Algae Scrubber for a 32 gallon Biocube

[45ZoaGarden]

Lol I’m following along for your scrubber. I’ve been shopping/thinking how I want to add one to my IM 25g lagoon (AIO). My issue with Santa Monica is that to clean them is not that easy. Whole things got to come out and be disconnected. Unfortunately not too many other options other then DIY.

Why do you need a scrubber? There’s probably nothing wrong with your nutrient levels...

 

[Justfebreezeit]

Lol I’m following along for your scrubber. I’ve been shopping/thinking how I want to add one to my IM 25g lagoon (AIO). My issue with Santa Monica is that to clean them is not that easy. Whole things got to come out and be disconnected. Unfortunately not too many other options other then DIY.

This is true. I found bringing a bucket next to the tank and cleaning it in the bucket was the easiest. That being said, it was the most annoying thing about the whole contraption for sure.

 

[Dine]

Nothing wrong with my phosphates at all. Nitrates creep up on me due to overfeeding.

 

[45ZoaGarden]

cheato reactors are completely dus one table with the unplugging of a pump and removing of one tube. Just saying LOL

 

[45ZoaGarden]

Maybe try a bag of purigen. Might be enough

 

[Dine]

@CavalierReef can you read spanish? do you have access to a 3d printer (i do, but i need you to translate)

ALGAE SCRUBBER - AQUARIUM FILTER ATS REEF by IgorLuiz

DOWNLOAD ALL FILES - ATS:https://cults3d.com/fr/mod%C3%A8le-3d/gadget/algae-scrubber-aquarium-filter-ats-reef Filtro ATS de Algas para aquarium marinho de ate 1000 litros. O projeto pode ser impresso em diferentes escalas, entre 90% a 110%. Pode ser utilizado PLA ou ABS na impressão (para uma...

www.thingiverse.com

 

[The cats wrasse]

That's a great question and I'm unsure I can answer it. A fair price would be determined by the quality and efficacy of the unit. I think Santa Monica units are a bit pricey but they have proven to be effective. There are a lot of costs associated with start-up, production, marketing, distribution, etc. so you will have to see how that goes. Bottom line is that the cost, on your end, will be determined by what it costs you to produce, market and ship and hitting a price point that consumers are willing to pay. No offeIt seems to me that you could sell a plastic box enclosing

Mine is much more intricate than Santa Monica's...I'll make sure to post it here once everything is in order

 

[Dine]

Mine is much more intricate than Santa Monica's...I'll make sure to post it here once everything is in order

would be interested to see what youre cooking up

 

[The cats wrasse]

would be interested to see what youre cooking up

I'll have a patent done hopefully by this weeks end I'll be sure to send the design over your way ...I can promise it will be impressive

 

[CavalierReef]

I'm really interested in this as well.

I'll have a patent done hopefully by this weeks end I'll be sure to send the design over your way ...I can promise it will be impressive

@CavalierReef can you read spanish? do you have access to a 3d printer (i do, but i need you to translate)

ALGAE SCRUBBER - AQUARIUM FILTER ATS REEF by IgorLuiz

DOWNLOAD ALL FILES - ATS:https://cults3d.com/fr/mod%C3%A8le-3d/gadget/algae-scrubber-aquarium-filter-ats-reef Filtro ATS de Algas para aquarium marinho de ate 1000 litros. O projeto pode ser impresso em diferentes escalas, entre 90% a 110%. Pode ser utilizado PLA ou ABS na impressão (para uma...

www.thingiverse.com

Unfortunately, I don't read Spanish.

 

[Dine]

I'm really interested in this as well.


Unfortunately, I don't read Spanish.

Well I guess I’ll just plug it into the printer and see what I can figure out from there.

 

[SamiTANKS]

I built a waterfall ATS in the middle chamber of my biocube. I cut a rectangle out of lexan (polycarbonate) to fit where the stock filter pad normally goes. Then cut a 1/4" slot in the middle of it to hang some plastic mesh canvas from a craft store. I used cheap clip-on LED grow lights from Amazon and have it right against the back glass. The setup cost $8 plus $15 amazon lights. The scrubber has been the only filtration aside from live rock and sand in the display since I set it up 7 months ago. It has worked pretty well, nitrates have always been below 5 ppm despite daily feeding but it hasn't done a good job controlling phosphate. Some tips Ive learned are 1) don't clean all the algae when scraping the mesh screen. 2) if you go waterfall method like this in the biocube you need an ATO to keep the water level low but not too low for the return pump.

 

[CavalierReef]

SemiTanks that sounds like an inexpensive yet effective method. I have (am) considering a waterfall type scrubber and do have an ATO. Do you have specific info on the light you purchased?

 

[SamiTANKS]

I bought this one but the seller was out of stock and sent me two of the two-headed light model instead. I only use one of them. Cons are you can only do a 3, 6 or 12 hr light cycle with the built in timer. I also lay a sheet of filter floss on top of the lexan for mechanical filtration

 

[SamiTANKS]

Here are some pretty bad screenshots from when I first was setting it up haha

 

[Scrubber_steve]

the scrubber you’re looking at buying also doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity a diy cheato reactor has. More capacity=more nutrient export.

Hi 45ZoaGarden;

The necessary capacity is determined by the amount of food fed to the aquarium. The scrubber @CavalierReef is looking at may have more than enough capacity for his system.

(1). Cheato is much more efficient than a scrubber
(2). Cheato is a VERY aggressive form of algae and will starve out ANY other algae. Something hair algae in a scrubber won’t do.

(1). Lets begin by defining what type of algae typically grows (self seeds) on a mature scrubber screen. In my experience it is typically one or more species of Ulva (excluding lettuce leaf Ulva) and isn't what most people recognise as "green hair algae" (GHA) that infestates aquascapes in displays, is a broad term that covers hundreds of species of green filamentous algae, simple species that tend to be fine in texture and have few distinguishable features. True species level identification requires a microscope.
Now, chaeto is an effective macro for filtration because it grows quickly. But Ulva typically grows faster still and the faster an algae grows the faster the assimilation of in-organic nutrients. So, the faster the growth, the greater the filtering efficiency.

Enteromorpha (Ulva) Compressa, Linnaeus, prolifera or intestinalis ???

A benefit of a scrubbers algae is that it has 'self seeded'. It has grown from available spores of algae already in a system
when an ideal environment for it to grow is provided. People 'add' chaeto to their system & often it dies no matter what they do, & then they give up on it.

(2). I would argue that any person who has suffered a GHA infestation in their display know that GHA is very aggressive algae also, especially when GHA starts growing all over the chaeto they have in a fuge or reactor, killing the chaeto. ;Blackeye
As for Ulva on a scrubber screen it certainly will starve out ANY other algae Chaeto does. There is no reason why any other fast growing algae used for filtration couldn't.

If scrubbers are better then cheato, why does 99% of today’s reefers use Fuges to grow cheato instead of saving on space with the sump to have a scrubber?

This is a baseless claim. No accurate figure could ever be obtained. Fuges are popular for various reasons. The Triton Method. A perception of simplicity & inexpensiveness. The ability to keep other organisms in the fuge (a micro ecosystem). In any case, there could be a thousand algae fuge set-ups to every scrubber,,, but that wouldn't prove that scrubbers are less effecient!

Algae isn’t very efficient in lowering phosphates.
I do have a gfo reactor running 24/7 to keep the phosphates down below .05

This is incorrect. Algae growing efficiently assimilates both in-organic nitrogen & phosphate as a consequence of photosynthesis. I can easily run a longer photo-period & zero out PO4. I need to dose PO4 rather than use GFO, which I never have needed to. Perhaps Chaeto is not as effective as my scrubber's Ulva at utilising PO4?

ABSTRACT
The nutrients uptake and the growth of Ulva. lactuca in Mugil cephalus wastewater (WW) were evaluated and compared with U. lactuca cultivated in estuarine water (EW)... The uptake of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and dissolved inorganic phosphorous (DIP), as well as the biomass yield and specific growth rate of U. lactuca, were assessed every two days... This study demonstrates the efficiency of U. lactuca in the assimilation of DIN and DIP from M. cephalus WW, contributing to reduce the release of dissolved inorganic nutrients in the natural environment.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02757540.2018.1452918?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=gche20

reactors are completely dus one table with the unplugging of a pump and removing of one tube. Just saying LOL

I'm assuming here you suggest that servicing a scrubber is much more involved than servicing your reactor?
It all depends on design of course. I design & build my own scrubbers, & one design feature is, I can clean a scrubber screen without removing the unit or pulling it to pieces, without turning off the pump & undoing pipes, and replace the cleaned screen within 60 seconds.
In any case, if maintenance is such a chore for a person, perhaps they should buy a robot dog instead.

Cheers, & happy new year ;Joyful

 

[CavalierReef]

Thank you Scrubber_steve for sharing your expertise/knowledge of this subject. I appreciate you sharing the article supporting/explaining the science and biology regarding the use of specific algae and its efficacy as an export system.

 

[SamiTANKS]

I get pretty similar looking algae on my screen, but sometimes there are brown colors in it with thick gritty clumps. This is the screen. I clean 80% of it every 10 days during water changes and run those cheap amazon lights 12 hrs/day. Doesn't grow much on the back side of the screen but still functions well. The weirdest part is it actually smells good, kinda like a really clean beach.

 

[SamiTANKS]

This is incorrect. Algae growing efficiently assimilates both in-organic nitrogen & phosphate as a consequence of photosynthesis. I can easily run a longer photo-period & zero out PO4. I need to dose PO4 rather than use GFO, which I never have needed to. Perhaps Chaeto is not as effective as my scrubber's Ulva at utilising PO4?

ABSTRACT
The nutrients uptake and the growth of Ulva. lactuca in Mugil cephalus wastewater (WW) were evaluated and compared with U. lactuca cultivated in estuarine water (EW)... The uptake of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and dissolved inorganic phosphorous (DIP), as well as the biomass yield and specific growth rate of U. lactuca, were assessed every two days... This study demonstrates the efficiency of U. lactuca in the assimilation of DIN and DIP from M. cephalus WW, contributing to reduce the release of dissolved inorganic nutrients in the natural environment.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02757540.2018.1452918?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=gche20

I definitely agree algae can remove both nitrate and phosphate, but I think the scrubbers are not as efficient at removing phosphate as they are nitrate particularly in a low nitrate tanks. Since starting my scrubber 7 months ago, my experience was nitrate levels quickly quickly dropped to 0 and stayed at 0. My phosphate also initially dropped to 0 then slowly started creeping up, even though my nitrate stayed at 0. I have 2 clownfish in a 29 gal biocube and feed an 1/8 a cube of mysis ~5x/week.

"In some situations nitrogen can limit algae growth. This occurs when the ratio of nitrate plus ammonia to soluble reactive phosphorus is less than 10:1 (at or below this ratio, adding nitrogen will stimulate algae growth). Values between 10:1 and 15:1 are considered transitional, and values greater than 15:1 are considered phosphorus limited (at this or higher ratios, adding phosphorus will stimulate algae growth).

In most cases, phosphorus is the limiting nutrient for algae. Low nitrogen levels do not guarantee limited algae growth in the same way low phosphorus levels do. Nuisance blue-green algae blooms are often associated with lakes that have low nitrogen to phosphorus (N) ratios. "

Fact Sheets | UMass Amherst MWWP

Just something helpful to know if you're thinking of running a scrubber to control only phosphate in a tank that already has very low nitrates or a pretty low bioload.

 

[CavalierReef]

Thanks again, SamiTanks for sharing your experience. As always, there is more than one way to skin a cat and all cats are a bit different. Your DIY version appears to be quite efficient for your setup. Kudos.