Algae Scrubber Basics

[salty joe]

Or, along those lines, has anyone directed the effluent from a Ca. reactor to their scrubber?

 

[terahz]

Alright, I'll play. I spent the day setting up a 5x5 screen, fed by the return pump (180gph measured going to the screen). It will be LED lit hopefully by the end of the day.

I spent most of the time fiddling with the flow on the screen and for the life of me can't get it to have a sheet of water on both sides. I tried with less and more flow, 14# screen, 7# screen, bottom side up, rotated.. always the _same side of the screen_ was covered in water. Even tried widening the cutout, same thing. I guess I can make a 1/4" cutout and see if that helps .

Anyway, just wanted to say that I'm part of the club now. I'm fine if it grows only on one side. If it takes off, I'll start adjusting it more.

 

[srusso]

As i read about photsynthesis some, it made me wonder: Has anyone tried Dosing C02 directly to their scrubber?... Any run CO2 monitor to see what the levels typically are in a tank? I almost wonder if that isn't what limits A.S.s getting going and while the system is getting balanced out - when there's a lot of big growth in display eating up your carbon. Could potentially do that with an UAS - by enriching your air pump intake, maybe. You'd have to be very careful of course not to over do it... Could lower pH in the tank.

There is someone on the algae scrubber site that has a thread on this, I haven't checked it in a while but I think he was getting mixed results. Hard to keep a balance. I have an ORP probe... I guess I would be a great candidate for testing this also...

 

[srusso]

Alright, I'll play. I spent the day setting up a 5x5 screen, fed by the return pump (180gph measured going to the screen). It will be LED lit hopefully by the end of the day.

I spent most of the time fiddling with the flow on the screen and for the life of me can't get it to have a sheet of water on both sides. I tried with less and more flow, 14# screen, 7# screen, bottom side up, rotated.. always the _same side of the screen_ was covered in water. Even tried widening the cutout, same thing. I guess I can make a 1/4" cutout and see if that helps .

Anyway, just wanted to say that I'm part of the club now. I'm fine if it grows only on one side. If it takes off, I'll start adjusting it more.

This happens for a lot of people, most scrubbers even out once a good slime coat of diatoms have had a chance to grow. If it doesn't its normally an issue with slot tube width.

 

[terahz]

Cool! I've put a couple of red leds at 500ma each (one on each side) for now. I have to come up with a way to mount and protect them from the water. Let's see how it goes.

 

[dartier]

The first crop is in, unfortunately all weeds ...

The first crop is in, unfortunately all weeds ...

The ATS I put together last weekend has been running for a week. I have been watching the screen with its brown growth all week. I was thinking it was Diatoms, but no, I have Dinoflagellates. It came as a bit of surprise, although it all makes sense now.

My tank is about 6 weeks old, but contains the remnants of someone else's tank (LR, coral, fish). Everything was proceeding along normally, and then I started to get some signs of green algae, or what I thought was green algae, starting to grow. Around this time I decided to add some snails, as none came with the tank. Well almost none, I later found a lone fighting conch wandering the bottom. This should have been a warning sign ( no snails).

In the first 2 weeks after adding the snails they started to die. Symptoms were that they would just roll over and die. Warning sign number 2, snails dropping dead suddenly after rolling over. Odd, my parameters all seemed to be OK, but the snails begged to differ. The other thing that should have tipped me of was that an Emerald Crab that I put in to tackle the bubble algae that I have, showed up dead a week before the snails. In trying to explain the crab, I figured I had accidently hit him with Kalk paste in my on going war with aiptasia. Mind you I had never seen him near any aiptasia that I was engaging but I figured what else could it be?

So lets recap, algae eating crab, dead. Algae eating snails, dead. Aiptasia eating peppermint shrimps, alive and ignoring the aiptasia, but not dead.

Well this weekend during a visit to the LFS where I had bought the snails, an off hand comment about the snail massacre rang a bell with the owner. "They rolled over and died?" he asked. Yup. "You have Dinoflagellates" he explained. Then he proceeded to show me a picture of a typical brown snot like outbreak. Hmm, nothing that looks like that in my tank, I thought.

When I returned home I scoured the tank looking for any sign of dino. The only thing that looked close was the green algae film on my white water return. It had air bubbles trapped underneath and looked just like the brown snot, except emerald green. Then I took the light down from the ATS. On both ends clearly visible was a film of brown dino on the baffles of the sump where the light was hitting. The screen is not as obvious, as the baffles are easier to see since it is from the side, but most likely the brown streaky stuff is dino as well.

So now my dilemma, do I turn the ATS off, or keep running it? So far it is growing dino, but at least the dino is contained to the ATS and sump with none of the brown snot variety in the DT. The phosphates even went down over the week, they went from 0.18 to 0.12.

After reading up on dino, some of the examples that Randy Holmes Farley showed, I am pretty sure the green stuff in the DT is a type of dino as well. My fighting conch mows down all of it that he can reach, so either it is not toxic, or he has become immune.

So what does everyone think, will the ATS eventually switch to GHA or are the dinos going to make that too dangerous to wait for?

Dennis

 

[Skinnysloth]

My first algae scrubber running for a day with two 10w 660nm led lights (one on each side).
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=20855467#post20855467

 

[silverwolf72]

Your going to start out with brown slimy stuff and slowly get more green as time goes on. mine took about a month before I started getting some good green coverage.

 

[kcress]

The ATS I put together last weekend has been running for a week. I have been watching the screen with its brown growth all week. I was thinking it was Diatoms, but no, I have Dinoflagellates. It came as a bit of surprise, although it all makes sense now.

My tank is about 6 weeks old, but contains the remnants of someone else's tank (LR, coral, fish). Everything was proceeding along normally, and then I started to get some signs of green algae, or what I thought was green algae, starting to grow. Around this time I decided to add some snails, as none came with the tank. Well almost none, I later found a lone fighting conch wandering the bottom. This should have been a warning sign ( no snails).

In the first 2 weeks after adding the snails they started to die. Symptoms were that they would just roll over and die. Warning sign number 2, snails dropping dead suddenly after rolling over. Odd, my parameters all seemed to be OK, but the snails begged to differ. The other thing that should have tipped me of was that an Emerald Crab that I put in to tackle the bubble algae that I have, showed up dead a week before the snails. In trying to explain the crab, I figured I had accidently hit him with Kalk paste in my on going war with aiptasia. Mind you I had never seen him near any aiptasia that I was engaging but I figured what else could it be?

So lets recap, algae eating crab, dead. Algae eating snails, dead. Aiptasia eating peppermint shrimps, alive and ignoring the aiptasia, but not dead.

Well this weekend during a visit to the LFS where I had bought the snails, an off hand comment about the snail massacre rang a bell with the owner. "They rolled over and died?" he asked. Yup. "You have Dinoflagellates" he explained. Then he proceeded to show me a picture of a typical brown snot like outbreak. Hmm, nothing that looks like that in my tank, I thought.

When I returned home I scoured the tank looking for any sign of dino. The only thing that looked close was the green algae film on my white water return. It had air bubbles trapped underneath and looked just like the brown snot, except emerald green. Then I took the light down from the ATS. On both ends clearly visible was a film of brown dino on the baffles of the sump where the light was hitting. The screen is not as obvious, as the baffles are easier to see since it is from the side, but most likely the brown streaky stuff is dino as well.

So now my dilemma, do I turn the ATS off, or keep running it? So far it is growing dino, but at least the dino is contained to the ATS and sump with none of the brown snot variety in the DT. The phosphates even went down over the week, they went from 0.18 to 0.12.

After reading up on dino, some of the examples that Randy Holmes Farley showed, I am pretty sure the green stuff in the DT is a type of dino as well. My fighting conch mows down all of it that he can reach, so either it is not toxic, or he has become immune.

So what does everyone think, will the ATS eventually switch to GHA or are the dinos going to make that too dangerous to wait for?

Dennis

Nice write-up. :lol:

It will switch. You can clean off what you want weekly.
All things pass. I suspect the dinos will move on eventually as they exhaust what they're thriving on.

The most important thing is the catchiness of your screen. I had poor results until I corrected that. Once I did, it was gang busters. So, make sure your screen is really finely sharp and catchy. Slimy things can grown on any surface, HA really reallyneeds the footing.

 

[JohnnyB in SD]

The ATS I put together last weekend has been running for a week. I have been watching the screen with its brown growth all week. I was thinking it was Diatoms, but no, I have Dinoflagellates. It came as a bit of surprise, although it all makes sense now.

Around this time I decided to add some snails, as none came with the tank.
In the first 2 weeks after adding the snails they started to die. Symptoms were that they would just roll over and die. Warning sign number 2, snails dropping dead suddenly after rolling over.

Well this weekend during a visit to the LFS where I had bought the snails, an off hand comment about the snail massacre rang a bell with the owner. "They rolled over and died?" he asked. Yup. "You have Dinoflagellates" he explained.

So now my dilemma, do I turn the ATS off, or keep running it? So far it is growing dino, but at least the dino is contained to the ATS and sump with none of the brown snot variety in the DT. The phosphates even went down over the week, they went from 0.18 to 0.12.

So what does everyone think, will the ATS eventually switch to GHA or are the dinos going to make that too dangerous to wait for?

Dennis

Hi Dennis-
Interesting info about dinos & snails, who knew it was hazardous to them?

As kcress says, the dinos are a natural phase that will pass. It may not look great, but what exactly is the extreme danger, unless you're a snail?
Sounds like the ATS is progressing normally as well. Why do you think it should be turned off? Isn't it containing the dinos?

Around here, LFS's like to sell Margarita snails, which are actually cooler water mollusks. They pretty much cook to death in a reef tank in a very short time.

 

[JohnnyB in SD]

Horizontal Scrubbers

Horizontal Scrubbers

There are drawbacks with all versions. Verticals can splatter large areas around them. Bubble Upflows can have salt-creep problems and air pumps suck. Dumpers can be noisy and wear out mechanically.

Horizontals have their main problem being "islanding". The algae builds out from spots - not everywhere. That causes islands to 'rise from the sea'. The water, of course, stops flowing there which suspends further growth. It's not that bad because what grew there doesn't die and wash away it just suspends further operation. In effect it reduces the screen's area because nothing more happens there. To combat this you either need flow so deep it won't matter in the period between cleanings or you need to put more angle on the screen. Both work fine. Currently I'm running an angle and enough flow to not have issues with islanding.

This is a shot immediately after a full harvest;

I want to increase my scrubber size, and am thinking that a 12" x 48" or 60" horizontal scrubber will fit well under my stand to replace a 12"x18" waterfall.
I'D GREATLY APPRECIATE some expert advice on how to effectively build one, or an effort to talk me out of attempting this.
THANKS

 

[_shorty_]

I want to increase my scrubber size, and am thinking that a 12" x 48" or 60" horizontal scrubber will fit well under my stand to replace a 12"x18" waterfall.
I'D GREATLY APPRECIATE some expert advice on how to effectively build one, or an effort to talk me out of attempting this.
THANKS

Johnny - you have an actual one-sided waterfal style? or the typical ATS slotted pipe - flow down both sides of the screen? Why are you wanting to go with something different? I'm interested in the ins and outs of each design - which is why I ask.

 

[kcress]

I want to increase my scrubber size, and am thinking that a 12" x 48" or 60" horizontal scrubber will fit well under my stand to replace a 12"x18" waterfall.
I'D GREATLY APPRECIATE some expert advice on how to effectively build one, or an effort to talk me out of attempting this.
THANKS

Verticals can be very hard to deal with under a tank with a tall sump. If you need a horizontal my setup has been working great.

Key aspects:

I made it from the thin garbage acrylic bought at Home Despot. Put tall sides on it, which stiffen the struck well. Mine are about 2" tall.

You can see I made two trays to double the surface area since I'm only using one side.

Make sure you have the flow, same amount as a vertical.

The screen.. It's all about the screen. I tried a bunch of different screens when I tried the stuff I have now I was astounded. There was HA caught on it in 5 minutes.

I used just the hooks of velcro which are sold as "hooks and loops" to avoid the Depont tm. I found some with super adhesive on the back.
Here's the part number: 94985K931 Mcmaster.com
You can look at the part number then click "Catalog Page" and you can see other sizes and types.

I used 2". The adhesive is scary strong. If it touches anything that's where that piece is staying. I cut the stuff to lay in my screen-box and pressed it down hard. Two years and no sign of delaminating or peeling-up. It makes scratched up plastic screen look like teflon coated baby skin.

When you use a credit card to scrape off the HA you can not ever scrap too much off because everything below the top of the hooks is there to stay.

Next is the angle. You want about what you see on mine or more.

Lights. Red LEDs are the best but you can use what every you have.

You can see the pvc structures I cobbled together to support my screen-trays. They seem to be working great. When I want to clean the screen you just slide the inlet side screen away from the incoming water and wait five minutes for the screens to drain. Once they do just remove them and tip them back so no water drips out the outlets. Go scrape it off, rinse in fresh water to axe the pods and re-install. I find them less messy that vertical screens because they're dry on the outside and self hold the drips - all absent from vertical screens.

 

[silverwolf72]

So your using velco strips for your screen?

 

[kcress]

So your using velco strips for your screen?

Is this a trick question?

I used just the hooks of velcro which are sold as "hooks and loops" to avoid the Depont tm. I found some with super adhesive on the back.
Here's the part number: 94985K931 Mcmaster.com
You can look at the part number then click "Catalog Page" and you can see other sizes and types.

 

[silverwolf72]

Sorry, just never heard of that before so I could never get the plastic screen out of my head. I would have worried about the glue being safe but it sounds like you haven't had any issues.

 

[kcress]

Sorry, just never heard of that before so I could never get the plastic screen out of my head. I would have worried about the glue being safe but it sounds like you haven't had any issues.

No problem silerwolf. If you come right down to it it could probably copper arsenic and not matter as only about a strip maybe 6ft long and 0.003" tall or a total of about 1/4 of a square inch. But no, no issues.

 

[EWC88]

Would you guys say it's better to run a algae scrubber instead of a sump? I am in process of buying everything I need to start a tank and was going to originally run a sump, but then I saw this and now confused.

 

[srusso]

Would you guys say it's better to run a algae scrubber instead of a sump? I am in process of buying everything I need to start a tank and was going to originally run a sump, but then I saw this and now confused.

An algae scrubber would be built from or in your sump. Sump is the tank that is below the aquarium. The layout of your sump would be based on equipment that you plan to use on the aquarium.

 

[srusso]

No problem silerwolf. If you come right down to it it could probably copper arsenic and not matter as only about a strip maybe 6ft long and 0.003" tall or a total of about 1/4 of a square inch. But no, no issues.

Kcress my friend! How's your tank? You should update your thread!

I have always wanted to try a Velcro screen, thank you for sharing your findings with all of us!