Algae Scrubber Basics

[SFish]

So I was thinking of using uniseals for the drains on my 3D box would these work without leaking? I want to have a 3/4" pipe feeding the scruber. Would I be able to get a way with a 3/4" drain and a 1" emergency drain? If so what size uniseals would I need to fit the PVC and what size holes would I need to drill? I do want the box to hold a small amount of water so the screen sits in water.

 

[SantaMonica]

Ah, I had meant the plastic wrap to block spray, not light.

Uniseals are fine above the waterline, but you should not really trust them below. So feeding a waterfall screen is fine, and drain is fine, but probably not if you don't want water to leak, like a sump wall.

A 1" drain is probably better, and bigger is better still. You just get a 1" uniseal, and measure the outside diameter (OD) to see how big of a cutout you need to make.

 

[SFish]

Thanks

 

[Becks]

Reduce the flow a bit until you get no arcing. You don't need the "guideline" flow right off the bat, but you do want it eventually. Until then, is fine (and sometimes better)

You might want to reduce LED hours also. 18/6 is CFL hours recommendation. You might find that to be too much when running LEDs. Either dim them or reduce to 9-12 hrs/day until you start to see some good results

Sorry forgot to update this, I tried to reduce flow but still had arching so I took the screen out and sanded the slot slightly wider and lowered the screen more, originally it was fully inserted into the pipe, I lowered it so it was about 1/4 into the pipe and now it's perfect no arching at all.

 

[jerseypete]

Any suggestions on ways to block light from the slot to keep algae out of it? I tried rigging something up with duct tape and cardboard, but those didn't really feel like "long term solution" materials. Maybe take some thinwall 1.25" drain tubing, cut a thick enough slot in it to stretch over your slot tube and screen, then it could just sit on top of the slot pipe. I figure it would almost entirely block the top 1" or so of screen and be fairly easily removable. Here's a cross-section diagram I drew up.

You can use kydex. It's a thick plastic like material. You can heat it in the oven for a few min and it becomes bendable. Works good. Turbo aquatics sells them also. I tried both. Turbos was better. I think it was like $20 bucks shipped for 2 ft.

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[jrp1588]

You can use kydex. It's a thick plastic like material. You can heat it in the oven for a few min and it becomes bendable. Works good. Turbo aquatics sells them also. I tried both. Turbos was better. I think it was like $20 bucks shipped for 2 ft.

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Yeah, Floyd sent me a PM showing me the blocker he sells. Currently I'm testing my PVC pipe solution, and it seems to be doing pretty well for the $2 I invested in it. I've been intentionally lax on my scrubber maintenance since I put it on over the weekend, and haven't noticed reduced or uneven flow.

 

[SantaMonica]

Friday night growth pics...

 

[biecacka]

What does slower growth and darker green algae mean on my ATS?

Corey

 

[Pandagobyguy]

Is it typical for ats to only grow diatoms for the first few months?

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[jason2459]

Of course nice thick green algae is ideal but

IMO, I'm sure not others, but any kind of growth is good growth. If it's not growing on the screen it's growing somewhere else.

What ever it is its consuming nutrients and elements that would promote its growth elsewhere.

 

[SantaMonica]

What does slower growth and darker green algae mean

Mean a stronger light is needed, and more often cleaning.

Is it typical for ats to only grow diatoms for the first few months

If the screen is too big, yes. There are not enough nutrients to grow long GHA.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Is it typical for ats to only grow diatoms for the first few months?

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I would say no it is not typical for this to persist for 2 months. Maybe 2 weeks...something might be off...

 

[jason2459]

Oh wow, for some reason I read a few weeks not a few months. That is a bit long.

 

[Pandagobyguy]

Thanks for the info!! Yes it still only grows diatoms. Honestly getting on 3 months now. I have seen one small patch of green which i thought was turf but it went away after a little while... haha wierdly i do think it is probably nutrient deficiency like SM thought. I literally feed my fish mysis shrimp and flake one by one. And never feed corals cleanup crew or anything else. My nitrites and nitrates are 0 and my ammonia stays at the lowest .2ppm able to be detected by my red sea. I have only softies and have stopped doing water changes (mostly to combat a patch of dinos). When i stopped doing water changes the green spot left (now that i think about it). Perhaps the gha needs some trace element that diatoms dont?? My dinos also disapeared at the same time.
I guess ill start feeding more and see if some gha starts up.
Thanks again for the help!

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[Floyd R Turbo]

Well...hold on. No need to "feed the screen". What are your scrubber specs? Dims, lights (type, photoperiod,etc), flow, pics?

 

[Pandagobyguy]

Haha this is where i have to confess it really isn't a turf scrubber. Its just a roughed up mesh screen attached to the waterfall section of one of those freshwater HOB filterfloss/charcoal skimmers (with all the ff/charcoal taken out).

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[Pandagobyguy]

And it uses the lighting from my DT as well so i realize it just may never function lol. But the lighting is very strong (LED superlux) i set it at 25% because i noticed some bleaching in my corals. I just wonder why it had a small patch of gha that dissapeared later on

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[zachtos]

Electrical shown for the ATS, coated the PCB with silicone conformal coating











Turf scrubber hung up. PAR is stupid high. 700 peak zones (at current mount distance/angle). 200-300 PAR on edges along sides and bottom and top, then middle area is around 400-600 PAR mostly, kindy spotty, hard to test really because it jumps around. Though you can throttle it back in a linear manner with the storm controller. Not sure the ideal PAR to run this at yet since I have no real bioload. I do plan to just throw in rotting meat on regular basis while tank is cycling to get it used to bioload.


Algae turf scrubber 3 day growth. Fallow tank, just rotting meat and anemones in the frag tank.

 

[sensei]

comparison between 2 ats in 2 different tanks

comparison between 2 ats in 2 different tanks

I have installed the same identical 2 cube ATS in 2 tanks.
one is a 150g three years old tank were NO3 ( 20ppm) and PO4 ( 0.13ppm) are usually high, and the other is a 600g system six months old where NO3 = 2.5ppm and PO4 = 0

here are the photos of the growth in both tanks




the one in the 150g has leds on 24hours at 100% intensity, while the other one has leds only 14 hours at 50% intensity.

as you can see in the photos the algae in the 150g is very green and nice, the other one is much more slimy and not so green. some what brown.

both ats have been running for over 3 month now

how does the slimy algae in the 600g system look?
is it possible for this algae to release some toxic substances for corals?
I ask because it is somewhat slimy and not the typical GHA that you would like to see in ats

for some reason I am not able to have success with sps in these new system and sps are doing good in the 150g system.

for some reason I am not able to see P in the 600g system even after increasing the feeding to 3 cubes a day.

also the 600g system growth algae in the glass very fast, there is not much GHA in dt because the tangs eat any that grows

any thoughts of what can be happening?

thanks

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I don't know if I would call the 600g scrubber algae slimy, but it's definitely less consistent growth - there are "clods" of algae, and areas with not much coverage/attachment.

the 50% setting is good for start-up, but once you start to get thick growth, that's probably not enough intensity to drive deep into the mat of growth, so the result is that you could be getting some die-off in the thicker areas towards the end of the growth cycle.

If you want to keep some nutrients in the tank but avoid the potential for die-off, I would consider increasing the intensity then controlling the hours to maintain the levels. Probably push it to 75% at this point (3 o'clock knob setting).

As far as P goes, if you are feeding, you should have some. The lack of P is probably not the cause of any SPS issues, stability is more of the pertinent issue when it comes to P levels. As long as you are feeding, you will have some levels of phosphorus in one form or another within the system.

Regarding SPS and algal toxins, etc - there are some that feel the exudates from algae can have a detrimental effect on some corals, but it's really quite a debate on exactly what and why from what I have read. There's arguments on both sides. That is why I usually recommend that when keeping a heavy SPS tank, you also use a skimmer and carbon (GAC) or at the least GAC. You shouldn't need much, but you should change it often.

So in the 150g tank, what else is different? If you're running that scrubber full bore and getting good results, what is the water chemistry like that might tell you why?

It's interesting seeing 2 tanks using the same system and getting different results. This is why it's hard to make a one-size-fits-all guideline, every system has it's differences