Algae scrubbers, who knew...

[JayStro81]

With all the advances in the science of genetics going on you think they would come out with a Nano Tang.

If they ever come out with a Nano Panther Grouper I'm getting one

We have dwarf angels, why not dwarf tangs??

 

[Trouble1375]

We have a DIY ATS in our tank. We took it offline because it was keeping nutrients too low - forgot how long it takes for them to get rolling again and waited a little too long to bring it back online but it is slowly catching up with the nutrients again. Cleaning it every 3rd day again now and seeing reductions in the nutrients as a result. Not the best picture of it but only one I have since we added the 2nd sump.

 

[Ef4life]

I did this exact same thing over 20 years ago to quiet the water dumping into my display tank from my HOB filter. Siliconed the quilting fabric to the filter. That thing would fill up fast with algae.

Nice, glad to see you had success with it. So far I’m liking the growth, but I think I need to get some really coarse sand paper and really scrub the knitting mesh so the algae can stick better.

 

[LardLad]

Nice, glad to see you had success with it. So far I’m liking the growth, but I think I need to get some really coarse sand paper and really scrub the knitting mesh so the algae

Sandpaper doesnt work very well. It just makes it smoother. You need something very aggressive to F it up and make it raggedy. Some have used a hole saw. The best I have found is to use a camp saw. Like a timber saw. Really get it ragged.

 

[Water Dog]

This is how Bud from Turbo’s Aquarics preps his screens...

 

[G Santana]

DIY 30$ ATS Beast, dropping nutrients all day long lol

 

[Ef4life]

Sandpaper doesnt work very well. It just makes it smoother. You need something very aggressive to F it up and make it raggedy. Some have used a hole saw. The best I have found is to use a camp saw. Like a timber saw. Really get it ragged.

This is how Bud from Turbo’s Aquarics preps his screens...

Awesome guys, thank you.

I will add I also have a clear water cw100 sitting on a shelf, I tried it out a few years ago but didn’t have good luck with growth. I really think it was too oversized for my =\= 60g water volume. I will be trying it out again once I upgrade to the 150. They also shipped it with a really smooth screen that needs to be worked over.

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

I'm a big believer in algae for nutrient export. The only filtration I have on my 220G is algae, a skimmer, and carbon.

I built a waterfall scrubber that uses the outflow of the skimmer.

Of course, the display is what really matters.

A note about tuning scrubbers. Water running over a screen is not a filter. It is the lights that makes the algae grow and lights, especially LED's, are absolutely tunable. If you want more nitrates and phosphate in your tank, just turn down either the intensity or duration of the lighting.

 

[JayStro81]

I'm a big believer in algae for nutrient export. The only filtration I have on my 220G is algae, a skimmer, and carbon.

I built a waterfall scrubber that uses the outflow of the skimmer.

Of course, the display is what really matters.

A note about tuning scrubbers. Water running over a screen is not a filter. It is the lights that makes the algae grow and lights, especially LED's, are absolutely tunable. If you want more nitrates and phosphate in your tank, just turn down either the intensity or duration of the lighting.

Wow, everything looks great

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

I just bought a drop in scrubber for my little 25g AIO. What is the best path to take for these when setting up and tuning it for the first time.

Start with a short lighting duration and increase gradually until nutrients are where I want them?

or

start with it on a long duration and shorten until nutrients reach the target?
I will have the luxury of being able to do this without coral, for now. I’d like everything pretty settled and stable before I start dropping corals in.

 

[Ratherbeflyen]

I just bought a drop in scrubber for my little 25g AIO. What is the best path to take for these when setting up and tuning it for the first time.

Start with a short lighting duration and increase gradually until nutrients are where I want them?

or

start with it on a long duration and shorten until nutrients reach the target?
I will have the luxury of being able to do this without coral, for now. I’d like everything pretty settled and stable before I start dropping corals in.

It's going to take a while for the screen to break in, that is for the algae to grow well. I suggest starting with long duration lighting, ~20 hours, on a low intensity. After it's growing green hair algae, then I would turn up the lighting intensity and decrease the duration until you reach the parameters you want.

Here is the first week of my screen.

2nd week.

4th week.

You get the idea.

 

[JayStro81]

I just bought a drop in scrubber for my little 25g AIO. What is the best path to take for these when setting up and tuning it for the first time.

Start with a short lighting duration and increase gradually until nutrients are where I want them?

or

start with it on a long duration and shorten until nutrients reach the target?
I will have the luxury of being able to do this without coral, for now. I’d like everything pretty settled and stable before I start dropping corals in.

I agree with the above post. They take a while to break in. I started with my light schedule on 20 hrs, off 4 hrs. As the scrubber starts to produce a little brown or black slime, make sure you clean it. I cleaned mine once a week and each week there was a little more. Now that it's established, I clean it every 3 weeks or so

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Finally getting red and green to replace the brown! Ats again for the win! I will say protein skimming and algae absorbing nutrients prior to skimming are two completly diffrent types of filtration. Why wouldnt you have both? I also utilize bio pellets and charcol.
D

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Eh it looks mostly brown in the picture. Lol!
D

 

[JayStro81]

Finally getting red and green to replace the brown! Ats again for the win! I will say protein skimming and algae absorbing nutrients prior to skimming are two completly diffrent types of filtration. Why wouldnt you have both? I also utilize bio pellets and charcol.
D

Wont be long until you have a flowing field of beautiful green hair algae, lol. I also still run my skimmer and carbon.

 

[Reef Jockey]

DIY'd an algae scrubber for my Fluval Evo second compartment and it's been almost 5 weeks now and i'm not seeing the GHA everyone here is experiencing. Not sure if i have the wrong light spectrum or not. I do have the lights on opposite schedule as my DT lighting. I've only been seeing alot of brown slime algae that i have rinsed off a couple of times.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Have one on each tank. Trying to figure out one for my 6g even.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

My ats is full of gha now. Lol
Need to clean it actually. Prob my 2nd or 3rd cleaning. The ats will grow HA faster and faster after each cleaning.
I truly think they work. Give it time all. If doing an in tank one or in a compartment or aio compartment, u may need a bubbler below the screen for upflow.
Hths all
D

 

[Gogol_frag]

My TAS is full of Algae too. I use Santamonica systems Drop 1.4X. They are good, but I have dealt the biggest biggest blow to my algae using the following three pronged approach. I have a not so shallow sand-bed and the gunk has visibly receded from the parts where it's deep.

Personally, I am quite miffed that this simple approach isn't more widely popularized/marketed:

1. Add 1 ml of Microbacter 7, per 5 gallons of tank-water, everyday - nothing helps like bacteria do. Some folks have had success with Prodibio as well.
2. Feed only live. Brine Shrimp is very, very easy to culture. I also grew a 1,000,000+ population of Daphnia Magna, from dry cysts, by following very simple procedures.
3. Use a UV sterilizer

Nothing else have hit the death-blow to my ugly phase like these three have above. My TAS, skimmer and biopellet reactor play a part I am sure. But I would have will been chasing my own tail for a much longer period in time, if it hadn't been for #1 through #3 above.

 

[Bpb]

I’m beginning to wonder if my turf scrubber has anything to do with my sps struggles in my present tank. I’ve always done very well with just carbon dosing. Only change on this tank is I started it with a turf scrubber instead. It’s definitely working. Keeping nutrients bottomed out. But sps are just not loving it. Parameters are otherwise the same ranges as I’ve kept them for years. 7-8 dkh and phosphate on the low end of detectable at around 0.03 ppm typically. I’ve heard talk here and there about sps tanks struggling with turf scrubbers due to allelopathy from excessive amounts of green turf. Been running carbon the whole time to hopefully mitigate that. But every acro that goes in tends to get brittle and fade away. Haven’t had that problem previously.

I hate to throw in the towel on the scrubber because I’m so heavily invested in it, but wondering if it could be the source of my struggle