Algae Scrubber Basics

[igadget56]

johnnyb Thanks for the info. I am going to make some but not right now. This is my build so far.
Box 12" x 12" x3.5 Lights 4 26w curly CFL 's.
I cuold not get an even stream water tried this didn't work.

Tried this worked perfect.

This cost $58 Including, including the acrylic.

These are the reflector 8' x 8" x 4". These 12" x 12" mirrors cost $1.25 each, cut to size

Top view of reflectors.

Bulbs are 2" from screen. How many hours a day should they be on? Screen is 7" x 8".

 

[davidgnome]

Start with the basics, see the post # in my signature below. Many of your questions might be answered.

Some of your questions beg larger questions, like what is your church doing with a large tank full of big fish with no filtration other than live rock? N and P are going to be through the friggin roof!

thanks that was my thinking as well for this system. Which is why I trying to get info for installing an Ats, as I just started helping out with this tank and noticed they may not have a long term person to take care of the tank. Its a church for college students and I assume they have a need for someone like myself to help maintain the tank. I thought ats is cheaper and prolly a better choice long term. Thanks

 

[davidgnome]

Floyd, you might be surprised at the power of prayer I pray for my tank all the time... LOL. I'm sure there are better things I could be praying for...




David, if you are currently letting the tangs eat up any algae that forms in the display tank, there is no nutrient export. The good thing about the scrubber is that most of that algae that grows and 'eats up' those Nitrates and Phosphates is then physically removed from the system. That's why the ATS is effective, through that 'nutrient export'. If you let the fish eat that algae, the nutrients are never removed/exported - they are recycled and the nutrient levels continue to grow.

So, there will need to be some form of food for the fish. However as Floyd already mentioned, you need some form of filtration to manage those Ns and Ps. Scrubber is an inexpensive and effective way at doing this.

Hey thanks, These fish are prolly overfed so I don't think food is an issue. Honestly within seconds of looking at the sump I knew that this tank needed some TLC. And not the don't go chasin waterfalls TLC. So looks like Ill try to make the least hassle Ats I can figure. And pray!

 

[_shorty_]

thanks that was my thinking as well for this system. Which is why I trying to get info for installing an Ats, as I just started helping out with this tank and noticed they may not have a long term person to take care of the tank. Its a church for college students and I assume they have a need for someone like myself to help maintain the tank. I thought ats is cheaper and prolly a better choice long term. Thanks

A fun way to serve the church.

 

[JohnnyB in SD]

johnnyb Thanks for the info. I am going to make some but not right now. This is my build so far.
Box 12" x 12" x3.5 Lights 4 26w curly CFL 's.

These are the reflector 8' x 8" x 4". These 12" x 12" mirrors cost $1.25 each, cut to size

Top view of reflectors.

Bulbs are 2" from screen. How many hours a day should they be on? Screen is 7" x 8".

This light setup looks very good & should get you going well enough. 4 bulbs and excellent reflectors, you're going to get maximum light output from those CFLs. Stay on top of their performance. The recommendation is change them every 90 days, but I find mine drop off noticeably after 60.
I just push the LEDs cause they don't create heat, are more effective watt for watt, don't require continuous replacement, and consistently grow thick green algae. But CFLs are probably the best way to get started for most people, to test the whole ATS concept and see where you want to go with it. Isn't upgrading one of the attractions to staying in this hobby?
I run mine 16 on 8 off, I'd suggest starting there. You might be able to back them off to reduce heat & power consumption, you'll have to use your judgement as it gets going.
INSTALL THAT THING & get some algae growing.

 

[igadget56]

johnnyb

Didn't have time to post pics. This is after five days.

This was laying in the sink. I have been fighting diatoms, maybe that's why it looks brown. Also cutting back 10ml per day of vinegar.

This was holding it up to the window.

I am going to follow your lead. I changed the screen to 7"x 8". How does 12 Led's per
side sound, just in case I need 1" wider screen? I looked back And couldn't find what brand or color Led's you used. Is the brown color on the screen normal. Thanks johnnyb. Your help appreciated.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Is that 5 days from a bare screen, or 5 days after the last cleaning?

 

[igadget56]

5. Days on new screen.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

It looks brown because it's a new screen and only 5 days old LOL. You are doing nothing wrong, it will take weeks to cure the screen to the point where it is providing adequate filtration. I just fired up a new screen on one tank and I got almost zero growth for the first 2 weeks - only a few specks of algae. I just cleaned it for the first time yesterday (3 wks of growth) and there were nice clods of algae growing. Screens typically take about 4-6 weeks to approach full filtration capacity.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Note on new screen material

Note on new screen material

It recently came to my attention (after all these years!!) that the Darice #7 mesh that we all recommend and use for algae scrubber screens may have a wax-type coating on it. This is not a harmful coating, it is just something that it residual from the injection molding process, it's called "mold-release wax". the "mold" part is not like the fungus, it refers to the injection mold (which are heavy steel/aluminum devices, for anyone who is confused).

Anyways, it has been suggested on the Algae Scrubber Advanced thread that this wax coating might need to be degraded before algae can attach to the screen, even after the roughing-up process (because much of the wax is not removed from the inner holes, and some will get smeared around and not removed).

So I am now recommending that, before the roughing-up process, that you clean this wax residue off the screen. This is NOT necessary, and I personally don't know if it makes a hill of beans of difference, but I tend to err on the safe side.

With that being said, the cleaning process generally involves scrubbing under hot water with a stiff brush at a minimum. If one wanted to, they could use soap, but then one would have to spray the screen with bleach and scrub it well to remove ANY soap residue, as well as soaking in hot water and scrubbing again to ensure the dissipation of the bleach.

I contacted Darice and they have told me, thusfar, that "Item 33900-1 is made of linear low density polyethylene, commonly called LLDPE" (that's the 10x13 #7 clear screen) which will not be affected by a quick cleaning process. I asked about the wax residue and I haven't heard back yet.

Anyways, I'm not ringing alarm bells or anything, everyone has been using this stuff without going through this process for years now. But this *might* answer a few questions about why the algae takes so long to get a foothold on the screen - wax is pretty slick, so it would make sense that algae would detach easily until it's gone.

This is also likely not as much of a factor when the screen is adequately roughed-up. I rough up my screens significantly. After roughing up more screens that I can count, I pretty much have the process down. Here it is again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mrCWALt9Qs

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I might have jump the gun on this ^^ post. Doing some more research. Until then, I would not go pre-scrubbing your screens with soap & bleach or anything.

 

[erics3000]

I currently have a 300 display that I want to get my nitrates down so I can add more fish and coral. All my equipment is in my garage, which I am currently closing due to humidity issues. I am testing a DIY sulfur reactor and run a skimmer and that’s it. I want to try an ATS. I remember this thread a few years back and the predecessors. I recently went to a LFS and he was pushing me the ATS. So I found this old thread and have been lurking on RC a lot lately. I currently have my display water dumping into a 150 sump with skimmer and that drains to a 150 fuge with some live rock. I was getting tired of my fuge building up with waste so I have all display water going to the 150 sump first. From there I feed an old MR Dual Beckett Injector Skimmer. I still plan on putting some baffles in there. This way a good portion of waste is in the sump and not in the fuge. My return is a dart that only has about 5 ½ feet of head pressure.

I think I have 2 ideas for installation. I was just going to take 2 of my four drains and use it to feed the ATS in my fuge after skimmer. I though I could take advantage of the extra light for the live rock in my Fuge. I am always trying to reduce cost, extra pumps, extra energy, and extra heat. I want things simple and easy so when I leave for town it isn’t too much of a hassle for my tank sitter.

I am now thinking I could put a 40 breeder that I wanted to use a frag tank over the150 sump and have the ATS in there and run the 40 half full and it could act as a splash guard and I can use the bottom part for a frag tank. I have some extra room in my equipment area since I was thinking of removing my mixing tank, and just leaving my r/o storage and use that to mix and when I do a w/c I can than just let it fill back up with r/o. I normally don’t do water changes but monthly or bi monthly. That is why I am looking forward to the ATS.

I also wanted to put a bottle of plankton by the ATS light and try to grow some. I have wanted to grow plankton for a while and I might be able to utilize some light bleeding off from the ATS.

For lighting I will start out with the cheapo flood lights but will soon be getting some red LED's hopefully the recent testing on the ones guys are using. I remember Floyd posted a link to one from eBay a flood light with a few red and a couple blue for like $30 bucks. Has anyone had good long term growth with that one long term?

Either way I will post some pics soon. I am off to get some screen. I just need to figure out my size. I have some big fish but lost a few over the years due to jumpers. I feed decent and want to feed heavy and at least double my fish count. Since I am doing all this work when my nitrates are back down, and my kalk reactor and calcium are back operational I will give it a shoot with SPS.

Thanks to everyone helping with this great thread.

 

[_shorty_]

I am now thinking I could put a 40 breeder that I wanted to use a frag tank over the150 sump and have the ATS in there and run the 40 half full and it could act as a splash guard and I can use the bottom part for a frag tank. I have some extra room in my equipment area since I was thinking of removing my mixing tank, and just leaving my r/o storage and use that to mix and when I do a w/c I can than just let it fill back up with r/o. I normally don't do water changes but monthly or bi monthly. That is why I am looking forward to the ATS.

How wide is a 40 breeder? Typically people try to put lights around 4 inches from the screen. Basically as close as you can without burning out your algae (yellowing spots). That might be my only concern with a 40 breeder for your 'splash guard'.

I'd be interested to see how well the coral do under red spectrum lighting though.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

40B is 36L x 18W x 16H, so that distance is a little much I think.

 

[SantaMonica]

What was the LFS saying?

 

[erics3000]

Thanks guys. I didn't really think about the width. So yeah I will have some of my over flows feeding the ats in my fuge. I got the screen today, thanks for the detailed info. So I will start on the plumbing this week and share my results here.

 

[moatdaddy]

Trial and error. I used the Chinese led par 38 grow bulbs and got little to no growth. It came with 168 LEDs mostly red with some blue but only 8w. Not enough for sure. Went back to 150w cf which reduce to 28w I think.

 

[moatdaddy]

Okay, trail two. Bought a screw into a socket light bulb for $27 on ebay. It come with 8 red and 4 blue 3w bulbs. For a total of 36w which is more than my cfl bulbs. Shipping is from china. If this works it would be a total of 35$ per light and reflector socket with zero DIY. If I don't post results in 3 weeks pm me.

 

[moatdaddy]

Trial and error. I used the Chinese led par 38 grow bulbs and got little to no growth. It came with 168 LEDs mostly red with some blue but only 8w. Not enough for sure. .21w leds. Went back to 150w cf which reduce to 28w I think.

If the new light is exposed like this one I will need to find a cover for it in some sort to prevent this. Any ideas?

 

[_shorty_]

Okay, trail two. Bought a screw into a socket light bulb for $27 on ebay. It come with 8 red and 4 blue 3w bulbs. For a total of 36w which is more than my cfl bulbs. Shipping is from china. If this works it would be a total of 35$ per light and reflector socket with zero DIY. If I don't post results in 3 weeks pm me.

I bet that'll do the trick... Thinking of getting one myself to try.