algae scrubber question

[jomatty]

I have read a few people who swear by their algae scrubbers. As I understand it, essentially, you simply pump water over a screen that becomes covered with algae. They seem very simple to make. Most of what I have seen though have been separate units from the sump. Is there any reason not to just have the water run over the screen and into your sump? Can you use your overflow to feed the algae scrubber or do you always want to use a different pump?

Has anyone run a system similar to Leng's with miracle mud and no skimmer, but with an algae scrubber? This seems like an interesting idea to me, as I have read and seen pictures that show the fish in his systems have great color, and I like the idea of as natural as possible in my reef tanks. The tank I am thinking about putting a scrubber on is a 40 gallon long, and if the results work well then I would consider adding it to my larger tank.

 

[amppdx]

I've been planning on doing the same thing myself. My first scrubber met with disaster when the spray bar got partially plugged and shot a little stream out the side and onto a power strip. The breaker tripped and no harm was done but I was not interested in doing anything that involved spray bars again. My second design is a "waterfall box". Just a simple acrylic box fed by a maxi jet at the bottom that fills up and makes a waterfall going down the side and into the sump. I really like how it is quiet, HOB so easily moved around and a nice little refugium too, but its only onesided. I'm making a new one that will be double sided and be fed by the overflow line. My concern with using the overflow is the flow rate. I dont think I will have enough flow from the return pump to really power the turf scrubber properly. I have a back up plan to add a powerhead to it too.

I do really like having a turf scrubber. I have 3 frag racks on my tank and I find the clean up crew has a hard time getting to them all. I used to take frags and put them on the sand bed for a few days before making trades to get the excess algae off, but since running a turf scrubber I dont have to bother doing this anymore. I also run my skimmer less too now that I have the scrubber. FWIW my tank is mostly softies with a few LPS, but pretty much everything grows like weeds except my frogspawn (it really seems to disagree with its discosoma neighbors).

 

[jedimasterben]

I went from a ULNS using a skimmer and carbon dosing to no skimmer and an algae scrubber. Same results (low nitrate and phosphate), but with no downsides (no calcium/carbonate removed via skimming, food stays in the water column until it is broken down [giving it much more time to actually be eaten], and yet another place to house a ludicrous amount of pods).

I would not recommend running one from your main drain unless you build in a fail-safe, as the algae may make its way into the holes drilled and can clog and cause a flood. To prevent this, I would put a T fitting just before the scrubber and attach a pipe that goes up a bit before coming back down into the sump - that way the drain will be unaffected. Just keep an eye on it every month or two and if you see water coming out of the second pipe, you know it's time to clean the holes out.

EDIT:

Also, please make sure to size and light the scrubber properly. Mine is too large for how much I'm feeding right now and I am starving my clams with a nitrate reading of zero. 12 square inches of screen lit by 12 real watts on one side will need 1/2 cube of frozen every single day. If you light the same size screen with 6 real watts on each side of the screen, that goes up to a full cube of frozen food daily.

 

[zemuss]

Light Recommendation for Algae Scrubber

I have been doing some DIY projects lately and its is time to start the third project.

Projects:
1. DIY Controller on hold
2. DIY Leds on hold
3. New sump done
4. DIY Algae Scrubber

I just put the 15 gallon sump on in replacement of a 5 gallon sump. The 15 gallon sump is 10 gallons full and I am using it currently just for equipment purposes. This means it is a Keep It Simple solution with no baffles. I might add baffles to help control the micro bubbles but for right now there isn't any noticeable bubbles.

Anyways, I am wanting to save on electricity cost so was wondering what type of LED systems are available now to light the algae scrubber. I hope to get this done in a few days so I wanted to order lights if need be now rather than later. Lets see the recommendations.

"Z"

 

[amppdx]

I use a CF screw bulb from Home Depot (or similar) housed in a 5 dollar pressure grip clamp on utility light (looks like a stainless steel salad bowl). The 4 packs are between 6 and 10 bucks. I replace them every 2 or 3 months. Super cheap, but it does take up a fair bit of room.

 

[beaslbob]

I have read a few people who swear by their algae scrubbers. As I understand it, essentially, you simply pump water over a screen that becomes covered with algae. They seem very simple to make. Most of what I have seen though have been separate units from the sump. Is there any reason not to just have the water run over the screen and into your sump? Can you use your overflow to feed the algae scrubber or do you always want to use a different pump?

Has anyone run a system similar to Leng's with miracle mud and no skimmer, but with an algae scrubber? This seems like an interesting idea to me, as I have read and seen pictures that show the fish in his systems have great color, and I like the idea of as natural as possible in my reef tanks. The tank I am thinking about putting a scrubber on is a 40 gallon long, and if the results work well then I would consider adding it to my larger tank.

I think the original algae scrubbers did use a screen into the sump/refugium.

I see no reason that would not work.

After all it is the algae not the container it grows in that counts.


my .02

 

[grumpy-crab]

I have ran a ATS on my tank sense week two. I have never done a water change. My new tank will have a dump style ATS made by inland aquatics. There not cheap but i know first hand what they do. The dump is the most affective style of ATS and is patented by inland aquatics.

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[LukeG]

I use a CF screw bulb from Home Depot (or similar) housed in a 5 dollar pressure grip clamp on utility light (looks like a stainless steel salad bowl). The 4 packs are between 6 and 10 bucks. I replace them every 2 or 3 months. Super cheap, but it does take up a fair bit of room.

Why do you replace them so often?


Sent Via the R2R Forum APP

 

[amppdx]

The recommendation that I got said they do change spectrum over time. I dont really know if its true or not and to be honest I dont feel like I see any change when i switch out a new bulb.

I forgot to mention that I run a bead of silcon sealant around the rim of the socket after I put a new bulb in to ensure that its completely sealed from splashing and salt creep.

 

[fyrfytr]

Following along here. My initial thought was to do this on the drain line from my DT to the sump, had not though of the alge backing up into the line....GOOD idea for the t-fitting

 

[grumpy-crab]

You can see in my sump/ refuge that where the filter socks were i converted it to a ATS. I make block off plates from plexi and have one 1" drain pipe out of this area to the chamber below with 6" DSB and 10lbs of LR rubble where it then flows in to my refuge with chato another 6" DSB and 5lbs LR rubble. The bubble trap i use filter floss as my mechanical filtration and removes all micro bubbles.

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[Murfman]

I have read a few people who swear by their algae scrubbers. As I understand it, essentially, you simply pump water over a screen that becomes covered with algae. They seem very simple to make. Most of what I have seen though have been separate units from the sump. Is there any reason not to just have the water run over the screen and into your sump? Can you use your overflow to feed the algae scrubber or do you always want to use a different pump?

Has anyone run a system similar to Leng's with miracle mud and no skimmer, but with an algae scrubber? This seems like an interesting idea to me, as I have read and seen pictures that show the fish in his systems have great color, and I like the idea of as natural as possible in my reef tanks. The tank I am thinking about putting a scrubber on is a 40 gallon long, and if the results work well then I would consider adding it to my larger tank.

I have mine in my sump. I used 30" screen with needle point plastic zip tied to it. It is fed with its own pump but I don't see any reason it can't be fed by a drain line.

This is what it looks like during cleaning.

 

[fyrfytr]

In my mind...I was thinking instead of the drain line going down into the water of the sump it could flow over this and then drip into the water or have the bottom of this partially below the water line

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Turbo's Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

I have ran a ATS on my tank sense week two. I have never done a water change. My new tank will have a dump style ATS made by inland aquatics. There not cheap but i know first hand what they do. The dump is the most affective style of ATS and is patented by inland aquatics.

The horizontal dump-style ATS is not necessarily the best. It may work, but by definition the double-sided waterfall scrubber is more effective per unit area.

1) high speed, thin, laminar flow is more efficient from a nutrient delivery standpoint
2) the vertical double-lit waterfall scrubber grows GHA instead of turf. GHA is grows faster and has higher filtering capacity than true red turf algae, which is what grows in surge-type scrubbers.
3) horizontal scrubbers require more area per unit filtering, about 4x more than a vertical scrubber as well as about 2x the light
4) horizontal scrubbers (and single-sided vertical scrubbers, to a lesser extent) suffer from shading, meaning light to the roots is blocked by the algae growing on top of it, causing decay and leading the scrubber essentially feeding itself, and not net exporting nutrients.

I can point you to many examples of horizontal scrubbers that worked, but were by far much less effective and efficient, both from a filtration and energy efficiency standpoint. Also IIRC Adey holds the patent, not IA. I don't think IA owns any patents, but they do have to pay royalties, or at least they did. I might have that wrong...

I posted this thread a while back that summarizes the DIY algae scrubber basic techniques.

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/do-yourself-diy/63113-algae-scrubber-basics-2.html#post1120602 Post #37 is where the revised basics posts start.

Also as far as overflow-fed fail-safe systems go, here are a couple drawings I came up with to illustrate this

The caveat being that the highest point of the bypass elbow will dictate the maximum flow when the bypass is running, because of flow dynamics as calculated using BeanAnimal's Hydraulics Calculator. The idea behind the bypass is to allow for head pressure to build up on the slot before the bypass flows. This head pressure prevents algae from growing any further into the slot, like a self-regulating control mechanism. If you simply insert a tee in the line and then elbow that down to the sump, the algae will grow into the slot and slow the flow down enough for the bypass to run, which will eliminate any head pressure, and allow the slot to clog

HTH
Bud