Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
attach a new section of plain (non-roughed up) screen to the current one with little zip ties. This will extend the screen down to the water level.
Algae Scrubber Basics
- Thread starter srusso
- Start date
attach a new section of plain (non-roughed up) screen to the current one with little zip ties. This will extend the screen down to the water level.
Bnortz
New member
That should work actually. So you're saying just use the additional screen to avoid splashing and not to grow algae on, right?
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
bingo
How are using it, do you have pics? I was considering buying one also.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
check the summary posts in my signature. it's not about tank volume, it's about feeding and since that is the only 'input' to the tank, bio-load speaking, that's the only thing that you need to proportionately filter out. I think the 3rd or 4th post of the summary talks about screen sizing and the feeding guideline
O currently don't have a tank setup yet so the only pics I have are the ones on their site. I think it would work just like any other scrubber just not have as much surface area.
Heavy Hittah
New member
Just wanted to know what brand supplements are you all using for the ones not doing water changes.
srusso
Active member
We are all still waiting, unexpected delays at this point...
I just took mine offline due to space and also not thinking it did much of anything. Haven't noticed any change except maybe a couple corals look better. This could just be wishful thinking though. Happy with finally getting my ATS going.
As requested I took some pictures of my tank. Its not the showiest of tanks but my family and I love it.
A little over a year ago I was given a snow flake eel. My tank had been running fairly well up until that point. I had a small yellow tang, small royal blue tang, and a pair of clown fish. At that time I was controlling my nitrate with a deep sand bed and bi-weekly water changes(At least I thought I was controlling it).
The addition of the 14 inch snowflake eel screwed everything up. It dug up the sand bed and my nitrate skyrocketed to >160ppm. I started doing water changes but nothing was working. I know it was my fault, I made some newbie mistakes and really did not have adequate filtration for the bio load I had. I was almost ready to give up but as a last ditch effort to save my entry to the hobby I built an algae scrubber.
I had a couple pumps on hand already and I spent about $50.00 on supplies to build a PVC overflow and bucket scrubber. I put everything together and over the next few weeks my nitrate dropped to 50 PPM. After the scrubber had been running for 2 months I took the protean skimmer off the system. It was hardly producing anything.
I suspect the surface skimming action of the overflow was dumping any floating nutrients into the scrubber bucket where they could brake down and be turned to algae. The overflow actually does not flow very fast (Flaw in my design) and my turnover between the bucket and the tank is very slow. I know this is not ideal but I guess it allows the scrubber time to eat up all the skimmed nutrients. The scrubber screen is fed by dedicated pump in the bucket and I run two 23 watt CFLs in reflectors very close to the screen. I have played with the lighting schedule and found it works best with lights on for 15 hours and off for 9.
It took about 6 months to drop the nitrate to 0. I believe the sand bed and rock had soaked up a lot of nitrate over 10 months of running. For the last 6 months the tank has been at a solid 0 nitrate level. Honestly my algae harvests have been mostly black or brown over the last year, with it only showing some patches of green. I have never had the green hair that I see in pictures on this forum. This used to bother me but in the end the tank is healthy so I have decided not to care.
The thing I like most about this system is how low the maintenance is. I stopped doing water changes when I installed the scrubber 1 year ago. I installed a DIY auto top off in the bucket with the scrubber using small electrical float switches. For maintenance I clean the tank glass and scrape the scrubber screen every 7-10 days. I refill my top off water once a week with calk added to the RODI. Once every 2 months I scrape the tank glass with a razor blade to get the coralline algae off. Other than that I just feed the fish and enjoy the tank.
A little over a year ago I was given a snow flake eel. My tank had been running fairly well up until that point. I had a small yellow tang, small royal blue tang, and a pair of clown fish. At that time I was controlling my nitrate with a deep sand bed and bi-weekly water changes(At least I thought I was controlling it).
The addition of the 14 inch snowflake eel screwed everything up. It dug up the sand bed and my nitrate skyrocketed to >160ppm. I started doing water changes but nothing was working. I know it was my fault, I made some newbie mistakes and really did not have adequate filtration for the bio load I had. I was almost ready to give up but as a last ditch effort to save my entry to the hobby I built an algae scrubber.
I had a couple pumps on hand already and I spent about $50.00 on supplies to build a PVC overflow and bucket scrubber. I put everything together and over the next few weeks my nitrate dropped to 50 PPM. After the scrubber had been running for 2 months I took the protean skimmer off the system. It was hardly producing anything.
I suspect the surface skimming action of the overflow was dumping any floating nutrients into the scrubber bucket where they could brake down and be turned to algae. The overflow actually does not flow very fast (Flaw in my design) and my turnover between the bucket and the tank is very slow. I know this is not ideal but I guess it allows the scrubber time to eat up all the skimmed nutrients. The scrubber screen is fed by dedicated pump in the bucket and I run two 23 watt CFLs in reflectors very close to the screen. I have played with the lighting schedule and found it works best with lights on for 15 hours and off for 9.
It took about 6 months to drop the nitrate to 0. I believe the sand bed and rock had soaked up a lot of nitrate over 10 months of running. For the last 6 months the tank has been at a solid 0 nitrate level. Honestly my algae harvests have been mostly black or brown over the last year, with it only showing some patches of green. I have never had the green hair that I see in pictures on this forum. This used to bother me but in the end the tank is healthy so I have decided not to care.
The thing I like most about this system is how low the maintenance is. I stopped doing water changes when I installed the scrubber 1 year ago. I installed a DIY auto top off in the bucket with the scrubber using small electrical float switches. For maintenance I clean the tank glass and scrape the scrubber screen every 7-10 days. I refill my top off water once a week with calk added to the RODI. Once every 2 months I scrape the tank glass with a razor blade to get the coralline algae off. Other than that I just feed the fish and enjoy the tank.
Attachments
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
CFL Floodlight is perfect for that size screen
Similar threads
