Algae Scrubber Basics

[Floyd R Turbo]

On my setup I am more concerned with stopping all the excess "bleedover" light coming from my scrubber. I am only half joking when I say that the excess light coming from the vents and doors on my stand looks like the refugium is an all night disco. I need to build a permanent mount that is easily removable for the LEDs anyway so I was thinking I may as well utilize what I have.

Black acrylic or just bendable hobby plastic and electrical tape can get you a long way. The plastic I speak of is found in an r/c or train hobby store, usually in the trains section, nearly the plates of textured material that people use to make miniature landscapes and buildings

I had a problem while wiring up one of the LEDs using this method. The first fixture worked as advertised no issues, On the second fixture, half of the lights would not work unless they were wired in series? I re did every connection at least three times and re verified numerous times with the same results? So that fixture is running full out, I guess I will get a good comparison on which way works best for my setup. I am sure I missed something simple, but it was strange.

Post some pics, maybe I can spot something.

The sizing will be a long process for me as this is a new tank (2 months old) that was started with completely dead rock and sand, large bioload and probably feeding too much. It will be a long time before everything is "solidified" as far as sizing.

Yep, growth will be all over the place for a while I would think. Algae scrubbers have a way or reacting or adapting to conditions. So it may grow OK or weak for a while, then all of the sudden you'll have a huge growth surge, then back down, etc. This is usually in conjunction with the bacterial cycle of grow/die during the first year, and sometimes in reaction to things like snails dying, accidental overfeeding, etc. Scrubbers react to situations like this rather well, unlike many other forms of filtration which have a sort of "set point" and operate well in a particular range.

I have thought of this as a major plus for the scrubber system, the more diverse (and reefsafe) lifeforms in my system the better.

And one last note, whoever came up with the saranwrap idea for splash and drip reduction can stop by anytime for a beer! lol was getting ready to replace the pipe due to an annoying splashing sound due to a "streamer" when I took another look into the thread and found that advice, dead silent now!

Streamer is a good description. I'm going to use that!

 

[troublet55]

Black acrylic or just bendable hobby plastic and electrical tape can get you a long way. The plastic I speak of is found in an r/c or train hobby store, usually in the trains section, nearly the plates of textured material that people use to make miniature landscapes and buildings

I will look into those, thanks. Right now the lights sre hangong by old coat hangers and wood screws until I find out the best distance for the lights, but I need to come up with a permanent mount solution that will be easily removable for cleaning and maintenance.

Also I really do not like the "bare wire" effect that I have at the moment, I am clumsy/forgetful enough that I know I am gonna grab one of the fixtures and get knocked on my butt and I have a one year old grandson that is way too curious about the fishtank. Do you think that a light diffuser panel (like you mentioned in earlier posts)mounted on spacersabout a 1/4 inch in front of the LEDs would be too much reduction in the lighting?

Sorry for all the questions I am really new to this hobby and completely dense on LEDs.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Bare wires? ugh! The danger here is that a constant current driver will output whatever power it needs to maintain the current. So if your body becomes a resistor in line of the current, yeah, that's bad. 1 amp will kill you. You need to address that issue.

 

[troublet55]

Bare wires? ugh! The danger here is that a constant current driver will output whatever power it needs to maintain the current. So if your body becomes a resistor in line of the current, yeah, that's bad. 1 amp will kill you. You need to address that issue.

Well more of open connections on the LEDs than actual bare wires :worried2:, I have not seen anyway to cover them unless it would be with a diffuser panel of some sort.

 

[acroman]

20.

If you are running the lights at 20 hours per day, that's probably what is causing the burning. If you reduce, or interrupt the photoperiod, by a couple hours, it should help. That, or move the lights an inch or 2 away.

And also a word about sizing, I'm with scolley on the fact that it is very difficult at best to quantify all food sources into cube-equivalents accurately. So making it bigger than the current guidelines recommend is not the worst thing you could do, I have been recommending no larger than 2x the feeding guideline for a while now.

Also in conjunction with that, the larger the tank, IMO, the tank volume comes back into play as a secondary factor of sorts. The thought process here is that with a small feeding-based scrubber and high water volume, you have less "turnover" of the water volume in terms of percent of total volume per unit time. So once you get to about 150-200 gallons, start increasing the width of the scrubber to get higher turnover, or at least size the scrubber wider rather than taller.

This is accurate, Floyd - Turnover is key. Mixing equations for chemical engineering get pretty complicated, but regardless, it should be perfectly clear that if you have more water that needs to be filtered, you need to filter more water.

An increase in screen height will result in increased growth area, which, will increase the efficiency. Since it still processes the same volume of water, you are still bound by the inherent nutrient uptake rates of the algae, as well as a nutrient gradient down the screen.

By increasing screen length, the total water volume across the screen increases, which increases the tank volume/water filtered ratio, or capacity (or how many tank volumes per hour are processed.) I'm not sure how significant of an effect it has, but you are also increasing the surface area of algae in the "higher" nutrient area at the top of the screen, instead of adding the algae to the bottom (already filtered) portion.

 

[scolley]

If you are running the lights at 20 hours per day, that's probably what is causing the burning. If you reduce, or interrupt the photoperiod, by a couple hours, it should help. That, or move the lights an inch or 2 away.

Thanks for the tip on the photoperiod. I'll do that if I ever need to improve my efficiency (maybe because of more feeding). But at present I'm on the edge of being ULNS, and I don't want to pull any more nutrients out. The corals need them too. Just not very much.

 

[dartier]

Too low of PO4 and NO3?

Too low of PO4 and NO3?

Has anyone had any trouble with their ATS lowering the PO4 and NO3 too much and causing burnt tips? I seem to be having that exact problem.

I was pleased with the lower Phosphate and Nitrate, as were my frags at first, but the nutrients have continued falling to the point were I am reading 0.00 PO4 and 3.0 NO3. Last check my Alk was 8.232 on my Hanna, yet my SPS frags are not happy. I knew that carbon dosing can cause this same issue, but was surprised my ATS was able to strip them to that low as well.

The problem is that I have some hair algae in the DT that I am attempting to starve out, so I am reluctant to reduce the ATS to leave more nutrients in the water column.

I am still growing good screens even with the low readings.

This was 3 weeks ago.

This was from 2 weeks ago.

This was from today.

For now I have cut my white and cool blue LEDs by 50% (to 26% & 37%) and that seems to be helping on both fronts. Hopefully the frags will recover.

Dennis

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

If you are feeding enough, you should never really have 0/0. It may test that low, but there should still be enough there. Your burnt tips might be due to something else.

Have you tested potassium?

That's some good growth, I would think that with that level of growth you might start getting some potassium depletion. Instead of dialing back the light intensity, I would dial back the photoperiod. You don't want to encourage different growth, just less of it. Clean the screen a little more vigorously possibly as well.

Do you run any activated carbon? If not, add some. Might be some allelopathy going on, you never know.

Do you run a skimmer?

Forgive me if you already posted all of this. I'm pretty sure you did but it's pages back...

 

[dartier]

Nope, I have not tested Potassium. I will have to get a test for it.

Actually, I should have been clearer. I did not lower the ATS lights, I just reduced a couple of the channels in the DT that I thought might be contributing to the HA and the burnt tips. I recall an article that mentioned that corals seem to be more sensitive to too much light when nutrients are low.

I do run GAC, but have not changed it recently. I just changed it now so we will see if it helps.

Yes I do have skimmer in use.

I don't feed a whole lot. Usually a pinch of flakes and some Nori, or 1 cube and some Nori.

Once I get the HA in the DT under control, I had planned to lower the photo period of the ATS to adjust the nutrient levels. I am running 12 hours on, 12 hours off right now.

Dennis

 

[_shorty_]

Well more of open connections on the LEDs than actual bare wires :worried2:, I have not seen anyway to cover them unless it would be with a diffuser panel of some sort.

I think the correct verbiage should not have been 'will kill you', rather: 'can kill you'. It's not common for low voltage DC to do much harm. It is true though that its the amps that kill.

So I wouldn't worry too bad... Just don't stick your tongue to it. Lol. :wildone:

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

yeah you're right on that, I thought about that an hour or so later...too late to correct it, then I got sidetracked. It's really the power that can kill you, and 35W from a Meanwell LPC-35-700 would startle you for sure and "could" cause a serious injury, but you would have to touch 2 contacts with wet fingers from both hands so that the current went through your chest or something.

I am always careful around constant current because I work on airport lighting design and that is done with regulators on the order of 10kW running 5kV cable in a loop. If you're doing any digging around an runway and hit one of these live cables, you are viewed as a simple resistant load and the regulator will just keep ramping up power to maintain the level of current. I know it's not the same exactly, but the principle is there and most don't even think about it.

 

[_shorty_]

that is a good point. most people probably don't consider.

 

[degibson84]

Diatom blooms are typical at some point the cycling process, no matter what. They inevitably go away. A scrubber should help to reduce them, but I have yet to hear of a system that eliminates them. Honestly I'm not sure you would necessarily want them eliminated, just controlled as best as you can.

I think yours is cycle related though and you should let them run the course.

still getting fairly good screen growth but i can't get the diatoms to go or slow. they are now getting thicker on the glass. I have tons of flow thinking of adding even more. i was really hoping the scrubber would help me out. i am only running DT lights about 4 hours scrubber is at 16 hours

 

[Reef Reactor]

I am planning a new big tank (96"x40"x30") and it will be on the window of my living room dividing the wall on the garden. I am thinking to have it under a dome where natural sunlight will be lighting it.

I am thinking to use a scruber for three diferente solutions to problems I may have:
1.-Filter the tank (obviusly )
2.-Cool the tank (thinking to introduce fans to put as much air on it to get water more cold and maintain temp on whole system)
3.-Save on lighting (thinking on have it over the dome and receive natural sunlight as whole tank.

Is this possible? Any suggestion about it? maybe I am not taking something in consideration.

Thanks ! Great Topic !!

Any comment?

 

[scolley]

1.-Filter the tank (obviusly )
2.-Cool the tank (thinking to introduce fans to put as much air on it to get water more cold and maintain temp on whole system)
3.-Save on lighting (thinking on have it over the dome and receive natural sunlight as whole tank.

Any comment?

1 - is not worth comment. Filtering is what ATS's do, what this entire thread is about.
2 - Will definitely cool things. But just how much is a different question entirely. You'll just have to test. But it's going to kick up a lot of moist are and I'll wager some nasty salt creep on every thing down wind of it.
3 - Maybe someone with experience with a naturally lit ATS will comment. But I can tell you that as bright as direct sunlight it, the light on my ATS is a lot brighter. AND using direct sunlight means you can't control your photoperiod. Plus, it's not always sunny. AND depending on your location, sunlight is much brighter in summer than in winter.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Sunlight scrubbers have been and can be done, I think just as supplemental filtration though for the reason Scolley listed. Or, you could get fancy and make a photosensor and logging program to track daily light periods and intensity levels, then supplement on days that are lacking. Adee's TOTM uses many types of filtration, including a very large slanted sunlit scrubber.

 

[degibson84]

cleaned the screen a few days ago and now im only getting green and red/purple cyano growing on the screen

 

[dartier]

Follow up to low po4 and no3

Follow up to low po4 and no3

Ok, I seem to have made some headway on my nutrient front. I tested my Potassium and found it to be fine (458). I change water daily (about 1.5G a day) so I would have thought it would be OK.

I tested my Iodine and found it to be slightly on the low side (0.05) so I dosed Kent Tech I. Don't think this helped fix it but, I don't want my crustaceans too feel like they are going to explode

What I dosed that seem to have the desired effect was Seachem Reef Complete (Amino Acids). On Thursday I dosed 1.5 x the normal amount ( I had not used this in quite awhile). The next day everything looked much better. My Acan opened up fully again. Same for Red Digiatta (about 50% PE extension compared to 0% for the past week). Every single frag started looking way better actually.

This told me I was on the right track, so 2 days later I mixed up some Reef Roids and soaked it in the recommended dose of Reef Complete for my tank and fed that at night with the main pump off for a few hours. The recommended dosage schedule is every 4 days, but given the circumstances I felt that caution was not warranted.

Just to try to keep as much of the aminos in the system, I adjusted my skimmer to skim very dry.

The SPS pieces that I first noticed the burnt tips on have all stopped progressing or in some cases reversed and coloured back up. While scanning the frags tips, I found that all the frags had started to STN at the base but I had not noticed it until the tips alerted me. The STN seems to have stopped (fingers crossed) and in the case of the frag where the tips coloured back up, the STN on the base seems to be starting to reverse course. Hopefully this is early stage STN, and is reversible.

Anyway just thought I would relate what I found.

Dennis

 

[dartier]

This thread has been spammed.

There, fixed that for you

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Good one!