Waterfall ats question

[Fishnbirds]

We built a waterfall algae scrubber, it has been up and running for 6 days and seems to be working well, screen doesn't have thick growth but is green. My question is how long does it take to start bringing down nitrates and phosphates?

 

[Scotty LaBeouf]

Im currently building a tank that i plan to run an ATS on so im no expert... yet. but my best guess is that it depends on have much nutrients are in your water for good growth and then it will pull more nitrates and phosphates. this is just my guess tho so don't tank my word for it.

 

[atoll]

ATS's are excellent at reducing NO3 but not so good reducing PO4. NO3 will start to be used up as soon as you have algae growing it's just you won't notice it until you have done a few screen cleans of GHA. Depending on where your NO3 was at to start with it can be possible to see a 80% reduction in NO3 in around 4 to 6 weeks with good GHA growth and weekly removal of GHA but it all depends on the growth rate of your GHA and size of your ATS.

 

[pelphrey]

My ATS has been running for awhile now (6 weeks or more) and it is finally starting to grow algae. Increasing the bioload and feeding may have helped kick off the algae growth.