Santa Monica RAIN2 Algae Scrubber Follow Along
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Reeftang
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Do you have the same model??? Do you have some pics please. The reason why im so anxious is because im dealing with a GHA issue in my DT, and i was thinking it will for sure grow fast on the screen since i have it in the DT.
Justfebreezeit
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No but I have a Santa Monica Drop Scrubber. Heres a picture of it full and few weeks ago.
ca1ore
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What? ATS can certainly introduce yellowing chemicals into the water which is why you should also run a skimmer and carbon.
ca1ore
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LOL, yesterday’s tomorrow is today ..... here is the screen after a bit less than 3 weeks. Both sides look the same so here’s just one.
Round lights mean round growth. It’ll fill in over time. You may be iron limited in your system. I have to dose it for reasonable chaeto growth, but turf algae needs it too.
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stacksoner
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I misread "nutrients" for "organics" in OPs post. post.Nutrient spike from algae scrubber intro may be from other algae dying off.
Reeftang
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i dono i must be doing something wrong here.LOL, yesterday’s tomorrow is today ..... here is the screen after a bit less than 3 weeks. Both sides look the same so here’s just one.
Round lights mean round growth. It’ll fill in over time. You may be iron limited in your system. I have to dose it for reasonable chaeto growth, but turf algae needs it too.
Reeftang
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What lighting schedule do you have it on???LOL, yesterday’s tomorrow is today ..... here is the screen after a bit less than 3 weeks. Both sides look the same so here’s just one.
Round lights mean round growth. It’ll fill in over time. You may be iron limited in your system. I have to dose it for reasonable chaeto growth, but turf algae needs it too.
Also keep in mind, Simon’s (Ca1ore) tank is a well established, heavily stocked 450 gallon tank. If I’m not mistaken, your tank is a fairly young 60 gallon tank with few corals if I recall correctly. Rest assured, you aren’t doing anything wrong. You just need to be patient and understand that this will not be a quick process. Give your ATS time to go through the slime stages before any meaningful GHA takes a foothold on your screen.
stacksoner
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Lol! It's like the best way to not grow GHA is to try growing GHA.
Meat locker
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This thread is quite painful to read. ATS takes time to get established. As recommended above, you need to make some serious ground in the display first. How could such a tiny ATS compete with a display of full of hair algae. Show us how bad the outbreak is in the display.
Scrubber_steve
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@Reeftang, my scrubber screen took a few months to fully establish a mature screen of ulva algae. Within a month & a half after this the green & brown hair algae, the red turf algae, & the cyanobacteria I had growing in the display all disappeared.
From what I've seen, including photos, the algae most likely to dominate the scrubber screen is a long strand type of Ulva algae, not hair algae.
Just be patient, the screen will eventually mature.
From what I've seen, including photos, the algae most likely to dominate the scrubber screen is a long strand type of Ulva algae, not hair algae.
Just be patient, the screen will eventually mature.
ca1ore
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Actually, I've boosted the light duration for this new unit to try to get it 'up to speed' more quickly. Normally, I run 14 hours ON and 10 OFF. Always figured it was important to give the turf algae a 'break' …. like in nature. I'm also using much more powerful lights that I have in the past; even accounting for the larger surface area. Approximately 20 linear inches of screen width getting a total of 450 GPH (maybe a tad low) and a Growstar 150 (62 actual watts) on each side. Not suggesting you'd need anything as large. I do have 450 gallons and 125 fish after all.
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OP - My turf scrubber took about six weeks to build up a maximum harvestIf you want to try something to get the growth going on your turf scrubber:
- Pull out as much GHA out of your DT by hand each day. This will make more nutrients available to your scrubber.
- Dose a small amount of iron in the sump with the scrubber input. This will help your algae utilize the available nutrients for growth more fully. Don't overdose iron.
