Algae Scrubber Basics

[SantaMonica]

gmneil: It would help if you could count up how much food you are using.

gadget: Those are halogen; no good.

sky: seems like a good first 14 days. If you can shield the light from getting into the sump, you can reduce the growth there.

 

[igadget56]

gadget: Those are halogen; no good

Thanks.

 

[gmneil]

gmneil: It would help if you could count up how much food you are using.

ITS REALLY HARD TO DO THAT AS THE SYSTEM ALWAYS HAS DIFFERENT AMOUNTS OF FISH IN IT IT CURRENTLY HAS AROUND 1000 CLOSNFISH IN IT AS WE SPEAK BUT THOSE #'S CHANGE OFTEN I AM LOOKING AT A SAFE PLACE TO START TO SEE IF IT HELPS WITH OUR #'S

 

[SantaMonica]

Put a day's worth of food in a cup, press it down, add some water, and see how many ml or oz it is.

 

[Wereami881]

srusso sorry if I started any advertising here (-;

 

[fraggleRocks]

I'm baaaaaaaaaack. Lol. I missed you scrubber people! My old setup is on page 4 or 5 on this thread

My 90 is long gone, my old 150 had a leak, now I have a new 150 4 months old and I'm setting up a new LED scrubber next week. WOOHOO!

Pics to come soon

 

[SkyReef]

I'm baaaaaaaaaack. Lol. I missed you scrubber people! My old setup is on page 4 or 5 on this thread

My 90 is long gone, my old 150 had a leak, now I have a new 150 4 months old and I'm setting up a new LED scrubber next week. WOOHOO!

Pics to come soon

Welcome back. Looking forward to more pics. Thanks.

 

[moatdaddy]

ITS REALLY HARD TO DO THAT AS THE SYSTEM ALWAYS HAS DIFFERENT AMOUNTS OF FISH IN IT IT CURRENTLY HAS AROUND 1000 CLOSNFISH IN IT AS WE SPEAK BUT THOSE #'S CHANGE OFTEN I AM LOOKING AT A SAFE PLACE TO START TO SEE IF IT HELPS WITH OUR #'S[/QUOTE]

stop yelling at me bro, just messing. honestly SM, srusso, or Floyd will give you some equation based on how much food to screen size. Realistically look at it this way. Nothing in your water column lives off of nitrates or phospates. With me TOO clean water with adversly effect my corals, or so they say. I do manly LPS and zoanthids. For you totally different. The cleaner the water the better. Build as big as you can go or add multiple units. Main thing is to get as much export as possible. Of course i may be trumped by the experts but i think my logic is sound. The more you can grow the better off you are. Of course you must factor in water flow, lighting, spacing, and more. JMO Brandon

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Floyd, did you ever hear back from the experimental design you shared with us in post 3385? http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=20015421&postcount=3385

If so, any drawbacks? I'll be joining the ATS club in my new build.

I think algae tends to grow a lot right at the point where the screens join together, but i think that was it. IIRC he just draped the pipe with a section of black plastic garbage bag and it works great. Not many people tried it so it's hard to say how well it works.

 

[gmneil]

stop yelling at me bro, just messing. honestly SM, srusso, or Floyd will give you some equation based on how much food to screen size. Realistically look at it this way. Nothing in your water column lives off of nitrates or phospates. With me TOO clean water with adversly effect my corals, or so they say. I do manly LPS and zoanthids. For you totally different. The cleaner the water the better. Build as big as you can go or add multiple units. Main thing is to get as much export as possible. Of course i may be trumped by the experts but i think my logic is sound. The more you can grow the better off you are. Of course you must factor in water flow, lighting, spacing, and more. JMO Brandon[/QUOTE]

lol sorry didnt realize the caps lock was on.. i was thinking about just using 1 wole sheet and seeing if it helped, we added a 90g fuge with cheato but it hasnt helped at all. so i would like to try this to see if it does anything.

 

[duganderson]

To clean or not yet (see photo)?

To clean or not yet (see photo)?

I've been running a Santa Monica Upflow Algae scrubber for about 2 1/2 months. This photo is after 8 days of growth. I don't seem to have much hair algae yet. Should I let it grow for more days? Any other ideas?

My lights are on for 14 hours per night and I dose 0.3 ml flourish iron 2-4 times per week.

 

[SantaMonica]

Bit of burning in the middle. Get it all off with a toothbrush, including behind, the holes, and the black cover. If you can increase bubbles it will help, otherwise reduce hours by 2 per day.

Has plenty of iron now.

 

[duganderson]

Has plenty of iron now.

How can you tell it has plenty of iron now? Should I decrease iron?

Thanks

 

[salty joe]

, For reference, I have 23 LED's per side @ 3w probably running at >80%, spaced approx 2.25" on center & mounted about 2" from a 8"x16" screen.
At 4" you might consider designing something with 1.5 or 2x the emitter density.

Do you have anything between the algae screen and the LEDs?

 

[moatdaddy]

lol sorry didnt realize the caps lock was on.. i was thinking about just using 1 wole sheet and seeing if it helped, we added a 90g fuge with cheato but it hasnt helped at all. so i would like to try this to see if it does anything.[/QUOTE]

i run a full sheet. i have a 180g and had a fallow tank for two months due to red velvet, it was and is still completely covered in hair algae on the sheet. ZERO fish, minor spot feeding. Look at your systems. tons of feeding lots of livestock. i say go full sheet. let us know how it works out.

 

[ReefKeeper64]

I'm baaaaaaaaaack. Lol. I missed you scrubber people! My old setup is on page 4 or 5 on this thread

My 90 is long gone, my old 150 had a leak, now I have a new 150 4 months old and I'm setting up a new LED scrubber next week. WOOHOO!

Pics to come soon

Welcome back FraggleRocks, We've missed you and your shenanigans! Share with us your new scrubber adventures in LED.

 

[OkStudent]

After having success on my 180 I did just what FraggleRocks said two yrs ago "I encourage you to set up a small experimental tank. get a biocube or aquapod and fill it with your choice of sps, good lighting, and sufficient flow. Add a scrubber and let us know what happens"
I just set it up in a east window a few months ago. I used it to qt a powder blue and then just 3 weeks ago I put in a acro and a monti. They are doing great! All this 20g tank has is LR, carbon and a scrubber. BB and lots of light and flow. The scrubber is one sided and on the water fall at top left. Will get a recent pic in next few days.

 

[OkStudent]

Pics

Pics

I'm open to suggestions on anything! Please critique. I think I may need more scrubber light and build a box to keep the light leaks down. Bulb is 13 w.
The cam added green to algae, should be lighter. I started feeding a little more. Will probably get a UAS sometime, then I won't need a box:spin2:
The acro has been there three weeks and has a few red bugs I have been blasting off. The m.digitata has been there 10 days. I accidentally fragged it on day one and the break looks almost totally healed now.
Oh yeah, I've been lurking for about 2 yrs.

 

[Terrance]

Thanks again for the advice Floyd. I used a saw blade yesterday and really roughed up the screen. It looks super nice and I'm really confident that it will hold a lot of algae.

I also recently finished using a dremmel to cut a straight and even line. Its not as easy as I imagined after attempting this several times, but I was able to get one nearly 90% satisfactory to a straight and even line. This was probably the hardest part in the ATS build.

 

[SantaMonica]

How can you tell it has plenty of iron

Because it's not bright yellow. Small monthly additions should be fine now.

OkStudent's might need some iron, if it really is less green that the pics. But probably just could use more light.