My Algae Turf Scrubber Build

[BOWHUNTER4250]

nice setup! You have plenty of room in that sump! Looks like a 100 gallon stock tank!

thanks ! And yes it is a 100 gal. Stock rubbermaid , just added the frag tank yesterday , hoping to get the wood pieces cut and fitted for those led lights i got this week , so hopefully by next weekend it should be running ?

 

[labas39]

Day 46's Growth

It's been a while since I posted a photo. This is after a week's growth since I took SantaMonica's suggestion to clean the screen down to the white, putting on the 42W, 150W equivalent, CFL bulb and slightly increasing the flow. The algae is lighter but not hairy. Note that it is as if it was just 1 weeks growth since I cleaned the screen rather well.

 

[SantaMonica]

Need to scrape all that off.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

Day 46's Growth
It's been a while since I posted a photo. This is after a week's growth since I took SantaMonica's suggestion to clean the screen down to the white, putting on the 42W, 150W equivalent, CFL bulb and slightly increasing the flow. The algae is lighter but not hairy. Note that it is as if it was just 1 weeks growth since I cleaned the screen rather well.

If I had been paying attention instead of dealing with work and family issues, I would have told you otherwise. Sorry I missed it.

There was no reason to scrub the screen down to the white. You had very little (thin) growth and that was not doing any harm. All you needed to do was scrape it really good with a credit card so that you could see the white mesh, but leave as much in the holes as possible.

There are only a few reasons to scrub a screen clean with a brush:

Unless your screen is covered in a black oily layer that flakes off and can only be removed by scrubbing with a hard bristled brush (usually only happens with a very high nutrient tank with CFL scrubber lighting)
You have patches of turf (usually red or brown) that you can't easily scrape off (can happen over longer term, and requires only cleaning off the affected area)

Otherwise: Never. Ever. Scrub your screen with a brush. Ever.

The reason is that you remove all attached growth and this essentially causes a restart of the screen. You can clean your screen with a brush but don't scrub hard.

 

[Dannycelluk]

Another weeks growth!

1000hd tmc tile with blues

1000hd tmc tile all whites

Algae removed

I'd say the blues defo improve the growth rate, think I'll change the all white tile for another white and blue!

 

[Dannycelluk]

I find a spoon works well for cleaning, brushes just get clogged up with the algae

 

[zemuss]

I used an old credit card to clean the screen. YOu don't need to scrub it to the white screen. You need to leave your seed algae there.

How are the parameters? PH Nitrate and Phos?

 

[Dannycelluk]

Temp 26.0
Salt 1.025
Ph 8.2
Nitrate 0.11
Phosphate 0.024
Kh 8

 

[Baldguy]

Question about starting up an ATS. I read it takes a while to get it going. Would it help to kind of smear some GHA you get from the DT on the screeen? Seed it yourself instead of waiting for it to start on its own.

 

[Fieryfrog]

I have a 125 gal dual drilled reef tank, and I was thinking about using one of the return lines to provide my flow for the scrubber. Is there a downside to doing that?

 

[Turbo's Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

Question about starting up an ATS. I read it takes a while to get it going. Would it help to kind of smear some GHA you get from the DT on the screeen? Seed it yourself instead of waiting for it to start on its own.

I can help a bit, but it still takes time for the algae to adhere/anchor to the screen. If you scrape a screen after "seeding" it, most of the growth will come off because there is no solid attachment. But it can't hurt.

I have a 125 gal dual drilled reef tank, and I was thinking about using one of the return lines to provide my flow for the scrubber. Is there a downside to doing that?

The only downside is that you need to make sure that the other drain can handle the full flow. A direct feed from the overflow introduces a danger factor of something going down the overflow pipe and getting snagged on the screen where it enters the pipe and blocking the flow to through that path.

 

[BOWHUNTER4250]

Ok , started my scrubber up yesterday with the 10w led on each side , i will update next week monday with a pic of the screen after 1 week ,lights on for 10hrs.. correct me if im wrong floyd but i DO NOT clean the screan at all after the first week correct ?

 

[Turbo's Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

It all depends on the growth, but any cleaning you do in the first month generally needs to be very light, unless you are getting specific types of growth that require total removal (and that is rare)

By light I mean as simple as swiping a palm across the screen and rinsing with slow running room-temp tap water, and maybe a rub with the fingertips. No scraping (until growth does not swipe off, and there is a lot of it) and no scrubbing with a brush (except for the top edge where inserted into slot)

HTH

 

[BOWHUNTER4250]

It all depends on the growth, but any cleaning you do in the first month generally needs to be very light, unless you are getting specific types of growth that require total removal (and that is rare)

By light I mean as simple as swiping a palm across the screen and rinsing with slow running room-temp tap water, and maybe a rub with the fingertips. No scraping (until growth does not swipe off, and there is a lot of it) and no scrubbing with a brush (except for the top edge where inserted into slot)

HTH

sounds good ! thanks , ill keep things posted here as they progress

 

[labas39]

I'd say the blues defo improve the growth rate, think I'll change the all white tile for another white and blue!

Awesome growth and great info! I'm jealous!

 

[Rick_Dude]

I have a 125 gal dual drilled reef tank, and I was thinking about using one of the return lines to provide my flow for the scrubber. Is there a downside to doing that?

I built one for 150gal tank using drain I split it in two, one goes to ATS and second to the filter sock, and flow can be fine tuned as desired, and used two valves to control the flow. You can completely close ATS too if required and everything goes to sock.
Check out this video, it may help.
I ordered 2 ABI Full Spectrum 12W LED Grow Light Bulb (Red 610-640 nm, Blue 450-470 nm).
Algae Turf Scrubber: http://youtu.be/eFPQdIlsp38

 

[Rick_Dude]

Algae Turf Scrubber: http://youtu.be/eFPQdIlsp38

 

[Turbo's Aquatics Verified Sponsor]

Flow looks good, screen is huge. How big is your tank and how much do you feed? Light need to be perpendicular to screen, not from above pointing down.

Also with the 2-valve setup, while it gives you the ability to control flow to each device, you are setting yourself up for disaster unless you have a secondary full-flow path from the tank. If anything makes it's way down the overflow pipe and blocks on of the drain paths, the water can back up in the tank and overflow it. Of course, if you don't have a lot of available water in your sump to pump back into the tank this problem is minimized - your sump has baffles and the pump section has limited water but it's always good to check with a worst-case-scenario test.

My worst case scenario test is:
1) top off bucket is full and the top off pump gets stuck "on" and empties the whole bucket
2) power goes out right at that moment, sump needs to be sized and have the normal operation water level set to avoid sump overflow

That's more of a sump/tank design worst-case scenario but it would apply also if #1 happened and then something blocked one of the drain paths, tank would potentially overflow.

You can remedy this in a single drain system by building in a bypass like this:

 

[Dannycelluk]

The problem I found with using the return to sump pipework is that it keeps making and breaking the syphon. Causing an increase and decrease in flow to the screen. It would be better to t off of your return to display pump pipework, with a valve.

 

[labas39]

Day 54's Growth:

I'm finally getting some growth albeit not the nice light green stuff.

One weeks' growth. Sorry for no reference but this is about the size of a silver dollar.