Chrisq0904
New member
Thanks for the help. I just bought some things to hang 2700k bulbs.
Algae Scrubber Basics
- Thread starter srusso
- Start date
How well does blue LED's mixed with reds grow this algae? Would something like this work well for a roughly 3"x5" scrubber?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/230950111502?var=530130136527
http://www.ebay.com/itm/230950111502?var=530130136527
criticalencore
New member
I find I get better growth from the cfl bulbs. I had made a refugium light awhile back half white and half 660nm reds (3 white on one side 3 reds on other) and the whites blew away the reds on macro algae growth. Is turf growth different and worth the experiment on my ATS?
SantaMonica
Well-known member
Any "grow" light will work good. The difference in LED lights comes with the spacing of the LEDs... the ones you linked to are concentrated in one spot. Since our application is very near-range, it's better to get spread-out lights, like these...
LED GROW LIGHTS
"Turf" is different, yes. It is concentrated dark brown growth. But being dark brown, it blocks light. On a reef, this is not important because the growth can go sideways, but in a scrubber there is no sideways, so the brown block light from reaching the roots. GHA, however, allows more light to reach the roots, which keeps them alive longer.
LED GROW LIGHTS
"Turf" is different, yes. It is concentrated dark brown growth. But being dark brown, it blocks light. On a reef, this is not important because the growth can go sideways, but in a scrubber there is no sideways, so the brown block light from reaching the roots. GHA, however, allows more light to reach the roots, which keeps them alive longer.
btb72
New member
i have truly enjoyed reading this thread. I am putting together a new tank, a 120g plan on having it heavily stocked. Can I start the tank with only a ATS, no skimmer or other types of filtration? Just wondering for cycling and everything? Also how big of mesh would you recommend?
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
Yes you can, and screen size would really be dependent on feeding, or what you plan to feed. For a new tank, you're not going to be feeding much for a while. So a 4x6 screen or right around that size should take care of your needs for quite a while. Try to leave room for future expansion.
Thanks! I'll get that one!
Newest design, I think it's the best lay out for what I want to do. Planned size of the scrubber is 3"Wx4"H.
Basic summary:
10G tank made into AIO via an acrylic panel, which makes a compartment 3" deep(along the 20" axis). One side of the chamber has media racks for if I want to run chemipure/floss/purigen/carbon etc. Other side has the scrubber. Both have a bubble trap and a pretty high water level, aiming to have the last 1/2" of the scrubber submerged with the rest being a waterflall. At the top of each bubble trap would be a sponge as a last line against detritus getting in the tank again. Middle chamber is the return pump, which pushes 210GPH through 1/2" tubing.
Here's the layout. Forgot to put the heater in, but it should be able to go either in the taller baffle or possibly in the media rack side. I don't want a bubbler design so I opted for the waterfall.
Overall look would still be like this:
But it would have dual overflows instead with a center return.
btb72
New member
thanks floyd. I am completely new to ATS and have only used skimmers in my previous tanks. So this is a brand new subject for me. If you are using ATS as your only nutrient extract would you still use your cube formula for size of mesh or would you step it up a little bit bigger? Since I am starting this and I probably won't live in this house more then 3-5 years I want to try this before I build my dream home. I am looking forward to starting this build but should I throw my skimmer in there just while it is starting to cycle or let the ATS just go from the start? Also does this make your sump area stink at all, I read you say that this stuff stinks when cleaning it.
SantaMonica
Well-known member
First, many folks are not familiar with the differences between cycling live and dead rock, so here is how you can know what to do, regardless:
If the rock was dry (meaning "dead") when you got it, then there is nothing in the rock that you need to keep alive. So dry or "dead" rock will not benefit from a scrubber (or a skimmer either). Preparing dry rock is easy because you WANT the ammonia to build up to high levels, so that the proper bacteria will build up in and on the rock. This bacteria will then remove ammonia when you put the rock in your tank.
"Wet" rock, meaning rock from the ocean or an established tank, is different. It DOES have live stuff in it, which is why it's called "live rock". You want this stuff to stay alive because it filters and feeds your tank, and because the little animals can grow into bigger animals in your tank. However, much of it died on the way from the ocean to you (or even from a short transport from another tank), and if you put a lot of this rock directly into your tank, you may get too much ammonia from it. So for larger amounts of live rock, you want to cycle it in a separate container. But here is where the big difference between skimmers and scrubbers really shows: The living things in the rock are kept alive by food particles, but are killed by ammonia. So if you only have a skimmer on the container (which removes food, but not ammonia), you take away the food that the little animals need to live, and you let the ammonia stay, which further hurts the animals.
A scrubber, however, leaves all the food in the water, even if the "food" is dead and decaying stuff. This "stuff" is not harmful at all (it's the same stuff that you feed); it's the ammonia that is harmful. The dead stuff is actually food for the critters that came with the rock. Scrubbers remove the ammonia, so the critters in the rock will still have food to eat, without being killed by the ammonia. A skimmer, however, removes the food that the critters need to eat, but does not remove the ammonia. Thus the critters are starved and killed at the same time, when using a skimmer. So if the rock is "wet" and is supposed to be "live rock", then using a scrubber instead of a skimmer will allow the rock to keep the most life possible, and in many cases will eliminate a "cycle" altogether.
So if you are curing live "wet" rock, you don't need or want to add anything to get a cycle going. But if you are cycling dry rock, then you will need to add some food to get things rotting.
All this being said, a scrubber will not grow much during cycling; just a light brown film. But this will be enough to keep ammonia down in the water, and keep nuisance algae off of the rocks. This will allow, however, the screen to get started, and once you start feeding the tank it will grow much faster.
If the rock was dry (meaning "dead") when you got it, then there is nothing in the rock that you need to keep alive. So dry or "dead" rock will not benefit from a scrubber (or a skimmer either). Preparing dry rock is easy because you WANT the ammonia to build up to high levels, so that the proper bacteria will build up in and on the rock. This bacteria will then remove ammonia when you put the rock in your tank.
"Wet" rock, meaning rock from the ocean or an established tank, is different. It DOES have live stuff in it, which is why it's called "live rock". You want this stuff to stay alive because it filters and feeds your tank, and because the little animals can grow into bigger animals in your tank. However, much of it died on the way from the ocean to you (or even from a short transport from another tank), and if you put a lot of this rock directly into your tank, you may get too much ammonia from it. So for larger amounts of live rock, you want to cycle it in a separate container. But here is where the big difference between skimmers and scrubbers really shows: The living things in the rock are kept alive by food particles, but are killed by ammonia. So if you only have a skimmer on the container (which removes food, but not ammonia), you take away the food that the little animals need to live, and you let the ammonia stay, which further hurts the animals.
A scrubber, however, leaves all the food in the water, even if the "food" is dead and decaying stuff. This "stuff" is not harmful at all (it's the same stuff that you feed); it's the ammonia that is harmful. The dead stuff is actually food for the critters that came with the rock. Scrubbers remove the ammonia, so the critters in the rock will still have food to eat, without being killed by the ammonia. A skimmer, however, removes the food that the critters need to eat, but does not remove the ammonia. Thus the critters are starved and killed at the same time, when using a skimmer. So if the rock is "wet" and is supposed to be "live rock", then using a scrubber instead of a skimmer will allow the rock to keep the most life possible, and in many cases will eliminate a "cycle" altogether.
So if you are curing live "wet" rock, you don't need or want to add anything to get a cycle going. But if you are cycling dry rock, then you will need to add some food to get things rotting.
All this being said, a scrubber will not grow much during cycling; just a light brown film. But this will be enough to keep ammonia down in the water, and keep nuisance algae off of the rocks. This will allow, however, the screen to get started, and once you start feeding the tank it will grow much faster.
I use this and it works great.
silentscream
New member
BCool, which wattage are you using? Can you give details about your lighting and screen size/setup?
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
btb72, the feeding-based guideline is just that, a guideline. In most cases, it is adequate but you can probably go as far as doubling the size and be fine.
The guideline is also tied to flow and lighting: spectrum, intensity, source, and daily photoperiod all come into play.
So if you followed the overall design guideline to a tee, you would probably be fine with just a scrubber, but IMO that also depends on your tank: contents, livestock, size, etc. For a larger size tank, it's always a good rule of thumb from a general perspective to have multiple sources of filtration, be that a skimmer, carbon, etc. The scrubber is a powerful tool and IMO should be part of an overall filtration scheme. Built properly, the other components can really serve as co-filtration, meaning they can be lesser - smaller skimmer, less carbon, etc. Same goes for water changes, they can generally be reduced but completely eliminating them may or may not work in your specific setup. Certain corals may respond better in your system under different husbandry practices. So it's not really cut-and-dry for every system.
So for instance if you built the scrubber with a 4 cube/day screen (48 sq in) but then had less lighting or flow than the guideline recommends, you could rate that at a lover feeding capacity like 2 cubes/day, and if you needed more filtration you can simply increase the lighting (photoperiod, intensity, quantity of sources, etc) and increase flow.
When starting a new tank, you're probably going to have just LR for a time, but the rock maturing process is going to throw off a lot of junk, so 2 cube/day size will probably work well, I consider that a 'minimum' size for most tank. From a construction perspective, a scrubber smaller than 2 cubes/day (24 sq in) doesn't make much sense, unless it's a nano tank. Then as your tank starts to stabilize, and you add fish/corals/snails/etc, and start actually feeding the tank, your scrubber will be ready to handle the load, and it will start to change growth patterns accordingly. Then, you can start to make any adjustments to lighting and flow to keep it running right.
As for the smell, generally speaking there is no smell until the water source to the scrubber is shut off for cleaning. If you do smell something during normal operation, this is an indication of a problem - usually a flow problem. It can also be an indicator that you had a power outage.
At some stages of initial growth, the algae produced can smell more than a fully mature screen, but also this is usually only when the flow is shut off. A thick mat of only GHA is not very smelly at all. Sometimes you will get a layer of brown goo that is a bit shiny and sort of like diatoms or dinoflagellates (they break apart and disintegrate when disturbed) but they do not inhibit growth of the mat underneath, because they are so thin and stringy.
Hope that helps
Bud
The guideline is also tied to flow and lighting: spectrum, intensity, source, and daily photoperiod all come into play.
So if you followed the overall design guideline to a tee, you would probably be fine with just a scrubber, but IMO that also depends on your tank: contents, livestock, size, etc. For a larger size tank, it's always a good rule of thumb from a general perspective to have multiple sources of filtration, be that a skimmer, carbon, etc. The scrubber is a powerful tool and IMO should be part of an overall filtration scheme. Built properly, the other components can really serve as co-filtration, meaning they can be lesser - smaller skimmer, less carbon, etc. Same goes for water changes, they can generally be reduced but completely eliminating them may or may not work in your specific setup. Certain corals may respond better in your system under different husbandry practices. So it's not really cut-and-dry for every system.
So for instance if you built the scrubber with a 4 cube/day screen (48 sq in) but then had less lighting or flow than the guideline recommends, you could rate that at a lover feeding capacity like 2 cubes/day, and if you needed more filtration you can simply increase the lighting (photoperiod, intensity, quantity of sources, etc) and increase flow.
When starting a new tank, you're probably going to have just LR for a time, but the rock maturing process is going to throw off a lot of junk, so 2 cube/day size will probably work well, I consider that a 'minimum' size for most tank. From a construction perspective, a scrubber smaller than 2 cubes/day (24 sq in) doesn't make much sense, unless it's a nano tank. Then as your tank starts to stabilize, and you add fish/corals/snails/etc, and start actually feeding the tank, your scrubber will be ready to handle the load, and it will start to change growth patterns accordingly. Then, you can start to make any adjustments to lighting and flow to keep it running right.
As for the smell, generally speaking there is no smell until the water source to the scrubber is shut off for cleaning. If you do smell something during normal operation, this is an indication of a problem - usually a flow problem. It can also be an indicator that you had a power outage.
At some stages of initial growth, the algae produced can smell more than a fully mature screen, but also this is usually only when the flow is shut off. A thick mat of only GHA is not very smelly at all. Sometimes you will get a layer of brown goo that is a bit shiny and sort of like diatoms or dinoflagellates (they break apart and disintegrate when disturbed) but they do not inhibit growth of the mat underneath, because they are so thin and stringy.
Hope that helps
Bud
thinking about ATS on new tank, have questions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The tank is a standard 75 glass aquarium that is not drilled... yet. I'm in the design process now.
Every tank I have set up in the past has had a refugium with cheato. It always worked ok for nutrient export, but I hated dealing with the small bits of cheato that would get into the display and take hold in my live rock and grow. Now, i'm reading up on waterfall ATS units and think I'm going to try that route, but I have a few questions.
First set of questions: I would like to feed the ATS from my drain, and since the tank is not drilled yet, what type of drain would best accomplish this feat? Is this even a good idea? I know it has been said that a bean animal or herbie will work, but is it best to go this direction? Would a drain that takes in air work better as it would also be pulling in C02 as well? I have an 800gph pressure rated external pump and a 1000gph internal pump to choose from to feed the tank. I will be "t"ing off the return for a media reactor, so I would think adding another piece of equipment to the feed line would take too much away from what gets returned to the tank.
Second set: will an ATS cause my alk to drop to the point that I will need to start dosing it? The tank will house mostly softies and LPS and I will be using kalk in my topoff to maintain calcium and really don't want to start having to dose two part as well. Will running a protein skimmer help get enough CO2 into the water to eliminate this issue? Even if it is run after the ATS in the sump?
Third set: what is a good screen size for this tank and will it handle the flow from the drain? I will only be feeding one to two cubes at first and probably no more than 3 to 4 cubes later on down the road. I don't really expect to have a high bioload. I know I need 12sqin per cube fed, and with 4 cubes that would be 48sqin. Should I go with a wide screen and make it very short, or how should I configure the screen for best water flow without oversizing the screen too much?
Any help would be most appreciated. I started my own thread but didn't get any response, so btb72 suggested I post here.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The tank is a standard 75 glass aquarium that is not drilled... yet. I'm in the design process now.
Every tank I have set up in the past has had a refugium with cheato. It always worked ok for nutrient export, but I hated dealing with the small bits of cheato that would get into the display and take hold in my live rock and grow. Now, i'm reading up on waterfall ATS units and think I'm going to try that route, but I have a few questions.
First set of questions: I would like to feed the ATS from my drain, and since the tank is not drilled yet, what type of drain would best accomplish this feat? Is this even a good idea? I know it has been said that a bean animal or herbie will work, but is it best to go this direction? Would a drain that takes in air work better as it would also be pulling in C02 as well? I have an 800gph pressure rated external pump and a 1000gph internal pump to choose from to feed the tank. I will be "t"ing off the return for a media reactor, so I would think adding another piece of equipment to the feed line would take too much away from what gets returned to the tank.
Second set: will an ATS cause my alk to drop to the point that I will need to start dosing it? The tank will house mostly softies and LPS and I will be using kalk in my topoff to maintain calcium and really don't want to start having to dose two part as well. Will running a protein skimmer help get enough CO2 into the water to eliminate this issue? Even if it is run after the ATS in the sump?
Third set: what is a good screen size for this tank and will it handle the flow from the drain? I will only be feeding one to two cubes at first and probably no more than 3 to 4 cubes later on down the road. I don't really expect to have a high bioload. I know I need 12sqin per cube fed, and with 4 cubes that would be 48sqin. Should I go with a wide screen and make it very short, or how should I configure the screen for best water flow without oversizing the screen too much?
Any help would be most appreciated. I started my own thread but didn't get any response, so btb72 suggested I post here.
speedo2wet
Sharks!!!!
Well I missed the part about the water creep and so I found a good puddle on the ground. Not exactly what I would like on the bottom of this tank but what can you do now. right? My question now is that since the whole thing is in place and working, how to and what to add to prevent this from happening again?
Yes I should have looked at this in the first place.. ugh.
Yes I should have looked at this in the first place.. ugh.
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
speedo I went back a few pages but can you post a pic of your setup instead of me having to search for it, or list the post it's on?
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
never mind I found it on #5578
What you do is take a 2" section of airline hose and snake a zip tie through it, then tie that around your pipe, one on each side of the slot about 1/2" from it. This will 'intercept the water before it creeps along the pipe.
You could do a second one for insurance. Pull them as tight as you can with a pliers. They will loosen a bit over time so nothing is too tight
like this
except use more hose, this one shows a 1" piece, I went to 2" pieces eventually.
What you do is take a 2" section of airline hose and snake a zip tie through it, then tie that around your pipe, one on each side of the slot about 1/2" from it. This will 'intercept the water before it creeps along the pipe.
You could do a second one for insurance. Pull them as tight as you can with a pliers. They will loosen a bit over time so nothing is too tight
like this
except use more hose, this one shows a 1" piece, I went to 2" pieces eventually.
SantaMonica
Well-known member
matt: People feed from the overflow all the time. You can even do it with an overflow-fed upflow version, if you "pour" it down on it. Pulling in CO2 is not really of use, but the bubbles will probably help (the air/water interface helps growth). And the overall flow-through rate of the overflow is not important to the scrubber, so size it to fit whatever else you need it for (a scrubber only removes a tiny amount of nutrients on each pass, but does so continuously).
The kalk will probably supply whatever alk you'll need. Unless your scrubber starts growing mega amounts, you probably won't have to add more alk. Adding a skimmer probably won't add much CO2 beyond what your already large air-touching scrubber will (waterfall area, or bubble upflow). The LPS won't demand much alk, but if you get lots of corraline you might get a urchin etc to keep in down. Besides, even if you needed to add alk, some baking soda once a week would do fine.
For size, a waterfall needs up to 50 gph per inch of width, so you might plan for 18", but this would only need to be 3" or so tall for 48 total; so it might be better to bypass more than half of it and go with 6" wide X 8" tall. This way it can hit the water below. However if you do an overflow-fed upflow (pic), it does not matter how much flow there is; more is better.
speedo: Just wrap a sheet of plastic sandwich wrap over it.
The kalk will probably supply whatever alk you'll need. Unless your scrubber starts growing mega amounts, you probably won't have to add more alk. Adding a skimmer probably won't add much CO2 beyond what your already large air-touching scrubber will (waterfall area, or bubble upflow). The LPS won't demand much alk, but if you get lots of corraline you might get a urchin etc to keep in down. Besides, even if you needed to add alk, some baking soda once a week would do fine.
For size, a waterfall needs up to 50 gph per inch of width, so you might plan for 18", but this would only need to be 3" or so tall for 48 total; so it might be better to bypass more than half of it and go with 6" wide X 8" tall. This way it can hit the water below. However if you do an overflow-fed upflow (pic), it does not matter how much flow there is; more is better.
speedo: Just wrap a sheet of plastic sandwich wrap over it.
