Algae Scrubber Basics

[Robert Patterso]

Originally Posted by Jason.Wright

So, seriously, does this really work? I have a mag 9.5 and very tempted to give this a try.

Yep sure does. Best thing I ever did for my tank. No more gfo, fewer water changes. You won't regret it. Once you get it dialed in other than the weekly maintance it is pretty much hands free....

[SPotter]

I have taken down my gfo reactor, do water changes every 2-3 weeks now, feed twice as much as i used to and it only takes me 15 minutes to clean the screen weekly which the wife loves. And one more thing....Im only running my skimmer 12 hours a day now.

Steve

[mistaflicksta]

Originally Posted by Jason.Wright

So, seriously, does this really work? I have a mag 9.5 and very tempted to give this a try.

Yes it works, and it works well

[mrbncal]

Originally Posted by Robert Patterso

Yep sure does. Best thing I ever did for my tank. No more gfo, fewer water changes. You won't regret it. Once you get it dialed in other than the weekly maintance it is pretty much hands free....

+1 best thing I ever tried on my reef tank.

[redneckgearhead]

Originally Posted by Jason.Wright

So, seriously, does this really work? I have a mag 9.5 and very tempted to give this a try.

Want a little proof? Do a search for hair algae and read some of the posts, It usually goes something like this........OP. "I am having a huge hair algae problem"....Response. "What are your parameters?"......OP. "I don't understand it my water parameters are perfect 0 ammonia 0 nitrites and 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates!"....someone usually chimes in and says yes because its all bound up in the HA!

All the ATS does is make those nutrients that are bound in that HA, easy to remove! Before and after shots of my tank are on this post if you want to take a look.

[pskelton]

Originally Posted by Jason.Wright

So, seriously, does this really work? I have a mag 9.5 and very tempted to give this a try.

Jason, Sounds like you already have the expensive part, so you are about $20.00 away from having an algae scrubber. Looks to me that you have nothing to loose, so why not try?

My tank was a complete disaster with nitrate at 160 PPM (way over stocked, skimmer was a cheep piece of junk and kid dumped an entire container of food in tank). My skimmer was not cutting it, I really should have reduced my bioload and I was faced with needing to drop some serious $$ on a real skimmer. I was doing large water changes which were not making any difference and having a limited aquarium budget the water changes were starting to get expensive. I had the pump already (like you do) so I built a simple PVC overflow that ran down to a 5 gallon bucket where I installed the algae scrubber. In all I spent about 40 dollars for the overflow and scrubber parts. With in two weeks nitrate was down to 50. In 2-3 months I was down to 20 and after 6 months of running I am down to 0. My tank is over stocked by conventional rules and I have not done a water change since I installed the scrubber. The tank is healthy, easy to maintain, and cheep to keep running. Currently the algae scrubber is my only filtration.

[Jason.Wright]

Those are some great testimonials. I think I'll give this a shot. More to follow. 

[zhewitt04]

Here is my gowth after week 2

[zhewitt04]

Looking for input on the pics and am open to ideas to make it better

[SPotter]

how many lights are you using? it looks like your light is more focused to the left side of the screen than the right. I think your overall growth looks pretty good for two weeks.

[redneckgearhead]

I think it looks fine. It will get better with time. It took mine about 4-6 weeks to really grow some good algae.

[Jason.Wright]

I have a 120 gal DT. From what I understand, I need: 12x10" lighted screen, 420 gph flow (12" screen span), 120 actual watts CFL (60 each side). Is this correct? My Mag will double the flow rate. Will that cause problems? I'm not too excited about the noise, though. But, I don't want to do a drain based ATS at this time. I can throttle back with a valve if necessary.

I noticed that SantaMonica changed his recommendations for ATS sizing. It's based on feeding instead of tank size. Based on feeding, I would need to feed 10 of any of the below:

1 frozen cube per day (2-sided screen)
1/2 frozen cube per day (1-sided screen)
10 pinches of flake food per day (2-sided screen)
5 pinches of flake food per day (1-sided screen)
10 square inches (50 sq cm) of nori per day (2-sided screen)
5 square inches (50 sq cm) of nori per day (1-sided screen)
0.1 dry ounce (2.8 grams) of pellet food per day (2-sided screen)
0.05 dry ounce (1.4 grams) of pellet food per day (1-sided screen)

I don't feed that much right now. Especially since having to put my eel up for adoption. He ate two triggers .

[rysher]

i'm currently running the revised ATS sizing.
benefits is faster green growth.
clean only every 10-14 days
lights go to 6 mos instead of 3.
save on electric bill since lighting is only 9 hrs instead of 18.

i think i have better growth with the revised sizing than the old one.

[rysher]

Originally Posted by SPotter

how many lights are you using? it looks like your light is more focused to the left side of the screen than the right. I think your overall growth looks pretty good for two weeks.

or that side of the screen has more flow.

[zhewitt04]

No the light is focused on one side due to tight sump area. The inlet for the sump is in the way. I am going fix it but not sure how yet

[SPotter]

Floyd....did you start the led testing yet?

[Floyd R Turbo]

I haven't even had time to take them out of the box

[SPotter]

Im anxious to see the results. I just got 4 more red for mine so Ill add two to each side.

Steve

[JohnnyB in SD]

Steve, you started with LEDs and have never used anything but, right?

[JohnnyB in SD]

Steve looks like he has plenty of time, shipem over to him

[SPotter]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB in SD

Steve, you started with LEDs and have never used anything but, right?

Correct. Im finally starting to get some really thick growth now. Im going to try putting optics on the leds that are on the edges because a lot of the light coming from those is being wasted i think.

Steve

[JohnnyB in SD]

I think the ATS I'm going to make for the 180gl "my kid is getting for xmas" will use LEDs

[SPotter]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB in SD

I think the ATS I'm going to make for the 180gl "my kid is getting for xmas" will use LEDs

My wife refers to this hobby as the other woman.


Whens your 180 going to be ready?
Steve

[rysher]

so, i revised my ATS to the new sizing guidelines, i have been getting good growth, the problem now is i'm having a diatom bloom.

my sand is full of diatoms, i tried the 3 days lights out but it came back after i turn on the lights.
my water parameters is 0 everything.
sg= 1.026
dkh= 9
ca = 460
mg = 1300

do i need to vacuum the diatoms or shall i just leave it as it is and it will disappear by itself. i have never had a diatom bloom so i dont know how to deal with this.
i got 3 small fishes about 3 inches, and i feed 2 cubes a day + some pellets.
vacuum or leave it as is?
shall i stop feeding for a couple of days?

[Floyd R Turbo]

Rysher, diatoms could be the result of changing the configuration of the scrubber. Any change you make in a stable system will result in a change of the 'set-point' of the system, and something will likely get thrown out of whack. Since and algae scrubber does the majority of the filtration, the system does not necessarily rely on the bacterial colony to perform that duty. When you make a change, even a little one, this could temporarily upset the 'order of things' in the system.

I would leave everything else alone, vacuum the diatoms if you wish, won't hurt. They'll probably come back until the system stabilizes again.

That's my take on it anyways.

My algae scrubber is in a weird growth cycle, it seems to me that growth is affected by the food you feed. I switched over to a new batch of DIY food a few months ago and the growth has not been very green since, parameters are still good though. I had a lot of clogging of my powerheads in the tank (koralias) and flow was way down, and I ended up with patches of cyano, which are now going away slowly. I would change a few things but we're putting the new tank on the stand today and within 2 weeks everything will get moved back there, so I'm just leaving it alone right now...