Algae Scrubber Basics

[Swope2bc]

Scrubbers compared to GFO (granular ferric oxide):


GFO:

Absorbs phosphate.
Absorbs silicates.
Does not absorb ammonia/ammonium.
Does not absorb nitrate.
Does not absorb nitrite.
Does not absorb CO2.
Does not produce oxygen.
Does not produce pods.
Does not produce amino acids, vitamin C, or carbs.
Is a non-living chemical (iron).
Is expensive, and must continue to be replaced.
Needs some place to go (bag, reactor, etc).
Is dark brown.
If spilled into water is very hard to remove.
Animals cannot eat it.
Can lower phosphate too low, resulting in coral bleaching.
Have been reports of GFO causing HLLE disase in fish.
Capacity is reduce from first day, and continues dropping.
Does not provide any useful end product.
Heavy iron particles can clog your drain.
The iron can fuel nuisance algae growth.
Does not need light/electricity.

Algae Scrubbers:

Absorbs phosphate.
Does not absorbs silicates.
Absorbs ammonia/ammonium.
Absorbs nitrate.
Absorbs nitrite.
Absorbs CO2.
Produces oxygen.
Produces pods.
Produces amino acids, vitamin C, and carbs.
Is living, and growing.
Is free, and replaces itself.
Needs some place to go.
Is green or brown.
If spilled into water is easy to remove.
Animals eat it.
Cannot lower phosphate too low.
No reports of causing HLLE disase in fish.
Capacity increases from first day, as growth develops.
Provides useful end product (algae).
Very light particles go down drain easily, and dissolve.
Consumes iron.
Needs light/electricity (pennies per month).

Easily convinced! As some would say "it just makes sense". My system is very new and I have a refugium with chateo growing in it as well as a skimmer. Would an ATS be recommended in conjunction with all of this? If only the prebuilt units where a bit more cost effective lol...

 

[SantaMonica]

A strong scrubber will kill the chaeto, but otherwise only help.

 

[jason2459]

Yeah, I would choose one form of algae harvesting. Cheato is certain popular. I used to use caulerpa.

This was an awesome chaeto blog post from a member here who also has a running tank thread d2mini
http://www.everydayreef.com/blog/2015/6/6/chaetomorpha-algae

 

[Jlentz]

I've got green ulva growing like crazy in my Drop 1.4. Any problems with that? I was expecting hair algae.

 

[SantaMonica]

Ulva is even better. It shows that ammonia is being absorbed rapidly.

 

[SantaMonica]

Algae scrubber donation to classrooms

Algae scrubber donation to classrooms

If there is a teacher of biology or science that would like to set up an aquarium for nutrient recycling study, or a cultivation tank for sea vegetable growth study, we can supply an upflow algae scrubber / seaweed cultivator for it.

Requirements:

1. The email request or private message must come from a school email address.
2. The teacher must be listed on that school's website.
3. Pictures of the classroom where the tank would go should be posted here, or included in the email.
4. The shipping address must be to the school.
5. After install, the teacher will post pictures of it here, or email them for me to post.
6. And of course, growth pictures are welcome, as are any study materials, to give ideas to other teachers.

Time to study!

 

[OllieNZ]

I'm considering an Ats for a new set up and I'd like some advice. Due to various constraints I'm looking at an angled setup with a screen approximately 20"x4" the screen would drop 2" over its 20" length. I plan on having the screen split in two so I can alternate cleaning and spaced an 1/8" to a 1/4" off the bottom of the trough to allow water flow either side of the screen. For lighting I would like to use what I have laying about, either 1 or 2 tmc grow beam 500 fresh water (5x3w 6500k cree xpe leds) or an arcadia cs 60f which produces a similar light spectrum to a grolux lamp. I understand neither of these options are optimal but will they work? The DT will be a 48x18x18" Just under 70 gal, I haven't set up yet and would like this to run from the get go.

 

[Brummie]

If there is a teacher of biology or science that would like to set up an aquarium for nutrient recycling study, or a cultivation tank for sea vegetable growth study, we can supply an upflow algae scrubber / seaweed cultivator for it.



Requirements:



1. The email request or private message must come from a school email address.

2. The teacher must be listed on that school's website.

3. Pictures of the classroom where the tank would go should be posted here, or included in the email.

4. The shipping address must be to the school.

5. After install, the teacher will post pictures of it here, or email them for me to post.

6. And of course, growth pictures are welcome, as are any study materials, to give ideas to other teachers.



Time to study!

I did a couple of years of algae growing, as you know. It turned out that the reduction in waterborne nutrients was negligable. The fact the algae can put on massive growth is due to the fact that it obtains low amounts of nutrients from the water (increases with environmental conditions) and produces the rest of its requirements from light energy, supplied by US., at a cost to US. Turned out not to be worth the extra £. Sorry Floyd, your a true believer. Prove me wrong bud

 

[5thChorseman]

what do you recommend, Brummie?

what do you recommend, Brummie?

Hey Brummie,

it sound like you no longer using an AS for filtration, what would you recommend instead? I am currently using a scrubber and a refugium, but am thinking of getting something else.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Garf, have you come to the conclusion that scrubbers don't work, or are you saying growth mass is not necessarily connected to nutrient uptake?

 

[AZRippster]

I did a couple of years of algae growing, as you know. It turned out that the reduction in waterborne nutrients was negligable. The fact the algae can put on massive growth is due to the fact that it obtains low amounts of nutrients from the water (increases with environmental conditions) and produces the rest of its requirements from light energy, supplied by US., at a cost to US. Turned out not to be worth the extra £. Sorry Floyd, your a true believer. Prove me wrong bud

Hmmm, only time will tell for me, but I've seen HUGE evidence this may not be true. For one thing, within 2 weeks of implementing my ATS, GHA almost disappeared from our 450DT. I implemented our ATS on 28 July 15. The first pic is about a week after implementation. On 21 Aug 15 I had to depart for business travel for 33 days. I felt sure I wouldn't have to scrape the mesh until my return on 23 Sept 15. Two weeks after leaving, my wife began reporting our skimmer had significantly slowed in skimmate production. On 8 Sept she told me she needed to scape the mesh. I didn't believe her until she sent me the second picture from 9 Sept 15. Today there is zero discernible GHA/bryopsis in our DT. My wife has had to make several adjustments to our skimmer's water to keep pulling skimmate. And just so it's known, the pump and all operational components are clean and well serviced. Lastly, my wife has been reporting excellent new growth by all our SPS and the LPS appear much fuller. I return next week and will be taking the GFO offline. It will be interesting to see how things progress or digress after that.

 

[codyreed29]

Help

Making a diy scrubber ats.

Which leds ?

I have a lpc 35 700 for those who don't know its for 14 3w leds max output 33 watts.

I have seen on some diy threads the use of red leds.

I have 6 leds left over from a different project royal blue cree 3w can I use them aswell?

 

[AZRippster]

Deep Red Wavelength 660nm-670nm
Hyper Violet Wavelength 415nm-425nm

 

[SantaMonica]

arcadia cs 60f which produces a similar light spectrum to a grolux lamp

Anything similar to a grow light should work well.

For one thing, within 2 weeks of implementing my ATS, GHA almost disappeared

Nice to hear, and very fast, maybe because your export before that might have been very little. So the new export made a big difference.

I have seen on some diy threads the use of red leds

Reds are best. Use just them for ease of DIY. Add blue if you want to tinker.

 

[chema]

I have been reading quite a lot of the thread and I haven´t found data related to the impact of algae scrubbing on pH. I'm planning to implement an algae scrubber, and one of my objectives is to raise pH at night. My tank has always oscillated between, more or less, 7.5 at night and 8.05 at day ¿What are users experiences in terms of pH increase at night related to the photosynthetic activity in the scrubber?

 

[SantaMonica]

The more algae, the more effect, but a basic amount is 0.1 or 0.2 pH increase in pH when the scrubber is full and the light is on.

 

[jason2459]

I may have seen a slight buffer to pH but not a noticeable increase but since going to higher intensity LEDs I've had a HUGE increase in my ORP values. I've never had my ORP get into the high 200's let alone break 300. This has always been that way since monitoring ORP back in like 2009 when I started using ozone.

As soon as I set the jumpers that is setup on the turbo ATS my ozone started jumping big time every night. It did this until it hit low 400s and has been between 400-420 since. My ozone generator was shutdown a while ago and those levels drop during the day when I usually use ozone but jump right back up over 400 every night now. It's just crazy to me my ORP levels are that high and only thing I did any different was set a couple jumpers to high.

I've posted quite a bit of it in my long running tank journal but did post some of it recently in this thread. It also doesn't seem to mater if I just cleaned the screen off or its been two weeks and the screen is thick full of algae. The ORP jumps up every night and maintained at levels I never thought I would hit. I never thought I'd ever go over 300 let alone 400.

So, forget pH I can manipulate that more effective other ways. It's this ORP level that's telling me this is doing something wonderful to my tank.

 

[Spar]

couple questions since this is 279 pages long....

1) is the original build thread on page 1 still the build that most people go off of?

2) i assume you use a dremel tool to cut the 1/8" linear crack through the pvc that the water comes out of... do you push the canvas piece up into this crack, or do you just place it slightly below it or to the side of it...? I am confused on placement of it...

3) if i plan to light it from both sides and have an ~400g (water volume), I just need a 20" by 20" sheet? If I go larger, say 24"x24" or even 30"x30", is this a bad thing to go too large or just unnecessary?

4) is too much gph as bad as too little or is a higher gph ok?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

1) check my signature for the Algae Scrubber Basics posts that were updated a few years back (feb 2012 I believe) and a few other updates related to LEDs

2) inside (see the basics)

3) water volume is the old method, feeding-based is the new (basics) 12 sq in (LxW) per cube of food fed per day, but large tank size adds another factor for turnover rate so I usually increase the overall screen area by a factor of 1.5 or 2, maybe more, so you can go larger (wider) to get a higher overall flow rate.

for really large, heavily fed systems, it's hard to oversize. What you get into is that you end up with a silly amount of lighting because your screen is so huge.

The main factors that determine a scrubber's capacity are size, lighting, flow, and screen roughness. If you are low on any of those then essentially that de-rates your scrubber. So if you oversize and under-light it (proportionally) then the lighting is what limits production. Generally speaking.

4) depends. shoot for the 35 GPH/in rate and once your screen matures, if you think it needs to be pushed a little harder to produce more, increase the flow. There is a point of diminishing returns and that seems to be over 50 GPH/in, that's when water starts to bypass the screen (goes over it)

 

[Spar]

Thanks! Saved all that out to MS Word... impressive 77 pages!

Will make for some good airplane reading :dance: