Worth the money?

[Tommy McDonald]

Are these worth the money? Looking at getting Red Sea Peninsula 650 Deluxe System with everything and the guy at the fish store said this would be nice to have as a added upgrade for alage control

 

[BigHildy53]

Plenty of people run them. A fuge with cheato can accomplish the same; with a high powered grow light. It's really a matter of opinion and expense.

 

[Tommy McDonald]

If I'm correct this would encourage alage to grow inside the cabinet with the sump and not in the tank?

 

[BigHildy53]

Specifically within the algae scrubber. Idea is that growing it there absorbs the extra nutrients and prevents algae from growing in the display.

 

[Tommy McDonald]

Gotcha so don't need it but helps but adding a light in the cabinet to get alage growing would do the same maybe not as good if on a budget not a gotta have

 

[BigHildy53]

Gotcha so don't need it but helps but adding a light in the cabinet to get alage growing would do the same maybe not as good if on a budget not a gotta have

Not trying to split hairs. The ATS (algae turf scrubber) contains the algae to within the device. When it gets full, you scrap off the algae and it grows back. Putting a light in the sump to grow general algae could result in the algae spreading to the display. Use a light in the sump when growing chaeto.

 

[GoVols]

Gotcha so don't need it but helps but adding a light in the cabinet to get alage growing would do the same maybe not as good if on a budget not a gotta have

Algae scrubber's are great but... many ways to skin a cat.

I'd do the homework and understand what your buying and what it needs to thrive.

 

[AquaART]

I would personally opt out of a scrubber. They are high maintenance and it's much simpler to simply keep cheato. Think about it, to clean the scrubber you need to unscrew a union, take out the screen, scrape it, rinse it, put it back, clean all the drips. From all the people that I've spoken too, they said that the amount of work it takes to maintain one is far more than expected.

 

[andrew james]

I'd rather do that than have a fuge in a Red Sea sump. I think it's going to come down to if your a clean freak or not. fuges can be messy the light make algae grow on everything. And it's always spreads to other compartments no matter how hard you try.