Algae Scrubber Basics

Do you have experience kick-starting an ATS on a nearly sterile tank? Not trying to be facetious, just trying to understand your opinion.

FWIW, when I ran the scrubber on this tank last year when it first went live (before I took the whole thing down for repairs) it basically did the same thing. It was running for a month or two and nothing but a thin coat of brown slime.
 
I'm not so sure. Yes it's possible that you need to introduce some algae, but first I would look at your setup and see if you're missing something. Algae is one of the if not the most common organism on the planet. You would be hard pressed to start out with a completely, totally sterile system and not end up introducing some algae somewhere along the way....
 
I surely have SOME algae. What I'm pondering is, is it the right species, and is it "enough" to seed the scrubber in a reasonable timeframe?

I'm oversized according to the "feeding" standard and probably a little low on light (using the common 23w CFLs mounted in spider light reflectors cut up from an old MH rig). So yeah, I probably need to just relax and maybe up the lighting and see what happens, but I'm curious to know if anyone's seeded on a tank like mine and had good results.
 
This got me thinking as well, i don't know if my tank has any GHA in it either... At least i have never seen something i would call that in the display over the year or so it has been running. Most of my rocks are dead rock as well, or at best were in a 'live rock' tub in the LFS (which might have been dead rock let cycle), and while some of the corals and snails brought some algae with them (namely green and red bubble, red hair thin mesh like stuff, and green spiral looking thing) none had green hair. I do have a fairly substantial CUC so they may be keeping it from ever appearing too, of course.

I'll remove the last of my bio pellets (and reactor) this next cleaning and hopefully increase flow to the screen and see if the results change.
 
Do you have experience kick-starting an ATS on a nearly sterile tank? Not trying to be facetious, just trying to understand your opinion.

FWIW, when I ran the scrubber on this tank last year when it first went live (before I took the whole thing down for repairs) it basically did the same thing. It was running for a month or two and nothing but a thin coat of brown slime.

Yep, the tank you see on the first post of this thread was started on without anything. That's fine, without any bio load. A scrubber is only going to produce what it can at the time.
 
I surely have SOME algae. What I'm pondering is, is it the right species, and is it "enough" to seed the scrubber in a reasonable timeframe?

I'm oversized according to the "feeding" standard and probably a little low on light (using the common 23w CFLs mounted in spider light reflectors cut up from an old MH rig). So yeah, I probably need to just relax and maybe up the lighting and see what happens, but I'm curious to know if anyone's seeded on a tank like mine and had good results.

Let nature do its thing, it will happen all on its own. "Build it and they will come"
 
Floyd since I'm going to build a new ATS for the LEDs. Trying to figure out the 3-D growth concept.

I have a ton of flow on a 21" long screen. On your build shown in the first few pages of this thread, It looks like you just made a box with lower sides on the ends to let the water flow out. I'm afraid that on mine this would make a waterfall at the ends, plus I question if the lower portions of the screen would get the proper flow.

Are there any pics or descriptions of larger screens with 3D growth on here?

I am thinking about placing an overflow on the end of the box up higher. Then place a very few 1/2" holes in the bottom of the screen box. I could experiment drilling one or two more holes in the bottom everytime that I clean the screen to find the sweet spot where the water will just barely trickle out the overflow and keep the box full.

Do I have the right idea on how this works?
 
No, mine has an outer box frame and an inner box for the screen. It has drains in the corners and maintains about 1" of water at the bottom. You need the water to flow past the screen then out the bottom. Flooded boxes do not work. When the algae grows out to the sides of the box, it traps water, but it still flows past so the bottom still gets flow. Smaller holes on the bottom would probably get blocked by growth. I had 2 drains on mine but one was higher so when the 3D growth kicked in then it started flowing. Mine's off right now as I'm getting ready to move the system and the new setup (same box) will be different slightly. But gotta go right now
 
Ok after reading my way through this thing I have decided to build one.

My tank is a 300g DT, with a 100g fuge, and 2 40g frag tanks for 480g total.

I currently feed the equivalent of 5-7 cubes of food, 0.5 oz of pellets and a 8x8 sheet of nori a day. I plan up this as I add fish to the system.

Anyway, based on feeding im looking at needing about 240 sq in. I have enough space to do a 18x18 screen (324 in sq). Would there be any adverse effects to oversizing the screen this much? If so would it be a good idea to light the screen from one side until the feeding increases enough to light the other side?

Lastly, I would like to light this with LED's but Im still not sure what the consensus is on LED's.

What is the number of watts(or lumens) per sq in of screen? Should I go with 630's alone, 630's and 660's, add some blue's? And 3w or 1w?
 
I wasnt going to look at 120 pages of forums, but is there a nano scale algae scrubber I can build? for say a 20 gallon to be exact :D ?
 
Ok after reading my way through this thing I have decided to build one.

My tank is a 300g DT, with a 100g fuge, and 2 40g frag tanks for 480g total.

I currently feed the equivalent of 5-7 cubes of food, 0.5 oz of pellets and a 8x8 sheet of nori a day. I plan up this as I add fish to the system.

Anyway, based on feeding im looking at needing about 240 sq in. I have enough space to do a 18x18 screen (324 in sq). Would there be any adverse effects to oversizing the screen this much? If so would it be a good idea to light the screen from one side until the feeding increases enough to light the other side?

Lastly, I would like to light this with LED's but Im still not sure what the consensus is on LED's.

What is the number of watts(or lumens) per sq in of screen? Should I go with 630's alone, 630's and 660's, add some blue's? And 3w or 1w?

I wasnt going to look at 120 pages of forums, but is there a nano scale algae scrubber I can build? for say a 20 gallon to be exact :D ?

See my signature...
 
Its my second cleaning on my short light cycles/closer lights and I have to say that it is the biggest harvest I have had to date (by 25-50% more) and the HA that popped back up in the DT seems to be receding.
 
Its my second cleaning on my short light cycles/closer lights and I have to say that it is the biggest harvest I have had to date (by 25-50% more) and the HA that popped back up in the DT seems to be receding.

What cycle? 2 1/2 hours on? then 1 hour off?
Can you start measuring harvest?
 
Hey guys, Got a alage promblem still. My scrubber is doing much better. Getting really green growth now but so is my tank. I noticed alittle more algae than normal today. Is it due to my recent MH light change? I went from t5s to MH 3 or 4 days ago. My screen was just cleaned yesterday, does this have anything to do with it? Also was curious to how I should clean. Do I clean both sides at the same time or alternate every week?
 
If you are trying to out-compete growth in the tank you may want to try cleaning one side every 3-4 days. If you're getting solid green growth and your screen is definitely rough enough, you can do one side every 5 days. The green growth is the most efficient so this shouldn't take long. If you are noticing the difference in the DT immdiately after switching the lights, yeah, probably the lights then. Esp if the T5s were old.
 
Hi Floyd, have a ? .. 3 days ago i upgraded from a 30g to a 75g, im using the same ATS from the 30g, the 75g looked great yesterday in the morning! i cleand one side of the ATS in the morning, when i got home at 9:00pm my sand and rock were full of hair algae!! :-( my nitrates are 0ppm and phosphates are 0.2, what happend??? Thanks.
 
When you move all the contents of a tank from one to another, it upsets the balance of the system. The microorganisms in the system that had adapted to their situation now have different placement with respect to flow and lighting, so you will likely end up with a mini-cycle, albeit one that you cannot "see" on your test kits. This can result in a short-term algae outbreak and can be exacerbated by a change in lighting as well (which I'm guessing is the case as well). Moving rocks and substrate (and changing the flow patterns) can also cause trapped N and P to leech out, so the fact that your N is low but your P is up leads me to think that this is the case, and the algae on the rocks is sucking up the P that leeches out first, but there's still enough to get into the water column.

Make sure your screen has plenty of flow and light, even extra light if necessary for a short time, as long as you don't start getting yellow rubbery growth, you can throw as much light as you want on it. You can also up the light and decrease the "on" time per the new lighting guidelines if you get the yellow growth. You want green growth, which does the best filtering. Also don't black out the light in the DT, this will just cause the algae to die and release the nutrients into the water and could overwhelm the scrubber if it isn't strong enough, as well as stressing any corals you have. The corals will help pull nutrients (food) out of the water so you don't want to slow that process by cutting out the light.

HTH
 
When you move all the contents of a tank from one to another, it upsets the balance of the system. The microorganisms in the system that had adapted to their situation now have different placement with respect to flow and lighting, so you will likely end up with a mini-cycle, albeit one that you cannot "see" on your test kits. This can result in a short-term algae outbreak and can be exacerbated by a change in lighting as well (which I'm guessing is the case as well). Moving rocks and substrate (and changing the flow patterns) can also cause trapped N and P to leech out, so the fact that your N is low but your P is up leads me to think that this is the case, and the algae on the rocks is sucking up the P that leeches out first, but there's still enough to get into the water column.

Make sure your screen has plenty of flow and light, even extra light if necessary for a short time, as long as you don't start getting yellow rubbery growth, you can throw as much light as you want on it. You can also up the light and decrease the "on" time per the new lighting guidelines if you get the yellow growth. You want green growth, which does the best filtering. Also don't black out the light in the DT, this will just cause the algae to die and release the nutrients into the water and could overwhelm the scrubber if it isn't strong enough, as well as stressing any corals you have. The corals will help pull nutrients (food) out of the water so you don't want to slow that process by cutting out the light.

HTH

Hey Thanks!! my ATS lights are on 18h and 6 off, shoul i increase that more??
would that help??
 
Increasing the light longer will not help. Algae needs the 6 hour down time. Stronger light for a shorter time period will benefit you more than lower light for a longer period.
 
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