ATS (Algae Turf Scrubber) : Balancing Act - What Would You Do?

pelphrey · Mar 28, 2018

I've been running the Santa Monica RAIN2 on my RedSea Reefer 250 for probably a year at this point. The scrubber light comes on at 10Pm and off at 8AM. The scrubber has done a so so job until recently when I pulled my skimmer to clean it and left it off of my tank for a few weeks to see what happened. Well my PH started to drop so I put the skimmer back in the sump and have all adjustments wide open (My skimmer doesn't pull in fresh air from outside, but outside the stand rather).

The majority of my SPS frags never really took off and started to recently decline. I almost feel like the ATS is going to good of a job on my tank. My gut feeling is that it is a low nutrient issue.

My phosphates have fluctuated from .01-.05 and the tank hasn't registered nitrates since the cycle. In the past when phosphates read low I would feed some reef roids. I feed the tank twice a day with the Neptune AFS and a frozen cube daily. I have 10 or so fish in the tank. I've recently begun dosing nitrates into the system and started dosing phosphates into the tank last night. Not long ago I drastically reduced the light schedule on the ATS and immediately had what appeared to be the start of dino's so I brought the ATS light schedule back up. I do also run pond matrix in the tank and a lot of it, a week and a half ago I removed a cup full of matrix.

Would you continue dosing nitrates and phosphates?
Slowly ramp the light schedule down on the ATS? How much time would you reduce per week?
Remove ATS all together?

RODI - Zero TDS I don't do water changes often
Alk - 8.7
Calcium - 425
Mag - 1300
PH - 7.8

For reference I used Green Leaf KNO3 and this calculator ( http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm )
65 Liters \ Nitrate - from Potassium Nitrate \ 4 Tablespoons \ Amount of water = 591 ml \ So each 5ml dosed should increase nitrates by 1.52ppm. RedSea test kit

I couldn't find a good calculator on the Seachem Flourish Phosphorous so I decided to try half a cap full first. Hanna Phosphorous checker for phosphates

I've documented most if not all of this progress on my build thread.

Greybeard · Mar 28, 2018

I had something sort of similar...

Ref full of macro algae, with 4 liters of DeNitrate, which is similar to the Matrix you're using. Vertex 180i skimmer. No measurable nitrate or phosphate, poor coloration and growth.

I think it's getting fairly common to take the availability of effective nutrient export techniques to excess, and wind up starving our systems. This is definitely a fairly recent happening... I'd struggled to keep nitrate down all my life, until I set up this system.

I pulled 3 of the 4 liters of DeNitrate out, and seriously increased feeding. I'm maintaining nitrate levels of about 3, phosphate tests show a bare hint of color. Corals are coloring up nicely, thank you.

I don't have anything against dosing nitrate or phosphate, but to this point, I've never needed to do so. Heavy feeding seems to work just as well, and the fish are real happy about it

Reducing your matrix usage, lowering the light duration in your ATS, or feeding more appear to be your choices. I'd probably do all of these, in combination. Slowly. I'm a firm believer in the mantra that 'nothing good in this hobby happens fast'. Pull a cup of matrix, test for a few days, lower ATS lighting duration by a half hour, test a few days... Slow and steady, with a specific goal in mind.

pelphrey · Mar 28, 2018

Thanks for the reply and information @Greybeard !! I'll remove some more of the matrix this weekend since it will be 2 weeks since I last removed some. I changed my apex code today to drop the light duration on the ATS. I believe you that nothing good happens fast, when I thought I had dino's I knew I'd turned my ATS lights down too quickly!

reeferfoxx · Mar 28, 2018

Greybeard said:
Reducing your matrix usage, lowering the light duration in your ATS, or feeding more appear to be your choices. I'd probably do all of these, in combination. Slowly. I'm a firm believer in the mantra that 'nothing good in this hobby happens fast'. Pull a cup of matrix, test for a few days, lower ATS lighting duration by a half hour, test a few days... Slow and steady, with a specific goal in mind.

+1!

Reduce the matrix first then move to the ATS. Give it time in-between to adjust.

Couple of questions also. What are you testing pH with and was the "dino" growth confirmed or assumed?

pelphrey · Mar 28, 2018

reeferfoxx said:
+1!

Reduce the matrix first then move to the ATS. Give it time in-between to adjust.

Couple of questions also. What are you testing pH with and was the "dino" growth confirmed or assumed?

Thanks for the input!

Ph is measured with apex. Dino was assumed, never put it under a microscope. Could have very well been daitoms.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 28, 2018

pelphrey said:
I've been running the Santa Monica RAIN2 on my RedSea Reefer 250 for probably a year at this point. The scrubber light comes on at 10Pm and off at 8AM. The scrubber has done a so so job until recently when I pulled my skimmer to clean it and left it off of my tank for a few weeks to see what happened. Well my PH started to drop so I put the skimmer back in the sump and have all adjustments wide open (My skimmer doesn't pull in fresh air from outside, but outside the stand rather).

The majority of my SPS frags never really took off and started to recently decline. I almost feel like the ATS is going to good of a job on my tank. My gut feeling is that it is a low nutrient issue.

My phosphates have fluctuated from .01-.05 and the tank hasn't registered nitrates since the cycle. In the past when phosphates read low I would feed some reef roids. I feed the tank twice a day with the Neptune AFS and a frozen cube daily. I have 10 or so fish in the tank. I've recently begun dosing nitrates into the system and started dosing phosphates into the tank last night. Not long ago I drastically reduced the light schedule on the ATS and immediately had what appeared to be the start of dino's so I brought the ATS light schedule back up. I do also run pond matrix in the tank and a lot of it, a week and a half ago I removed a cup full of matrix.

Would you continue dosing nitrates and phosphates?

Slowly ramp the light schedule down on the ATS? How much time would you reduce per week?

Remove ATS all together?

RODI - Zero TDS I don't do water changes often
Alk - 8.7
Calcium - 425
Mag - 1300
PH - 7.8

For reference I used Green Leaf KNO3 and this calculator ( http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm )
65 Liters \ Nitrate - from Potassium Nitrate \ 4 Tablespoons \ Amount of water = 591 ml \ So each 5ml dosed should increase nitrates by 1.52ppm. RedSea test kit

I couldn't find a good calculator on the Seachem Flourish Phosphorous so I decided to try half a cap full first. Hanna Phosphorous checker for phosphates

I've documented most if not all of this progress on my build thread.

I think continued dosing is a good idea, if you want to keep the pH boost. But you might get that other ways too.

Dennis Cartier · Mar 28, 2018

pelphrey said:
I couldn't find a good calculator on the Seachem Flourish Phosphorous so I decided to try half a cap full first. Hanna Phosphorous checker for phosphates

Try this calculator for the Flourish Phosphorus http://rotalabutterfly.com/nutrient-calculator.php

pelphrey · Mar 28, 2018

Dennis Cartier said:
Try this calculator for the Flourish Phosphorus http://rotalabutterfly.com/nutrient-calculator.php

Great thank you! According to that 20ml raises phosphates to .33

reeferfoxx · Mar 28, 2018

If I'm not mistaken the math equation is listed on the Seachems phosphorus bottle.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 29, 2018

reeferfoxx said:
If I'm not mistaken the math equation is listed on the Seachems phosphorus bottle.

They have their own calculator as well:

http://www.seachem.com/flourish-phosporus.php

That said, a DIY is likely a lot cheaper and could come with a purity grade (unlike the Seachem product).

pelphrey · Mar 29, 2018

reeferfoxx said:
If I'm not mistaken the math equation is listed on the Seachems phosphorus bottle.

Never once thought about that! haha Thank you!

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
They have their own calculator as well:

http://www.seachem.com/flourish-phosporus.php

That said, a DIY is likely a lot cheaper and could come with a purity grade (unlike the Seachem product).

Thanks Randy! I agree the DIY would be cheaper, with this being my first time going down this avenue I felt more comfortable with the seachem flourish. I will look at a DIY solution if/when I run out of this bottle. Much appreciated!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 29, 2018

pelphrey said:
Thanks Randy! I agree the DIY would be cheaper, with this being my first time going down this avenue I felt more comfortable with the seachem flourish. I will look at a DIY solution if/when I run out of this bottle. Much appreciated!

You're welcome.

Let us know how things turn out.

Fourstars · Mar 29, 2018

I have the same tank and was running a ATS also. last year I decided to simplify and took the ATS offline and just added Cheato to the sump. Did not notice any difference. My corals were bleaching and very poor color. I started dosing a few weeks ago both no3 po4 and man what a difference! everything has colored up nicely, growth rate has improved and PH increased. Go slow, I did get carried away and overdosed po4 and had a small algae outbreak but corrected it with a few days of carbon dosing.

pelphrey · Mar 29, 2018

Fourstars said:
I have the same tank and was running a ATS also. last year I decided to simplify and took the ATS offline and just added Cheato to the sump. Did not notice any difference. My corals were bleaching and very poor color. I started dosing a few weeks ago both no3 po4 and man what a difference! everything has colored up nicely, growth rate has improved and PH increased. Go slow, I did get carried away and overdosed po4 and had a small algae outbreak but corrected it with a few days of carbon dosing.

That is great to know! Thank you very much for your input!

rtparty · Apr 6, 2018

How are things going? Glad to see you took some of our advice and started dosing to get those nutrients up!

I'm considering getting the RAIN2 for my 120g. My current skimmer is technically under rated for a 120g tank so the ATS would help here. Plus, I am drifting towards a much more natural approach to this hobby. All the lastest "advancements" have made this hobby so much harder than I remember it being when I started in '06. I'm really wanting to go back to my roots with it all on this 120.

pelphrey · Apr 6, 2018

rtparty said:
How are things going? Glad to see you took some of our advice and started dosing to get those nutrients up!

I'm considering getting the RAIN2 for my 120g. My current skimmer is technically under rated for a 120g tank so the ATS would help here. Plus, I am drifting towards a much more natural approach to this hobby. All the lastest "advancements" have made this hobby so much harder than I remember it being when I started in '06. I'm really wanting to go back to my roots with it all on this 120.

I haven't dosed any nitrates for about a week, they are holding steady at around 4ppm. Phosphates tend to fluctuate a little, I feed reef roids a couple times a week, when that happens they increase. I did add the Nyos 120 skimmer back to the system, I have it set to skim as dry as possible. I am using it to aerate the water primarily. All in all I haven't noticed any differences in corals from the dosing of nitrates, simply because my refractometer apparently wasn't calibrated correctly and my tank was at 1.020 - so I've been topping off with a high salinity salt water for the last week to bring it back to 1.025-1.026 and I have 2 more calibration solutions coming in today to verify the equipment. I do really like the RAIN2 and its low profile, Santa Monica has a RAIN4 coming out soon! Same foot print as the RAIN2 except it is 5" taller and the screen is bigger. Of course the price is bigger as well!