Algae Scrubber Basics
- Thread starter srusso
- Start date
srusso
Active member
Please post your dimensions of the space you have to work with, none of us mind helping you get yourself going.
I remember you wanted to build a trough! How is it going? You have to let us know what your working with. Heck we are all brain storming for Floyd's Ciclid build, Dogstar even made a CAD drawing for him! :lol:
Very happy to help!
srusso I love that trough design.
I am diffidently going to use it.
with this sump
and this space
and these light's
I hope everything will fit. I can always have the back hanging out a bit.
Totally not!
"I really want to hook up a algae trough and have the confidence that it would work."
So do it!! Please as I said in the first post, build what you want... Report back let us know!
"mirror bottom?"
Sounds great!
"egg crate?canvas screen?pump size?angle?lighting?"
Let us know what your working with. space wise
Santa? Is that really you? :lol2: Just kidding
I did what I could with the placement of this sticky, it wasn't up to me where I could put this.
srusso
Active member
I wanna say something really cool here but.... I tired but it was really hard.... :lol: in the end just yet another thing my scrubber is doing for me. I am sure some type of life benefits from them once being there now.
Update....
Here I found a good picture of what I was dealing with, the lower left of the xenia, they were everywhere.
At the time I was holding a xenia for my brother as he was having heater issues.
My brothers' Pulsing Xenia is doing better today...
Last edited:
srusso
Active member
Thread of the month will help others find the thread, maybe solve their display algae problem.
What?
salty joe
Active member
I don't understand your reply. Maybe you did not understand my question, so let me re-phrase. Why don't you prune the algae in your tank to see if the algae filter will more quickly outcompete unwanted algae in the tank?
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
That was for importspeedman...just in case anyone is paying attention! Yeah I'm working on a build for a cichlid tank also, easy to get confused...
srusso
Active member
I see... b/c its tiny and its not bothering anything. Your seeing extreme close ups with these videos. My bubble tip is maybe 3". The "NEW" clown is about the size of a quarter, see him? He is the only one hosting right now. The female I is too large for it...
Full Tank Shot
srusso
Active member
You have no idea the crazy week I am having... lol thanks for the correction.
BluScrnOdeth
Darin Schmidt
ok i see we are getting way off topic here...
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
Well, I learned a little lesson about my design today and I thought it would be very much worth passing on.
As I got out of my car to walk into the office where this tank is located, the tank owner was coming out to get his cell phone to call me, because water was getting out of the sump.
When I made this ATS back in October, I mistakenly added cross-cuts in the tube. This is not required when you adequately shield your lights. I would say don't ever do it at all - just shield your lights from the spray however you have to. Here's why. The algae will grow into any area they can, and block the flow. This will force the water to flow higher in another area - the crosscut slots. The effect is that you get high flow right below the crosscuts, and the flow is significantly lowered (or completely stopped) in between the crosscuts. The result is streaky growth like you see in my pics before harvest:
It also means that the pressure builds up and that water has to go somewhere. In my case, the screen(s) are about 1/8" to 1/4" shorter than the slot tube. The last time I cleaned it, I didn't push them all the way to the far end of the tube, so as the algae grew and clogged the tube, the water started to squirt out the end of the slot.
Normally, this is not a problem. If you look on those pics above, there is a black zip-tie that is attached on each end that was supposed to 'catch' and water that ran along the bottom edge of the tube and allow it to drip down. I didn't have this in the exact right spot, and water started getting by. About 1/2 gallon or so found it's way out of the sump and onto the carpet.
Here's the point where the water got by (circled in red)
SM's design suggestion uses rubber o-rings on the tube on either side of the slot. My solution was not adequate, although it worked fine for 6 months.
The other way to protect your system from water escaping by running along the slot tube would be to use a uniseal bulkhead. In fact, I will be ordering several of these, 2 for the slot tube and 2 for the bottom of the box. Currently I use a male and female threaded connector with o-rings. I will be switching these to uniseal bulkheads for easier maintenance and cleaning.
Please make sure that you are properly protecting your system by installing an appropriate device to prevent leakage.
As I got out of my car to walk into the office where this tank is located, the tank owner was coming out to get his cell phone to call me, because water was getting out of the sump.
When I made this ATS back in October, I mistakenly added cross-cuts in the tube. This is not required when you adequately shield your lights. I would say don't ever do it at all - just shield your lights from the spray however you have to. Here's why. The algae will grow into any area they can, and block the flow. This will force the water to flow higher in another area - the crosscut slots. The effect is that you get high flow right below the crosscuts, and the flow is significantly lowered (or completely stopped) in between the crosscuts. The result is streaky growth like you see in my pics before harvest:
It also means that the pressure builds up and that water has to go somewhere. In my case, the screen(s) are about 1/8" to 1/4" shorter than the slot tube. The last time I cleaned it, I didn't push them all the way to the far end of the tube, so as the algae grew and clogged the tube, the water started to squirt out the end of the slot.
Normally, this is not a problem. If you look on those pics above, there is a black zip-tie that is attached on each end that was supposed to 'catch' and water that ran along the bottom edge of the tube and allow it to drip down. I didn't have this in the exact right spot, and water started getting by. About 1/2 gallon or so found it's way out of the sump and onto the carpet.
Here's the point where the water got by (circled in red)
SM's design suggestion uses rubber o-rings on the tube on either side of the slot. My solution was not adequate, although it worked fine for 6 months.
The other way to protect your system from water escaping by running along the slot tube would be to use a uniseal bulkhead. In fact, I will be ordering several of these, 2 for the slot tube and 2 for the bottom of the box. Currently I use a male and female threaded connector with o-rings. I will be switching these to uniseal bulkheads for easier maintenance and cleaning.
Please make sure that you are properly protecting your system by installing an appropriate device to prevent leakage.
The first picture is week three cleaning of my scrubber. Its really starting to green up. The second is after the cleaning and reinstalled.
I am very excited about the last three pictures because this is the newest addition to my scrubber family. This scrubber is 7" x 10" and is on my 20 long. It is a single sided screen design. Previously I did not have a sump for the 20 long but installed one so I could scrub this tank.
I think I am now addicted to ALGAE!!!!!!!!:spin2:
I am very excited about the last three pictures because this is the newest addition to my scrubber family. This scrubber is 7" x 10" and is on my 20 long. It is a single sided screen design. Previously I did not have a sump for the 20 long but installed one so I could scrub this tank.
I think I am now addicted to ALGAE!!!!!!!!:spin2:
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salty joe
Active member
:frog:You could be an outstanding playground monitor!:frog:
I am really interested in this design; what type of bulbs are you using and what reflectors? Are they NO, HO or ODNO? How far away from the screen is each bulb? How wide is the total unit?
Thanks!
--andrew
srusso
Active member
Great work! Could you please post water test results. I am sure they are looking good. You think you like algae now wait till you realize how much you can actually feed the tank! Also some pictures of the tank is always nice too.
BluScrnOdeth
Darin Schmidt
Just don't want all the important stuff to get burried under nonimportant info.
Floyd r turbo in a breeding system, typically something set up by a non commercial person, many small tanks are used to house larva, juvenile fish and young adult fish. For example another reefer her on rc is breeding clowns. From one pair of clowns he had over 7 tanks dedicated to raising the babies of this one pair. granted not all of the tanks are on the same system. But the growout tanks were all linked together by a common sump. We are talking about anywhere from a few hundred to close to a few thousand baby clowns in relatively small aquariums. Thus creating a huge factory for waiste. It sound a like the ats would be perfect for this application, I was just curious if anybody tried it. A lot of water changes need to be done to keep up on water quality. Jusy thought maybe it would help with the amount if water changes that need to occur. There will always be a need for water changing in breeding just by the nature of the process.
salty joe
Active member
I was looking at my not yet put together algae filter and realized that my T5s could be installed vertically just as easily as horizontally. Do you, Floyd or anyone else that uses T5s think that vertical would run a bit cooler due to convection? It seems like more air movement would be created. What do you think? I'd like to get away with no fans.
srusso
Active member
An ATS is a prefect filter to use on a breeding system. I plan to test when my clowns start breeding.
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