lso I do not see an algee refugium, is that black box an agee scruber? if it is what type of algee are you using?
I was under the impression that Chaeto was the best but Vintage Reefer uses a different kind.
To put it simply, cheato is the most common algae used in refugiums. That does not make it the best. It’s good, it’s easy to harvest and grow and sell, it’s durable, it absorbs phosphate and nitrate. But it is not “the best” and by “best” I mean “most efficient”
Turf algae in scrubbers absorb anywhere from 5-8x the amount of phosphate compared to an equal volume of cheato. It’s a faster growing, more absorbent type of algae, and takes up less physical space than a refugium.
You cannot seed a scrubber. True Example - I have two tanks with Santa Monica scrubbers. Both use the same leds. As an experiment, I took a handful of algae from my 75g tank surf 2 scrubber, and put it in the scrubber of my 15g tank, and about a week later…it was gone. In a sealed box. With nothing to eat it. It vanished.
This is because the algae that grows in a scrubber is unique and custom to each tank. How does it get in the scrubber in the first place? Spores. Every tank has turf algae spores in it, they just lack the conditions to make it grow. Algae scrubbers incorporate high powered lighting, sometimes around 1000 par, 2” or less, from the growth surface. These leds vary by brand but the surf uses 660nm red leds, ones proven to be favorable and correct dedicated spectrum for algae growth. Scrubbers also introduce air exposure. Surfs use high power air pumps, screen scrubbers have the algae growing in open air. Different scrubbers have different methods but the all utilize the same things: proper air, flow, lighting, to give the correct conditions, to grow turf algae.
The algae that grows will be a form of turf but it’s unique to your tank. I can’t take it from one and move it to another. It rarely works. The system has to grow its own. And it will. It takes a few weeks for this to happen and for a scrubber to begin its own algae colony.
If I took the algae from my scrubber and put it in my tank directly, it would not survive. There are forms of turf algae that grow on peoples rock. It’s other species. There’s tons of algae species, you have to keep that in mind and understand that what grows in it is it’s own thing and “turf algae” is a broad term for a family of algae.
Many people with scrubbers are able to eliminate, or at least significantly reduce water changes, as long as they are replenishing trace elements, calcium and alkalinity. There’s a number of reasons for this that I won’t go into because it really is unique per each individuals system and situation.
Unless your system has extremely high nutrients, or your scrubber is undersized, you cannot run a refugium and a scrubber. The scrubber can not differentiate good algae (cheato refugium) vs bad algae…it just competes with algae outside the unit itself.
This is my refugium years ago, before I started using a scrubber. I grew Cheeto like many of you do, and I grew it well. Harvested it every week or so, sold it online to others. Did this for over a year.
Bags I would sell
My entire refugium area of my sump, was a refugium. And it wasn’t keeping up with my tanks demands for nutrient control. Helping? Yes. But it wasn’t enough for total control. I added the scrubber and once it was established, all this cheato died off. The scrubber outcompeted it. And, the scrubber proved to be enough, to meet the demands of my tank, she only took up 1/4 the space in this chamber, and I then filled that remaining space, with live rock. I no longer needed refugium lighting, so the live rock that was added, was added in darkness. And that is how my cryptic zone adventures began.
I believe the combination of the scrubber + cryptic zone of live rock and sponge, is the formula, that provides the results that exnisstech and I have. Exnisstech was starting a new tank and was interested in my methods, we communicated, and I made product suggestions based on his system size and he replicated what I’m doing, but he also uses filter socks. His results match what I predicted and speak for themself.
I don’t run a skimmer and I don’t do water changes. Running a skimmer doesn’t hurt anything in this formula, I ran one for many years. I just found that in my current system the filtration is so strong, I didn’t need the skimmer any more. I was experiencing zero to near zero phosphates and nitrates, and felt I was riding a thin line, and wanted my numbers bumped up a little.
I feel I’ve rambled, possibly drifted off topic, so I’ll stop here, and hope I addressed your questions. Feel free to ask more.
) with that fast a growth rate they should be able to double in size in hours, not days. One of the things we still have to unravel is what mechanisms or conditions or variable determine wether they grow or wether they shed off lots of nutrient rich cellular detritus
