it's about even now with the green and has not risen up yet:

Hi-Res: www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenRight4weeks.jpg


This news about how the green algae works is good. It means that since green will be the first algae to grow on a new un-seeded screen, you can "seed" your own new screen by just rubbing in some green algae that you get from your display overflow. This doesn't "grow" it on your screen, it just gets the spores onto it. This is what I did with the 5 gal nano that I'm testing, and the screen was completely covered in green in a week. I'll be posting those nano pics soon.

This places more value on the pre-grown turf from IA; those screens save not just one, but many months of growing real turf. While a new unseeded screen will start growing green and lowering your N and P the first week (like in my nano test), the intense pull of real turf either has to be grown slowly over many months (keeping it free of green), or it has to be bought from IA.

herring, the plastic that the algae is growing on, is it eggcrate? Interesting idea... culturing some algae in a separate container.

[herring_fish]

herring, the plastic that the algae is growing on, is it eggcrate?

No the algae grew right on the smooth plastic bottom of the bucket. It didn’t happen for quite a while but once it did, the resulting growth was very rapid, just like on the screen, only it was much more convenient to harvest. Perhaps there was some pitting going on in the plastic. I don’t know but it did take hold.

Over time, my algae changed from one kind to another and back again. Your scrubber will probably go through lots of changes before it settles into a grove. The Easter basket grass grew the fastest for me but it didn’t matter what was growing. It all absorbed nutrients.

At first, I lamented about what was growing in the scrubber but after a while I realized that splitting hairs just gave me gray ones on my head.

The scrubber just has to be big enough, have agitation and lots of light. Once my scrubber got mature, I never was able to measure any nurturance it the tank so I didn’t worry. Of course, it was fun watching the changes and trying to figure out what was causing the changes.

The quick start that you used, does seem to save time. I have the left over dried algae in the bucket. We’ll see if I have to go through the entire cycle from scratch. If I do, I will wish that I copied you.

[SantaMonica]

Ahh. Well it's doing the same thing on my 5 gal nano test... growing right on the plastic in addition to the screen; but then again this screen is just plastic too. It's not doing this in my regular turf bucket; the sides of the bucket don't even get wet.

Types of turf over time: I think this is the big "discovery" of doing turf the correct way. Nobody spelled it out in an absolute manner, but every time it turned up in my reading that one algae type did better than another, real red/brown stiff astro turf type algae was the one. So who knows... maybe you were getting good results with green hair, but you can't get less than zero nutrients, like you had.

[SantaMonica]

Here's a video of the tank today; tried to get as close as possible to the corals/rocks as I could with this old 2meg Sony, and thus scared all the fishes away

http://www.radio-media.com/fish/WholeTank08-11-08.mpg

[SantaMonica]

The 5 gal nano test is almost done, and I'll be posting the numbers soon. If anyone has something in particular that they'd like to find out from this test, let me know and I'll try to incorporate it in.

[SantaMonica]

Here's an interesting one that someone just built... said it took him just a few minutes:

[SantaMonica]

Part 1 of 2


Ok here are the results of the 5 gal nano test. First, here is the tank, which has 3 pounds LR, a SSB, along with a purple lobster, a starfish, and a clown:




The tank has been on an office worker's desk (his first tank), with no water changes for about four months. The last change was done only to get nitrate down (a result of overfeeding of course), in order to keep the animals happy. Phosphate was not a concern since there were no corals, and thus there was no phosphate removal system in place.

As you can see, the light and most of the hood were removed, as was the little sponge filter. The remaining part of the hood has a compartment for the sponge filter, which is 2 X 3 inches, and it has a little built in pump to move water across this compartment. I started out by taking some tank-divider material and cutting it to a tight fit into the compartment:




Then I sanded it very rough on the top, and I "seeded" it by taking some green hair algea and rubbing the algae HARD into the sanded side. Then I pushed the screen into the sponge filter compartment:




The screen is only 6 square inches, single sided, and thus not enough for this tank according to the rule of thumb of one square inch per gallon (double sided), or two square inches per gallon (single sided). Thus for this 5 gal tank single-sided I should have 10 square inches instead of 6, but of course for simplicity I just used the compartment size.

Since we had already removed the original tank light, we were going to just use the light for the screen as the new tank light too. So I just took one of the same bulbs that I used in the bucket, a 23 Watt, 5100K compact fluorescents "full-spectrum" (125W output equivalent):


http://www.buylighting.com/23-Watt-R...1r4023-51k.htm


...and set it directly on the plastic hood, which put it only a half inch from the flowing water:




Thankfully these CFL's run very cool, and you can put your hand right on them without burning. Of course if you try this light placement yourself, you'd want to test it carefully so that you don't melt anything, and won't knock the bulb over. I thought that the light might heat up the water, but it does not seem to. The light is on an 18-hour-on timer, and provides the tank itself with much more light than the original hood light did.



Results: Here are the measurements (Salifert) and pics taken over a period of days:


....................N...........P
.
day 0..........*............*...............not measured
day 1........(50)........( .5 )
day 2..........*............*...............not measured
day 3..........*............*...............not measured
day 4..........*............*...............not measured
day 5........(50)........( .5 )
day 6........(25)........( .25 )
day 7........(15)........( .13 ).........screen full
day 8........(15)........(1.0)...........screen full
day 9........(10)........(1.0)...........whole screen cleaned (mistake)
day 10......(10)........(1.0)...........growing back
day 11......(8)..........(1.0)...........growing back more
day 12......(8)..........(1.0)...........half cleaned
day 13......(8)..........( .5 )
day 14......(5)..........( .25 ).........other half cleaned
day 15......(8)..........( .13 )
day 16......(3)..........( .13 ).........other half cleaned; housing cleaned
day 17......( 2.5 ).....( .05 )
day 18......( .5 ).......( .05 )
day 19......( .2 ).......( .05 ).........other half cleaned (not much there)
day 20......(0)..........( .015 ).......green growing back over brown



Day 2:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay02screen.jpg

Day 3:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay03screen.jpg

Day 7:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay07screen.jpg

Continued....

[SantaMonica]

Part 2 of 2


Day 9, before complete cleaning:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...eScrapeDay.jpg

Day 9, After complete cleaning (mistake)

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...fterScrape.jpg

Day 12, half cleaned:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...halfScrape.jpg

Day 16:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay16screen.jpg

Day 17:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay17screen.jpg

Day 18:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay18screen.jpg

Day 19, in tank:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...19screenIn.jpg

Day 19, removed:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...nOutBefore.jpg

Day 19, after cleaning top half:

Hi Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5gal...enOutAfter.jpg


You'll see on day 7 that the screen filled up. However I had never seen it full before, so I did not know what "full" looked like. So I left it to see how full it would get. Day 8 the screen looked the same, but there was a big increase in P, and I surmised that the screen had filled up and some strands of algae were shadowing others, causing the others to detach and flow into the tank and die (not enough light in the tank to survive). So I waited one more day to be sure (day 9), and sure enough the P was still very high.

So on Day 9 I cleaned (mistakenly) the whole screen, whereas I should have only cleaned half. Thus, I had no filtering, and it took a few day to fill in again. By day 14, nitrate and phosphate were at reasonable levels, and I was doing half-screen cleanings properly. By day 18 the nitrate and phosphate were bottoming out and staying constant, and nitrate eventually got to zero at day 20.


So the things learned:

1) A small screen size, even one sided, can do a tremendous job of filtering. (Phosphate from .5 to .015, and Nitrate from 50 to 0, in three weeks).

2) It can do this filtering with a constant flow of water (no pulsing), although a timer on the little pump would be easy to add and try out.

3) It can do this filtering with regular green algae; it has not had time to form true red/brown turf, although it was starting to feel like some was growing.

4) It all can be done in the nano's hood, with a standard light, for free.


Ok, now it's seriously time for you nano folks to try this!

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

I'm really interested in what you're doing here but I have to admit... there doesn't seem to be much traction in the community. You'd think saying something like "you don't need a skimmer anymore" would be a huge deal. It would be revolutionary. Nothing new actually. There are plenty of people who do that now. They just don't have mixed reefs or heavily dominated SPS tanks. It really depends on what you have in your tank what you can get away with. And by looking at your tank pics it doesn't seem like you have much in the way of SPS if any at all. Most who don't have a skimmer bypass this with a large fuge. So even then this could be a really big idea b/c a turf scrubber has a much smaller footprint than a big fuge.

I just wonder where is the interest. There was a lot of interest in VODKA and RC just put out an article about it. I'm curious about this as well but there doesn't seem to be much interest from the higher-ups here, the ones I respect. I didn't see one post here yet. I also noticed there was a single TOTM that I have read using this method. Pwhitby used a "spraybar" in 2007 TOTM but it was just to tumble cheato.

[bergzy]

Originally posted by SCIFI_3D_zoo
Most who don't have a skimmer bypass this with a large fuge. So even then this could be a really big idea b/c a turf scrubber has a much smaller footprint than a big fuge.

I just wonder where is the interest. There was a lot of interest in VODKA and RC just put out an article about it. I'm curious about this as well but there doesn't seem to be much interest from the higher-ups here, the ones I respect. I didn't see one post here yet. I also noticed there was a single TOTM that I have read using this method. Pwhitby used a "spraybar" in 2007 TOTM but it was just to tumble cheato.

from my experimentation...

i have a 2g fuge on my 110g mixed reef that has been skimmerless for the past 8 months with the only source of nutrient export is chaeto growth and bi-monthly water changes from my 180g sps tank. from my experiences, i didnt need a large fuge. i just needed an effective fuge to grow chaeto asap! i found that large amounts of chaeto actually didnt remove nutrients as fast as smaller faster growing chaeto colonies.

but...macro growth has slowed down considerably since using zeo and vodka.

i have been dosing vodka for about year(?) now on my 180g spswith excellent results. before dosing vodka, i did (and still do) zeovit for nutrient reduction very slowly. i transitioned vodka in only as a carbon source for the zeovit bacteria. excellent results with zeo and vodka btw!!!

i dont use a scrubber simply because i dont have a whole lot of nutrients for algae to grow and already have a great functioning fuge growing algae (when it ever decides to show up).

the fuge on the 180g sps is still running with the light on and everything. it is pretty much empty but i do get the occasional bit of fuzzy algae growing that i quickly harvest away...

on my 110g mixed reef. i only run it skimmerless because the pump i got for my bermuda hang on skimmer is too big and it kept backflowing and spilling all over my garage floor. i disconnected it and from that day on....havent noticed detrimental effects. i do run about a 1/2 liter of carbon passively in a mesh bag that sits on the sump bottom. this gets changed out once a month.

i wouldnt event running the sps tank without a skimmer. i am not going to try it on my system...but perhaps if someone is brave enough to do so on theirs...i would love to read about their experience.

turf filters never really caught on. one guess is that adey's smithsonian display got very negative comments about yellowing water and constant creature die off.

ats' were expensive large cumbersome devices with components that could break...all attributes which turn people off when there are equally easier methods of nutrient reduction.

perhaps the bucket ats might spark two friends to do it who each told two friends and so on and so on and so on!!!

[matt & pam]

I would also add that turf scrubbers started out when in tank flow wasn't near where it is today. My eco-wheel is reported to have flow of about 1600 gph, which doesn't compare to the flows now days. In addition, there must have been considerable amounts of greed in the beginning considering the legal mess surrounding some of the early ATS systems (Just like Sony and betamax).

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

You have any pics Bergzy of your tanks with info about your equipment and methods for each?

[bergzy]

Originally posted by SCIFI_3D_zoo
You have any pics Bergzy of your tanks with info about your equipment and methods for each?

i am officially the worst photographer in the world...so here is a pic that marc leveson took:


since upping my ca reactor output without detrimentally affecting the tank...growth has exploded. most of my sps' are grown from very small frags. some sps' are: tenuis, yongei, undata, pocci's, granulosa's, never growing miyagi tort, bonsai, blue stags, various encrusting monti's...

the lighting in the picture was on my old giesemann pendant eco 230 using phoenix 14k bulbs with no actinic supplementation. yes, they are a very blue bulb indeed.

my current light fixture is a giesemann moonlight that has t5 supplementation, cloud simulation and moonlight intensity features. it does a bunch of other stuff that i havent read yet...but it is definitely an incredibly cool light. current bulbs are giesemann megachromes along with giesemann actinic t5's.

the tank is predominantly sps despite the three large euphyllia colonies you see in the pic. i grew each from two head frags and are the fastest growing things in my tank.

fish load is light:

- 2 female 'box' anthias. one was a male but decided to become a female!
- purple tang
- powder blue tang
- mandarin
- flasher wrasse
- multicolor angel (some angel guys are saying it 'might' be a nahacki or a hybrid.
- in the sump - a juvenile grown to adult imperator, lemonpeel, sixline and two ocellaris'.
- inverts: one tuxedo urchin. just put in 4 turbos and 4 margarita's yesterday. not a whole lot of algae issues. i hope the snails dont starve to death.

water changes: bimonthly 30g of tropic marin pro

- ca reactor: korallin 4002
- kalkwasser: none
- pH controller: reef fanatic but i havent connected it to the co2 solenoid...too lazy and i have the reactor pretty much dialed in.
- vodka: 1 ml once or twice a week
- vinegar: 1 ml whenever i feel like it but never more than vodka
- zeovit start2: 1 ml per day (autodosed)
- zeovit b balance: 1 ml per day (autodosed)
- zeovit bacteria: 5 drops every one or two weeks

testing: ca and mg once a week. alk twice a week.

phosphate removers: none used

skimmer: bermuda aquatics 5c powered by a panworld 150ps. this pump is T'ed off and powers my 5g refugium (or whatever is left to grow in there). skimmer is on 24/7

refugium: 5g hdpe bucket receiving a 15 watt pc light 18 hours a day and about 600 gph in a rotational flowpattern.

cryptic zone: 65g pvc opaque barrel filled with hundreds of pounds of live rock. this no light slow flow concept creates a tyree 'cryptic zone' where sponges and tunicates are grown for further natural filtration. it receives water from the 5g bucket. the bucket drains to the bottom of the barrel and the water flows from bottom to top (fluidized flow). additional 4 airstones are placed in the barrel for further water circulation. thus, all water in the cryptic zone is circulated with no mechanical pumps! one of the best pieces of 'equipment' i have ever installed. it is very space hungry and thus, do not hear a lot of people being able to properly set one up.

top off: i manually top off rodi freshwater. i have read too many auto top off stories!!! i check salinity at least once a day.

cooling: one vornado fan on a medusa temp controller maintains excellent evap coolong. i have a aqualogic 1/2hp chiller on a separate temp controller if the temps creep up to 81 degrees.

heating: 900 watts of ejo jagers on the dual medusa controller. i need 900 watts as all my equipment is located in the garage and it does get cold enough in the winter here in socal to require this much heating.

return pump: tunze master return pump. bullet proof!!! i T it off to constantly flow water through the chiller.

in tank flow: 5 modded tunze nano 6025's (about 1200 gph each) and two modded koralia 4's (about 2000gph each). i have three old school mj 1200's on a reef fanatic wavemaker for nostalgia!

in sump circulation is provided by another modded 6025.

i also have a modded 6025 in my mixed 110g. sooooo...

i have a 600 watt ups for power failures. one in tank tunze, the 110g tunze and the insump tunze are all connected sto the ups. this would give me an estimated 28.5 hours of run time.

in tank rock: predominantly tonga branch (extra large pieces) and marshall island (large pieces).

fish food: finely chopped shrimp dropped with selcon once a day. some unknown brand of flake food my wife gets (and feeds to them) that the fish goes nuts for and nori. i hand feed the imperator nori. he loves it!!!

i clean the glass with a light scraping once a week.

let me know if there is anything you want to inquire further about!

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

Interesting. So you only have a 2g fuge on a 110. I was worried my 6g wasn't good on my 90. I get pretty good/normal cheato growth.

What'd you say.. your 110 gets water changes from your 180? You take the change from your 180 and use it on the 110?

So the pics are of the 110 or 180? And the 110 is mixed and has a few SPS or something? That's what I'm trying to do myself. Not with much luck. SPS are a pain in the ***.

I want to try Vodka since reading the article. ZEO... that's the european stuff where you have to add 5 drops of this, 3 of that everyday? I'm skeptical on messing with a bunch of additives. Maybe this is how you get by without a skimmer on the 110? Sounds like you don't do zeo everyday but do the weekly maint. routine? I thought it wasn't as good.

So your 180 has a skimmer, but not the 110 (which has mixed hard and soft.. and SPS)?

Everytime I read posts about ATO I try to warn people about hooking up large holding tanks to their tanks. I keep reading about all the stories all the time. I have a 14 gallon ATO on my 90 and it has dual float switches... and my sump will hold it all just in case so no floods. But if it did happen... which is remote... my salinity would drop a little. I don't think it would be that bad to my tank and I could rectify quickly. I'm still trying to figure out why my sump level is over my gate valve/baffles a couple inches sometimes. I have the JBJ ATO controller and maybe it's still pumping for another minute after and not shutting off? I have to watch it in action and see what is going on.

So you just have mult. small balls of cheato and you say that's better than one big one? In your little 2 gallon fuge.

Bi-monthly h20 chg. It's probably that vodka/zeovit that is allowing that eh? I would like to go longer than 1 month. 30g... doesn't sound like you are even doing 30% every other month either?

Hmm.. I'm wrestling with my next batch here now trying to get the pH, Temp, Ca+, Alk to match my tank. Then I'll have to figure it all out again all over b/c I'm switching to the new Coralife formula. I spent a lot of time dialing in my Ca and Alk so I want my salt to match it.

Your 110 has a hang-on skimmer... yea, it probably didn't make much diff. taking it off b/c it wasn't doing much anyway.

It kinda doesn't make sense. Even all the great things that Vodka does they don't recommend it replacing a skimmer b/c it's so great. Have to see some other people experimenting on a new tank with turf algae. I would love to save money on a skimmer if possible. But I want a nice mixed reef.

What do you mean uppping Ca reactor.. you keep it at 500 or higher?

I thought I read that Giesmann are so bright that their 14K is like somebody elses 10K. But you're saying it's really blue.

You're not that big on fuges and stuff so how do you keep a Mandarin?

First I've ever head of a cryptic zone.

So Giesmann makes a big light fixture... not just bulbs?

How are people modding Koralia's?

You have a powerhead in your sump?... just to keep detrius from settling?

[bergzy]

yowsers!

i'll try and answer everything...

contrary to popular belief...and santamonica has proven this as welll...a fuge does not need to be even remotely large to be effective. BUT, if you have room for a large fuge and/or love fuges...i dont see a reason for not having a large one!

yes, the 110g mixed (no sps) gets my old 180g water for water changes. the 180g gets fresh tropic marin pro.

pic is of the 180g.

with zeo and dosing...i have been using it for about 2 1/2 years now...my system is to the point where very little hands on zeo dosing is required. it does take a lot of experience with parameter control if you want to do zeo. i wouldnt recommend it for a newbie!

with vodka...note the very very low doses i use. my amounts are in contrast to people who just DOVE into vodka. some were dosing 1 ml or more per gallon. i have had awesome results with vodka dosing...my amount and schedule anyway on my tank. to each their own.

i found that a small bundle of chaeto with fast rotating water flow outgrows a big bundle on 'my' systems and design). a large bundle of chaeto looks cool but the center (i theorize) doesnt get as much exposure to nutrients and light...thus grows slower...thus, less nutrients removed.

i dont match any parameters with my fresh saltwater when doing a water change. since even 30g on my system of total adjusted water volume is 250g...it is barely 10% and the differences in temp alk ca etc are negligible TO ME. the only i match on the fresh saltwater is salinity/sg.

the bermuda hang on skimmer is amazingly effective. it did an awesome job of skimming. i was emptying the cup everyday with wet skimmate (which i prefer). i just took it off line because the original pump broke and when i put on a larger one...it kept overflowing. i stopped for the sheer sake of laziness. it actually is too good of a skimmer...and when i put on the larger pump, it kicked it into turbo mode and skimmed like there was no tomorrow. i am just too lazy to get the proper sized smaller pump for it.

vodka is not a replacement for a skimmer. there seems to be two extreme group of people. one will get a skimmer rated for 1500g on their 150g tank (yes, i have read it) and others who totally die hard refuse to skim but some will do things (like zero water changes on a reef tank with some lps and sps) that may hinder coral survivability. again, to each their own.

upping my ca reactor: i have increased the ca media dissolution rate. at first, i just had co2 on when the main lights came on and the reactor couldnt keep up so i just leave it on 24/7 at the same rate and it is doing great now. ca is 430 and alk is 8 on the dot!!!

the phoenix 14's are really blue. giesemann megachromes 13.5k are very white...and bright!!!

i can keep a mandarin because my system probably has about 650 to 700 pounds of live rock. when the lights go out and i go pod watching...there are a gazillion of them!!! not to mention the oligotrophic bacterioplankton to feed the corals that develops when using zeo (and vodka).

giesemann makes both light fixtures and bulbs:
http://www.giesemann.de/11,2,,.html

there is a thread or two on how to mod a koralia 4. it's pretty simple.

the modded 6025 in the sump is for the fish in there. my sump is just an old 100g acrylic tank. no baffles. i just have a pile of large live rock for the fish to hide in and to act as a bubble killer. thus, in the even of a power failure, the 6025 keeps moving water around and the fish happy!!! keeping detritus from settling? wow, didnt think of that purpose...i mean, yeah, it keeps detritus from settling!!!!!!!

do a google on tyree's cryptic zone...it's a good read!
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.u...article_id=544

[SantaMonica]

scifi: As for turf not being currently popular, think about this: What if someone patented bubbles going through a vertical tube of water. Then he decided to sue anyone who tried to sell any such device, and, he decided to not make and sell them himself. You would not have your current skimmer today. What then would you use to skim? Would you build one? How many people actually have DIY skimmers, much less good ones? What would a newbie do, who's putting together their first or second tank? This is exactly what happened to turf. Now, if this did happen to skimmers, someone eventually would come along and say, "Why do you have to pump air through a water column? Why can't you just..." And boom, you'd have some other version that makes an air-water interface occur, but does not violate the patent by using a pump to push air through a water column. Luckily, however, nobody has a patent on the pumping of air through a water column, like they do with turf:

Algal Turf Scrubber, United States Patent 4333263:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4333263.html

Sooooo, you could actually ask, if skimmers are so good, why is there not a patent on the design? After all, the manufacturers want to make money right?

As an aside, yesterday the nano hit zero P for the first time.

[bergzy]

Originally posted by SantaMonica
Luckily, however, nobody has a patent on the pumping of air through a water column, like they do with turf:

Algal Turf Scrubber, United States Patent 4333263:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4333263.html

Sooooo, you could actually ask, if skimmers are so good, why is there not a patent on the design? After all, the manufacturers want to make money right?

As an aside, yesterday the nano hit zero P for the first time.

here is a quick search of 'aquarium protein skimming' came up with:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/726...ng&stemming=on
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y20...ng&stemming=on
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y20...ng&stemming=on
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y20...ng&stemming=on

i didnt bother to read them over...seems profoundly long winded to me...

'if' i can recall an interview with the guy who designed bubble kings...

he laments about not patenting the idea of the dispersion plate...a 'mistake' on his part...

as you have discovered...getting around a patent is pretty easy nowadays! you did it!

[SantaMonica]

Ahh well there you go, patents! But of course their purpose is to market them, not keep them off the market.

Onward... here is another screen just built by someone:

[Paul B]

Sooooo, you could actually ask, if skimmers are so good, why is there not a patent on the design? After all, the manufacturers want to make money right?

Actually I have been using skimmers for about 40 years. A Sanders, counter current skimmer was common in those days. If they were patented then, the patent would have not be in force anymore and anyone can manufacture them now.
Have a great debate

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

The typical rumor out there is a 10% fuge is the minimum. Then you see that last TOTM with NO fuge with a full reef tank. I killed myself with a fuge and I still have a poor pod population, and I noticed my pH still goes from 8.0 to 7.8 at night even with my fuge light on in a reverse cycle that overlaps a bit for about 14 hours total. I don't know if it's making any diff., or it would be even worse without what I got?

YEa,, what's the deal with that. 1ml/day vodka? You just did it super super slow and never increased the amounts. I guess it works over a longer period of time.

Cheato is an interesting idea. I could break up my ball into 2 or 3 balls. I have no idea what my PHOS are... but I'm more worried about nitrates. I use RO/DI water and all so phos. aren't a huge concern right now. I'll start testing when I try vodka. Nitrates are a consistant 10-15 ppm. What do you think about that and a mixed SPS reef??

Oh, the PHoenix are blue. I think I have 14K Coralife? on now and was thinking of trying 16K next. I was told to try Phoenix too. I am using DE HQI bulbs and I'm thinking my 8-9 hours is too much and maybe burning stuff. Maybe cut to 7 hours. And if I used Giesmann they might get even brighter... maybe too much. I'm still trying to figure out why SPS don't do well in my tank. I have a lot of shrooms around too... so I've entertained the idea of chemical warfare with those? Seems there's always a new theory to explain things.

Well... my pod-quest will continue I guess. I just seeded my fuge again, and once a week I add some phytoplankton. I fished out a small 6-line from my sump too recently. I guess he jumped into my ovb.


SantaMonica: Well...a lot of this is pointless debate to me. I'm more interested in who is using the method, and show the results. No matter what the #'s are we just need to see that a full reef is surviving and what equipment/methods one uses. It would just be nice if people did all of this and had before and after #'s on water parameters, etc. The VODKA article even has before and after pics to show coral coloration boosts. Right now... I gotta research some disaster info. b/c I got hurricans heading my way again here in Florida.