Algae Scrubber Basics
- Thread starter srusso
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spamreefnew
New member
wow! algae scrubbers are gaining ground! I was a black sheep for using one a year ago!! Does anybody have problems with the algae going through cycles of hair to turf then hair and back to turf like I do? That is my only complaint with my ATS so far......
srusso
Active member
Never had problems with anything like that, are you changing bulbs every three months. Can you post pictures of your setup? Harvest results, and tests of your water.
srusso
Active member
How well does the water flow across the screen? It does look like a lot of flow...
My only comment at least initially would be you could be losing a lot of light pointing the lights through the plastic. Lets see how things go for the next few weeks.
So i've got my vertical ats up and running, it seems to be starting up pretty well. However i've been doing a lot of reading and alot of stuff seems to indicate that the horizontal scrubber with a dump bucket is the ideal design for maximizing algal growth and nutrient uptake. Obviously since space is a constraint for 95% of us this is not doable, but if space was not a concern is this a superior design to the vertical constant water wall?
According to Adey's book, "Assuming adequate light, algal production is limited only by inadequate exchange of metabolites -- oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients -- between the water and the cells of the attached algae. We have demonstrated a strong correlation between wave surge and improved metabolic interchange: when we occasionally stop the wave generators in our main reef tanks -- while maintaining a constant rate of circulation and level of light -- immediately there is a 50% reduction of oxygen production. The surge generated by the wave maker produces a back and forth motion within the tank, preventing the development of semi stagnant boundary layers that occur when a constant flow of liquid passes a fixed object. A steady current would tend to pin the filaments in an immobile position, and a surface layer of very slow moving water would develop."
This seems to explain why you need to scrape the screen every so often because the top layer smothers and kills the lower layers. I want to try and experiment with the horizontal/dump bucket in my sump. My question is should my screen be slightly submerged with the surge going over the top of the screen? or should my screen be above the waterline so that it is completely exposed to air during the dump/surge reset time?
According to Adey's book, "Assuming adequate light, algal production is limited only by inadequate exchange of metabolites -- oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients -- between the water and the cells of the attached algae. We have demonstrated a strong correlation between wave surge and improved metabolic interchange: when we occasionally stop the wave generators in our main reef tanks -- while maintaining a constant rate of circulation and level of light -- immediately there is a 50% reduction of oxygen production. The surge generated by the wave maker produces a back and forth motion within the tank, preventing the development of semi stagnant boundary layers that occur when a constant flow of liquid passes a fixed object. A steady current would tend to pin the filaments in an immobile position, and a surface layer of very slow moving water would develop."
This seems to explain why you need to scrape the screen every so often because the top layer smothers and kills the lower layers. I want to try and experiment with the horizontal/dump bucket in my sump. My question is should my screen be slightly submerged with the surge going over the top of the screen? or should my screen be above the waterline so that it is completely exposed to air during the dump/surge reset time?
King_Richard
New member
Full tank shots, display tank and sump. I tried turning the actinics all the way down to 20% and cranking up the white, but the camera still saw through to the blue. I give up on trying to find a suitable shot for colors with that camera. The tank is a bit hazy looking due to feeding and stirring, I'm in the tank alot rite now dealing with the damaged corals that I knowingly bought. There's also a sick flame angel waiting to go in, currently has some sort of fin problem but we'll see how the weeks hospital tank has gone tomorrow, impulse buy and didn't catch it before we got her home. Other then that, current livestock is as follows:
Scooter Blenny
Mandarin
2 Cleaner Shrimp
Tree coral of some sort
Finger Leather
Chili
Lobo Brain
Favia Brain
Scoly
Orange mushrooms and ricordia
You'll notice in the sump that there's some cyano going down there, I noticed it when I installed the first scrubber last month. The cyano was barely there last week until I screwed up the other scrubber. Within the last two days the cyano has started covering more glass in the sump but I imagine when the new scrubber starts picking up I'll see the cyano recede as well. I'm not going to touch it for awhile and see how it goes on its own. I'll only remove what dies off and I would think that the scrubber will be able to starve it.
Sorry for the not so great pictures but the camera doesn't handle bright lighting, or actinic lighting very well.
Scooter Blenny
Mandarin
2 Cleaner Shrimp
Tree coral of some sort
Finger Leather
Chili
Lobo Brain
Favia Brain
Scoly
Orange mushrooms and ricordia
You'll notice in the sump that there's some cyano going down there, I noticed it when I installed the first scrubber last month. The cyano was barely there last week until I screwed up the other scrubber. Within the last two days the cyano has started covering more glass in the sump but I imagine when the new scrubber starts picking up I'll see the cyano recede as well. I'm not going to touch it for awhile and see how it goes on its own. I'll only remove what dies off and I would think that the scrubber will be able to starve it.
Sorry for the not so great pictures but the camera doesn't handle bright lighting, or actinic lighting very well.
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dogstar74
Premium Member
Here's a link to my 10 gallon build.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1982295
Any thoughts on keeping down the salt creep would be greatly appreciated.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1982295
Any thoughts on keeping down the salt creep would be greatly appreciated.
TampaReefer79
Premium Member
Ok, so I was in the middle of plumbing my tank and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this thread. Hopefully I can get some quick help so I can figure out how to start this.
My tank is 8'x4' and is about 500 gallons. It's not stocked yet, but if I can inorporate this in the plumbing from one of my 2" drains, I'd love it. I'm not going to go back in later and add an extra pump to the system for this, is what I mean. Now, off of my right hand side 2" drain, I can T off and have a ball valve control flow before it drops across a screen into the 6'x2' sump below. I have to admit I didn't read this WHOLE thread, first page or two though, and can't figure out how you figure out the flow going across the screen.
How big would you make my screen? Flow over it? Do I need more than 2 lights on each side of the screen? How do you all make the screen 'removeable' for cleaning?
Thanks!
Oh, and any other tips/advice would be awesome.
My tank is 8'x4' and is about 500 gallons. It's not stocked yet, but if I can inorporate this in the plumbing from one of my 2" drains, I'd love it. I'm not going to go back in later and add an extra pump to the system for this, is what I mean. Now, off of my right hand side 2" drain, I can T off and have a ball valve control flow before it drops across a screen into the 6'x2' sump below. I have to admit I didn't read this WHOLE thread, first page or two though, and can't figure out how you figure out the flow going across the screen.
How big would you make my screen? Flow over it? Do I need more than 2 lights on each side of the screen? How do you all make the screen 'removeable' for cleaning?
Thanks!
Oh, and any other tips/advice would be awesome.
TampaReefer79
Premium Member
Also, is this a replacement to the skimmer? If so, it's not what I'm looking for. I'd use it in conjunction with my skimmer and refugium/benthic zones.
SSpiro
Active member
Some use it that way. I personally do not. Mine runs along with a skimmer, and a soon-to-exist fuge.
if you think about it, they each eliminate different product from the water.
Scrubbers remove Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate.
Skimmers remove organic compounds and nutrition before they break down to nitrates.
if you think about it, they each eliminate different product from the water.
Scrubbers remove Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate.
Skimmers remove organic compounds and nutrition before they break down to nitrates.
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srusso
Active member
Dogstar, your algae scrubber thread is too good to possible do unnoticed. Sorry I have to post it here. Great work thank you!
I plugged it in to see if it would get hot. Here's sorta how it works.
I didn't like all the light spillage, so I painted the outside black. After all, it will be a visable portion of the tank, since I don't have a sump.
It did get a little hot for my liking, so I cut vents into the top of the lid for good measure.
Right now I'm running a bucket test to see if it elevates the water temp, Leaks, Problems, Burns the house down? You know plugging a couple of sockets into a 120V lamp cord, and putting the hot fixtures into a 3 dollar pitcher and running salt water through it, probably won't get the UL listing in the near future.
And yes for those about to ask, I roughed up the screen with a hacksaw. It was furry when I was done with it.
Now here is a problem I didn't anticipate. The remora was loud as the injection jet pushed air into the water column. But this is a loud dribble sound. Imagine a guy first thing in the morning who leaves the door open while he's using the rest room. And as you can see from the pics, there are large bubbles comming up from the water as it enters the bucket.
So how do I minimize the sound, and the salt spray, without blocking the outflow? I can't afford to have any restriction because if a chunk of algae breaks off and heads down the shute, then I've got a problem. It needs to be able to handle all the flow from a MJ 1200. Which it is doing like a champ.
Thanks for looking,
Aaron
srusso
Active member
Your build will take some consideration. It can truly be an epic scrubber in the end.
Your build would very greatly based on what space you have under your tank. Please post some pictures of the sump area you have to work with....
Without seeing it I am going to assume a few things:
You have more than one over flow. Two corners?
Your willing to spend some money on lighting for that scrubber.
You have the space needed for this build.
BUT IT CAN BE DONE!
I am drawing plans up now.
King_Richard
New member
After seeing the nifty box scrubber that dogstar74 made, it gave me an idea for a bigger scrubber that would use less bulbs as long as you have a high enough flow rate. I thought of it when I saw what TampaReefer79 would need to run an efficient scrubber. Now the T in the middle is there just to give a sense of where the return line would be going. Personally, I'd use a 4 way off of the return and plumb to each corner of the scrubber screens. I think it would work out pretty well, maybe someone who needs a bigger scrubber can expand on the concept. You could also fit this all in a box and make the box reflective on the inside to get the most out of the lights. Just some food for thought.
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Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
You mean something like this?
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Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
...or this...
For anyone out there interested in making one of these, I highly suggest that you take some time (and I do mean SOME time - when you have it) and read through this thread on Reef Sanctuary:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...ver-replaces-skimmer-refugium-everything.html
And go through as much of the algae scrubber site as possible.
The RS thread took me about a week to go through, and I read just about all of it - no skimming (no pun intended). It really gave me a true appreciation for everything the advocates of this system had to do to really prove it's worthiness. As it was said earlier in this thread, a year ago you were an outcast if you thought an ATS was liked slice bread.
For anyone out there interested in making one of these, I highly suggest that you take some time (and I do mean SOME time - when you have it) and read through this thread on Reef Sanctuary:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...ver-replaces-skimmer-refugium-everything.html
And go through as much of the algae scrubber site as possible.
The RS thread took me about a week to go through, and I read just about all of it - no skimming (no pun intended). It really gave me a true appreciation for everything the advocates of this system had to do to really prove it's worthiness. As it was said earlier in this thread, a year ago you were an outcast if you thought an ATS was liked slice bread.
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