How Often do you Clean an Algae Scrubber?

[NJBillyV]

So I diy'd an Algae Scrubber that goes into my sump and uses air bubbles to move the water across the screen. After about 4 weeks I have a nice layer of brown, kinda slimy algae growing on the screen.

It's also flaking off bits of algae when I pick it up to check the screen. So do I scrape all the algae off the screen so this doesn't happen? Is the idea to leave some algae on the screen or just scrape it all off?

Any algae scrubber maintenance advice would be appreciated!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I cleaned mine when the level inside started to rise from growth of algae

 

[Garf]

So I diy'd an Algae Scrubber that goes into my sump and uses air bubbles to move the water across the screen. After about 4 weeks I have a nice layer of brown, kinda slimy algae growing on the screen.

It's also flaking off bits of algae when I pick it up to check the screen. So do I scrape all the algae off the screen so this doesn't happen? Is the idea to leave some algae on the screen or just scrape it all off?

Any algae scrubber maintenance advice would be appreciated!

I scraped all mine off every couple of weeks. I experimented with leaving bits on but it appeared counterproductive.
Is it a new screen? They take a while to green up.

 

[driftin]

Once established I started to clean mine every 1-2 weeks. I scrape it but I don't worry about getting it too clean, just getting the bulk stuff off of it. There's still a trace left behind.

 

[ca1ore]

I would leave it be until you begin to get the green turf algae growing. Then I scrape mine every two weeks.

 

[NJBillyV]

Is it a new screen?

Yes it's a new everything, it's been up and running for about 6 weeks.

I would leave it be until you begin to get the green turf algae growing.

When I watch videos of other peoples scrubbers, they all seem to have long strands of green algae, I guess that's turf algae. But mine only has this slimy brown film of "algae" on the screen, I think it's algae anyway.

But every time I touch it it sheds a cloud of small pieces of whatever is growing on the screen which goes right into my DT.

So what do I do, scrape all of it off? Rinse the screen off good? Leave it and let it grow? Is my screen not rough enough, I scored it pretty well before I installed it.

What do I do?

 

[TheDragonsReef]

About every 2 weeks

 

[driftin]

When I was getting mine going I scraped off the slimy snot on the normal 1-2 week schedule, and eventually it started growing algae.

 

[NJBillyV]

When I was getting mine going I scraped off the slimy snot on the normal 1-2 week schedule, and eventually it started growing algae.

Sounds good, that's what I'm going to do. How long before it started to grow good algae?

 

[driftin]

Great question and wish i could remember...

 

[Garf]

Mine was a waterfall but started greening at 3 days. I was and am convinced that the brown was Dino’s, alas no evidence of that apart from pics of a brown screen from 8 years ago.

 

[NJBillyV]

I was and am convinced that the brown was Dino’s,

Yea that's what I was afraid of. So if dino's are growing in my scrubber, what's that mean? What should I do?

 

[Garf]

Yea that's what I was afraid of. So if dino's are growing in my scrubber, what's that mean? What should I do?

Generally waiting it out does not tend to propagate it in the display (whatever it is), at least I’ve never heard of it. Submerged bubbly scrubbers can take a while to mature, maybe up to a few months. I would love you to say you’ve got a microscope so someone on here could ID exactly what it is.

 

[T33BLACK]

Do you still run a refugium with the scrubber? Or no need?

 

[ca1ore]

If the tank is also just 6 weeks then the brown stuff is likely to be diatoms. ATS will take longer to form green turf in a new tank.

 

[rtparty]

Every 10-14 days after it became established. Kind of a tedious chore TBH

 

[NJBillyV]

Do you still run a refugium with the scrubber? Or no need?

The tank is only 6 months old and I haven't (and don't intend to) set up a refugium. On the Reefer 170 there's not much room in the sump once you put all the other stuff in there.

If the tank is also just 6 weeks then the brown stuff is likely to be diatoms

I think you may be right. I haven't gone through an ugly diatom stage in the DT, maybe the scrubber sucked them all up.

Update: So last night I took the scrubber out and the screen had about 80% brown slimy stuff and about 20% green algae. So I gave it a good rinse and got rid of most of the brown and left the green, then put it back into service.

Question: Is a bubble scrubber bad? Should I replace the bubbler with a small powerhead to blow water over the screen instead?

 

[ca1ore]

I've never used a bubble scrubber, but concept seems sound. When I started running an ATS on my system in the late 90's it was a dump bucket design. Worked OK, just noisy. Moved to waterfall subsequently and that's what I still use.

 

[LardLad]

It took almost a month to get a really mature media. In fact I would let it go till it's dang near choking off the flow then scrape it with a credit card but be careful not to over scrape.

Now I do about every 7 days on average

 

[LardLad]

This is looking down into it from above