Algae Scrubber Basics

[speedo2wet]

Thanks Floyd, It's that darn bug again. I'll get better pics of the water flow and the light. You are right, I do have the light to close to the screen itself. I will move it back to 3 inches tonight.

The ATS has only been up and running for 2 days and I have the light running from 8am - 2am. I was thinking of reverting it to 8pm -2pm so there will be some light on keeping the pH more stable through the day/night cycle. I am also hoping (if im close) the Algae once matured with utilize the extra amounts of CO2 in the water, produce the oxygen to offset the CO2 and increase my pH and keep it more stable. Not only am I using well water but I am assuming the house has increased levels of CO2 which is keeping my pH lower. Over the weekend I opened up the house and noticed a drastic increase throughout the day.

I am going to check the N & P and have not yet since the tank was only 4 months old. Besides the normal diatom on the glass and the stuff that appears on non-live rock, there is no real nuisance algae.

Better yet, maybe i'll post a video so you can tell me what if anything I should think about changing.

I don't feed havily so I went on the small side of the scrubber. Most times I feed a 1/2 a cube if that and I also add "Reef Bugs" every 3 weeks or so.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

If you don't feed a ton, I might recommend backing the light off a bit (both distance and length of photoperiod) untit you get established growth. Looks like you have a bit after just a few days. I would do the night time cycle, opposite of the tank lighting, and shave a few hours off each end until you get at least some brown diatom growth on the screen or something like that.

 

[speedo2wet]

There is a small amount on the screen that I can see, Great eye by the way. I agree with the reverse light cycle and as far as the amount of photoperiod, is it a guess on the amount of hours to try? Few lighting questions?
Do I start on the high or low side of exposure time?
Do I change the photoperiod by 2 hours at a time and whats the time frame to see if anything grows? I'm curious as to why the decrease in the hours of exposure? Once matured does the HA require more of a photoperiod?

Hope you don't mind the questions.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I would start on the low side. 9 hours minimum, up to 18 hours max, but to start, you could shoot for 12. Once you get a base of growth, you can throw more light at it as long as your flow provides enough nutrients.

The decrease is because if you have a limited amount of algae and a lot of light, yes a lot of that is passed through or reflected but whatever algae is there has a lot of exposure, and too much can cause photo saturation (incorrectly called photo inhibition previously). Once you get a base of growth, there is more algae to absorb the incident light, and the photo saturation effect is lessened. Once you get a solid base of growth in the holes of the screen material for the growth to 'bounce back' from after cleaning, you can throw a lot of light at the screen and you won't get saturation.

I wouldn't say that GHA requires more light after a screen matures, just that it can handle more light as there is more algae mass to absorb the light - saturation effects are much lessened.

Changes in photoperiod should be 1-2 hours. So if you're at 10 hours/day and you think it's time to increase, go to 12 and give it a week.

 

[speedo2wet]

Well some changes this evening: I moved the light back to 3 inches and I changed the photoperiod to 8pm-6am (on the reverse cycle).

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Growth already starting. Looks good. May have actually been working OK at that distance...but it's better to judge and modify the distance after it has filled in anyways. Keep us updated

 

[SantaMonica]

Looks like it will fill in fine.

 

[iced98lx]

Overflow ATS Update

Overflow ATS Update



I have some longer hair algae growing, despite the lack of depth, and light. I'm going to light it soon, so that should help.

Some things I observed: As growth picked up the ability to drain down through the screen decreased a little so depth increased, possibly helping with growth. The growth down is what made me the happiest, lots of growth hanging down off the screen, which is good.

Haven't seen a decrease in GHA in the display but I'm just letting it level out after removing a phosphate rich bag of old media that someone forgot was in there.

 

[eternalreef]

The cree xp-e red says that it puts out 620nm to 630 nm.

I thought 660nm is the ideal wave length for the ats. Are people using this led with success? Would I be better of getting a different name brand with the wave length being 660nm?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Yeah that's why you can't use Cree reds. Gotta use Philips or a knock off.

The advantage with name brand is consistency, but that depends on where you get it from. You can get specific bins of LEDs if you go with a name brand. Generally if you choose a generic of imported deep red you get a grab-bag of everything that someone else didn't want (i.e. junk)

you most definitely get what you pay for with LEDs. This is very much the case with Cree chips w/r to their focus of technology (phosphor shifted blue chips) and likewise it probably the focus of Philips w/r to deep reds.

 

[eternalreef]

Thanks for the info floyd

 

[ca1ore]

You are dealing with Algae Scrubber haters. These types are fostered by the claims of the extreme Algae Scrubber supporters who have in the past adamantly claimed that is is perfectly fine to run an algae scrubber as primary and sole filtration on any type of system without any issue. It's simply not the truth, nor is it with ANY kind of filtration.

I've been pretty happy with the performance of my ATS, but I would never run it as the sole form of filtration. I skim pretty heavily, use polyfilter periodically, GAC and GFO.

 

[speedo2wet]

Well as of today the screen is covered in brown. As per the instructions I believe I must clean the screen. What's the time frame before GHA begins to grow. I know, I'm get anxious to see it grow.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

depends on the thickness really. If it is a "dusting" or just a brown coloration, but you can still see the screen material, leave it to grow for another week.

If you can just see the screen pattern but not the actual screen itself, then take it out and rub it with just fingertips to loosen the growth and give it a quick rinse in tap water or even a shallow pan of tank water (just enough to swish the screen in).

If it is thick enough to scrape off with a credit card or the like, you can do that but don't go at it too rough, you want to allow the algae to fill in the holes and stay there.

A pic would help, then I can tell you for sure what to do

 

[JustinGr]

I've been pretty happy with the performance of my ATS, but I would never run it as the sole form of filtration. I skim pretty heavily, use polyfilter periodically, GAC and GFO.

I would encourage you to read Dr. Walter Adey's books on ATS.

I would also encourage you to check out Inland Aquatics. They run 40,000+ gallon system only on ATS, and have for over 20 year on Adey's ATScrubbers and were part of his work on ATS.

Adey advocated the red turf as his medium of choice.

Justin

 

[herring_fish]

I would encourage you to read Dr. Walter Adey's books on ATS.
Justin

I agree! Dynamic Aquria Building Living Ecosystems

This is a good text book on all sorts of information about things from the open ocean to the reef tank. He describes the modelling of smaller scaled versions of everything from tropical lagoons to the Chesapeake Bay. He talks about organisms and gas exchange, ocean temperatures, various water compositions, water velocities and turbulence. He discusses substrates, solar input, lighting and tank construction. He explains life cycles throughout the world, plankton and planktivores, detritus and detritivores. This book is chocked full of scientific studies of his and others, along with all kinds of charts and graphs.

Oh...and he even talks about the ATS and the real facts about them. He shows what factors most influence the ATS with facts, not supposition and opinion.

He invented the ATS and promoted the refugium and various sand beds with critters.

After reading that book, I switched to an ATS in the early 90's and never looked back. With all of the food that I normally put in the tank, I want it to stay in the water column as long as possible. I put some carbon in a sock and place it in the tray for passive water contact but I don't mechanically filter at all. I have talked to him and got to take a private back stage tour of the Smithsonian in DC where they used it on a large scale.

There are plenty of other ways to go and they also work quite well but this is one that does work.

And by the way, you might be surprised to know that I really do not own stock in any of his companies.:reading:

 

[speedo2wet]

Floyd, well I figured you were going to ask about a photo and figured that should have been the route to take. Pictures can explain a whole lot. I tried to get the best view and lighting I could. The screen from top to bottom is getting the light as you can see.

I've held off on cleaning the screen until you had a look at it. This has been up for just over a week.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I would definitely let it grow for at least another week. At the most, take it out and place it in a shallow pan of tank water (just a cup or two) and swish it around to remove anything that is loose.

 

[inland]

20+ Using ATS as the sole nutrient export mechanism

20+ Using ATS as the sole nutrient export mechanism

I have been meaning to jump on here for several months now, but I never manage to catch up with all the posts. However, Frank's recent post begs immediate attention. Allow me to offer a different perspective.

Inland Aquatics has been running dump-bucket-driven ATScrubbers as the sole means of nutrient export on many tens of thousands of gallons,
dozens of individual systems, for more than 20 years. Most of these system receive a 10% ANNUAL water exchanges, but we have run reef systems with heavy bioloads for over a decade with no water exchanges whatsoever, just to see what we could get away with.

To put it simply, I assure you that it is perfectly fine to run an ATScrubber as the primary and sole filtration on a variety of aquatic displays. In fact, we highly recommend it! I guess I am old school, but, frankly, I am surprised to find someone suggesting otherwise when so many of our systems have been on public display for two decades.

- MJL

[/QUOTE]You are dealing with Algae Scrubber haters. These types are fostered by the claims of the extreme Algae Scrubber supporters who have in the past adamantly claimed that is is perfectly fine to run an algae scrubber as primary and sole filtration on any type of system without any issue. It's simply not the truth, nor is it with ANY kind of filtration. This kind of stance raises the hairs on the backs of people's neck and gets them all in a tussle about how things really work, so they become the people on the other side of the fence, and you get this kind of response you get.

Take everything in context and don't go into this believing that there is any kind of magic bullet. You will simply lose such an argument.[/QUOTE]

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Morgan, I wish you were more active online. The backlash that this subject brings forth is just amazing sometimes. There are people that literally claim that adding a scrubber to a tank can only make things worse. Like that thread that I am referring to in the quote above, from the Reef Tank site.

PS how's that yellow toxic water treating you? According to a lot of scrubber nay-sayers, that's all you've got there...