A different kind of ATS

[travis32]

O.k. I sorta stumbled onto an accidental ATS idea. This goes with the cheap and simple.....

An in display ATS.. Heh...

I noticed that on my nori clip that have zip tied to the top of my tank, would always grow huge bunches of hair algae that I"d remove each week.

I also had zip ties that I had zip tied my turkey baster for feeding to one of the braces. One of the ends of the zip ties dangled in the water and I didn't think anyt hing of it. Within a couple weeks it and the Nori clip had huge bunches of hair algae on them...

I thought, hmm... Algae grows well there within 1/2" from the surface of the water level.
SO, I put more zip ties on both of the braces of the tank, with the rough edge of the tie hanging just below the surface's water line.


I have around 8 zip ties dangling just below the water line now and in front of my powerheads. Both powerheads are close to the surface and are aimed at the surface for maximum surface tension... So far all the zip ties are growing green turf algae and are starting to fill in with balls of Hair algae and even have pieces of sea lettuce (that I got a year or two ago) growing from them.

They are closer to the metal halides than any other thing in the display.

The halides aren't on that long. The center 400 watt halide is on for 4 hours. and the two outer 250W halides (right and left) are on for 5 hours, and two VHO bulbs that are on for a total of 10 hours.

This is in a 6ft 125g tank. It's a very crude form of ATS, but, so far, it's growing as much or more GHA than what I grow in my display. I tried a sump ATS with 4 X 26W CFL bulbs and didn't get near the GHA growth that I'm getting on these zip ties...

Say around 3-4" of the zip tie is in the water, the entire length will get covered in GHA within a couple weeks and it will be around a 3-5" bundle of hair algae I can pull off.

Anyone tried in display ATS's before?

 

[Mangodude]

That's interesting.. not sure how it'd look but effective

I had halides on my last tank and they were about 1 inch from my overflows. They overflows grew turf algae like crazy! actually clogged up once.. all the flow was great for them and the tangs couldn't pick at them. might want to try roughing up your overflows and seeing if you can do the same.. never had GHA problems in my display tank btw

 

[newtank]

Loving the idea of using traditional ats substrate in the over flows, my stand pipes dont exist, so it just like an ats flowing in sheets to the drain....simple! Now to do the math to determine if they are large enough being lit from the top down...

 

[srusso]

The growth for 3-4 weeks will not help much in controlling nutrients in your tank. Can you post pictures of your sump built unit? Maybe something wasn't right? Where you getting healthy green growth?

What you have made are called surface scrubbers or floating scrubbers. basically floating screens tied to a single line. Then placed in streams or rivers etc and using the sun to grow the algae. In the end same basic concept as single sided water fall scrubber. If you added plastic mesh connecting two ties together it would grow even better. Should float too

 

[rishma]

i used to grow a serious turf on my bare bottom, nowhere else. zero N & P, happy corals. My wife hated the look.

 

[srusso]

The growth for 3-4 weeks will not help much in controlling nutrients in your tank. Can you post pictures of your sump built unit? Maybe something wasn't right? Where you getting healthy green growth?

What you have made are called surface scrubbers or floating scrubbers. basically floating screens tied to a single line. Then placed in streams or rivers etc and using the sun to grow the algae. In the end same basic concept as single sided water fall scrubber. If you added plastic mesh connecting two ties together it would grow even better. Should float too

Here is a good photo of what I was talking about.

View attachment ats-figD.jpg

Taken from http://walteradey.com/ats.php

"Floating screens from the surface to 10m depth in a wide variety of eastern Caribbean coral reefs were harvested weekly, by hand scraping, to demonstrate algal production levels. At 10-20g(dry wgt)/m2/day, production was roughly one-third of the algal turf productivity inferred from oxygen analyses. The very irregular reef surface provided 2-3 m2 of surface/per horizontal m2 to make up the difference."

 

[travis32]

Cool concept. I think I know what went wrong with my turf scrubber. I kept the acrylic since I paid for it. Not sure if I'll hook it up again or not...

I checked my Nitrates. I've got between 5 and 10 nitrates. I think it's the same reason my vodka dosing isn't helping a whole lot. I think I have Phosphates, but, insufficient nitrates to do anything. Algae has spotty growth int he tank, but, isn't controllable. Now that I've slowed down on feeding even the stuff on the zip ties is dieing off.. Some algae is staying alive in the display.

So, not sure it's really the scrubber's fault for not producing much.