Ok everyone,
I jumped on the ATS band wagon just about a week ago. Watched a lot of videos, read a ton of posts, and put one together using 1" PVC and all the right materials. I know everyone has their preferences, experiences and opinions about how to run a reef tank but I honestly think that an ATS "could be" superior in at least one way, water aeration.
If you look back over the massive amounts of information regarding aeration of water and how it is supposed to work, one thing remains constant. The break up of the water's surface helps promote oxygen exchange/enrichment. To this, I offer that specifically a waterfall ATS does this far better than any other method that I am aware of. The constant falling of the water over an extremely rough, uneven, constantly changing surface I believe allows a higher percentage of aeration and gas exchange than any other medium. I also believe this is what allows for rapid algae seeding and growth all other things considered. I believe that this is due in part to the rapid gas exchange that takes place at the rate or 35gph (recommended flow rate) x screen width. I think this rate of exchange also is responsible for the increased rate of nutrient uptake and processing.
Now, I'm not a scientist by any means, but lessons learned thus far has shown that increasing any one element of a process has the potential to multiply the results accordingly is most cases. I have had my ATS up and running for just about a week now and I'm using a full sheet of the recommended material in portrait and a UFO 165w LED plant grow light that was previously used to grow herbs in doors, and my growth is nothing short of amazing. It's consistent coverage all over the sheet and the decrease in available nutrients in the tank have taken a nosedive down from 20ppm NO3 last week to just barely registering. Now I understand that a certain amount of nutrients are tied up in whatever macro or HA that might be present, however the reduction in overall measurable nutrients has fallen significantly in just the past week.
Now, and you can be honest with me, am i being naive about what I'm seeing and experiencing here?
I jumped on the ATS band wagon just about a week ago. Watched a lot of videos, read a ton of posts, and put one together using 1" PVC and all the right materials. I know everyone has their preferences, experiences and opinions about how to run a reef tank but I honestly think that an ATS "could be" superior in at least one way, water aeration.
If you look back over the massive amounts of information regarding aeration of water and how it is supposed to work, one thing remains constant. The break up of the water's surface helps promote oxygen exchange/enrichment. To this, I offer that specifically a waterfall ATS does this far better than any other method that I am aware of. The constant falling of the water over an extremely rough, uneven, constantly changing surface I believe allows a higher percentage of aeration and gas exchange than any other medium. I also believe this is what allows for rapid algae seeding and growth all other things considered. I believe that this is due in part to the rapid gas exchange that takes place at the rate or 35gph (recommended flow rate) x screen width. I think this rate of exchange also is responsible for the increased rate of nutrient uptake and processing.
Now, I'm not a scientist by any means, but lessons learned thus far has shown that increasing any one element of a process has the potential to multiply the results accordingly is most cases. I have had my ATS up and running for just about a week now and I'm using a full sheet of the recommended material in portrait and a UFO 165w LED plant grow light that was previously used to grow herbs in doors, and my growth is nothing short of amazing. It's consistent coverage all over the sheet and the decrease in available nutrients in the tank have taken a nosedive down from 20ppm NO3 last week to just barely registering. Now I understand that a certain amount of nutrients are tied up in whatever macro or HA that might be present, however the reduction in overall measurable nutrients has fallen significantly in just the past week.
Now, and you can be honest with me, am i being naive about what I'm seeing and experiencing here?
do you have any pictures of the scrubber? Was it DIY?
