So, my Turbo Aquatics Algae scrubber (L4) has been operational now for 2 weeks. Icleaned the screen for the first time, not over zealous on the algae removal. I smeared some of the algae paste back on the screen to be careful not to remove it all.
The strangeness of it was that after 13-14 days of being operational, it had a thick almost 1/4" thick past of algae covering both sides. When I pulled it off it came off not as a slime algae but more of a thick semi hard pasty algae. It was green in color for the most part (light green). Smelled horrible. And I thought, slime algae would go down the drain, but this clogged the drain, was all hard chunks that just plugged up the sink drain. I was able to pull it all out of the drain and throw it away, but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting.
Is this normal for a scrubber to grow this weird semi hard pasty algae?
I'm not running a skimmer currently, and have roughly 400 gallon water volume. I have around 11-12 fish total, a good sized rabbit fish and an adult - 4 year old black tang about 6-8 Inches in size. I generally feed 2 cubes of frozen mysis, or 1 sheet of Nori and 1 cube of Mysis.
So, not a huge bioload, but enough to keep cyano in the display. I've noticed though, since cleaning the screen, there's been a slight decrease in Cyano. I suspect it'll take time, but the tank is only operational for 4 months.
I just wanted to confirm that algae paste is normal for a scrubber? (is there a normal?)
The strangeness of it was that after 13-14 days of being operational, it had a thick almost 1/4" thick past of algae covering both sides. When I pulled it off it came off not as a slime algae but more of a thick semi hard pasty algae. It was green in color for the most part (light green). Smelled horrible. And I thought, slime algae would go down the drain, but this clogged the drain, was all hard chunks that just plugged up the sink drain. I was able to pull it all out of the drain and throw it away, but it definitely wasn't what I was expecting.
Is this normal for a scrubber to grow this weird semi hard pasty algae?
I'm not running a skimmer currently, and have roughly 400 gallon water volume. I have around 11-12 fish total, a good sized rabbit fish and an adult - 4 year old black tang about 6-8 Inches in size. I generally feed 2 cubes of frozen mysis, or 1 sheet of Nori and 1 cube of Mysis.
So, not a huge bioload, but enough to keep cyano in the display. I've noticed though, since cleaning the screen, there's been a slight decrease in Cyano. I suspect it'll take time, but the tank is only operational for 4 months.
I just wanted to confirm that algae paste is normal for a scrubber? (is there a normal?)
