Algae Scrubber Basics

[Alma Knack]

Can someone comment on the santa monica Rain2 waterfall ATS?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uo0kOIns0GE

I am looking for an ATS and I like how this product is not large, as I have a small cabinet. I am concerned that the LED's. will not last long if they are not cooled and the Rain 2 "Gem 5" lights are sealed. I am not sure if the LED's wil be sufficiently cooed if they are sealed. Another concern is the noise of the Rain2, its algae growing ability, and product support/ customer service. Thank you.

 

[sde1500]

Can someone comment on the santa monica Rain2 waterfall ATS?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uo0kOIns0GE

I am looking for an ATS and I like how this product is not large, as I have a small cabinet. I am concerned that the LED's. will not last long if they are not cooled and the Rain 2 "Gem 5" lights are sealed. I am not sure if the LED's wil be sufficiently cooed if they are sealed. Another concern is the noise of the Rain2, its algae growing ability, and product support/ customer service. Thank you.

Those are brand new. I don't think may, or any, people have them yet. Looks nice though.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Those are brand new. I don't think may, or any, people have them yet. Looks nice though.

About 3% of people who purchase equipment talk about it online, at least that's what I've figured out. So if I sell 500 units, maybe 10-15 people will post about it online, or less. Apparently there are not as many forum and social media junkees as there need to be haha

 

[jason2459]

Can someone comment on the santa monica Rain2 waterfall ATS?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uo0kOIns0GE

I am looking for an ATS and I like how this product is not large, as I have a small cabinet. I am concerned that the LED's. will not last long if they are not cooled and the Rain 2 "Gem 5" lights are sealed. I am not sure if the LED's wil be sufficiently cooed if they are sealed. Another concern is the noise of the Rain2, its algae growing ability, and product support/ customer service. Thank you.

I would make sure it fits in your sump. Potential for water going out the sides is high.

 

[Slim18]

Scrubber Build

Scrubber Build

I hope I am worthy enough to join the scrubber club, you let me know.

The goal of this project was mainly eliminate the hair algae in my display. I have been battling with hair algae for about 6+ or so months now and I'm just getting tired of going into the display with a toothbrush and a siphon to get it all out every 3 or so weeks.

Other requirements are that is must be silent. The tank is in my bedroom and the trickling water noise really bothers me at night. The pump noise is much less of an issue but still needs to be quite.

Right now I have Vertex Omega 130 for a skimmer and it creates the most noise out of the entire system so if I could eliminate the skimmer that would be great but it is not a requirement. Originally the skimmer was meant for a 45 gallon tank not the 80 gallon tank it is currently filtering. I think this undersized piece of equipment is one of the main factors that lead to the nuisance algae in the tank.

So anyway my scrubber needed to fit over a 30 gallon breeder tank that I have as a sump. After doing a ton of research on turf scrubbers (mostly on this 350+ page thread) I decided on going with a 7"x7" screen and lit with 660nm and 445nm LED's. This size should be good enough for my 80 gallon and support around 4 cubes of food per day.

I decided to make the scrubber out of wood since I already have the correct tools for the job. I would seal the wood with 4 coats of polyurethane to protect it. It started with the base and it was cut to size to fit on the plastic rim of the sump.

An acrylic chimney (as I call it) was built and fitted inside the base. The slot pipe would hang from this so no water would be in direct contact with the wood.

The total size of the screen was about 13"x7" but it I made it this long because I wanted the screen to contact the water in the sump. This was to keep the scrubber as quiet as possible and worked out ok. Only a 7"x7" section was ruffed up with a hole saw (not shown in the picture) and would receive direct light from the LED's

The plumbing consisted of a bulkhead that was inserted into the wood so that when I removed the slot pipe for cleaning it would not fall over. Also a ball valve was added so I can dictate how much flow the screen receives.

The lighting was done with 8 660nm (red) LED's and 1 445nm (blue) LED. The 8 around the outside are red and the one in the center is blue. The LED's are powered by a 700mA constant current Meanwell driver and the LED's are rated at 3 watts each (around 1.5 actual watts). All of the LED's were wired in series including the blue one. Currently I am using an acrylic diffusion plate that I made with a palm sander and some spare 1/8th inch acrylic. This plate is most likely going to be removed as the screen matures.

The LED's were mounted to a 1/8th inch aluminum plate and aluminum U stock was added to each side to help with head dissipation. This might not be the most ideal heat sink but it seems to be working well enough.

After 8 days of running the scrubber this is what I got for a result. I took the screen out and cleaned it in salt water lightly scrubbing it with my finger tips just to dislodge any loose algae that was growing on it. You can also see where the screen was ruffed up and receiving direct light.

Some of the problems that I am facing is I don't think I have enough flow going through the screen however if I turn it up the flow anymore it creates to much noise. I never measured the actual gallons per hour that I am getting from the pump at the current setting but I don't think its anywhere close to 35 gallons per hour per inch of screen. We will see in time how it does.

Constructive criticism is encouraged so please let me know if I went wrong somewhere and how to correct the problem. I have to thank everyone for posting the information on the thread (even if it took me a week to read). Without the community posting their results I would not have build this to help me create a better reef tank.

If you have any questions let me know, however i cannot reply to PM's. Just an FYI.

Thanks Again

 

[SantaMonica]

Good build. The aluminum plate is fine, and your flow is good. You have very high nutrients in the water and it's going to start out very dark growth. Scrape it often.

 

[Apotack]

I'd be concerned about the wood long term. You can do the same thing in acrylic using mostly the same tools.

 

[Slim18]

I'd be concerned about the wood long term. You can do the same thing in acrylic using mostly the same tools.

I can see the concern however the wood was sealed with 4 coats of polyurethane. 2 when it was dissembled and 2 after assembly (mostly to cover the screw heads and fill in the cracks).

I already had the wood on hand and honestly i didn't know how this project would turn out in the end. I would have had to purchase a sheet of black acrylic to cut down on the light bleed out of the unit.

The wood was used to simply keep the cost down and i agree that it is not the best material to use.

 

[SantaMonica]

Holiday growth pics:

 

[Slim18]

Day 15 cleaning

 

[sensei]

I have a lot of flow in my 470g dt ( I have 4 MP60s and 2 maxspect gyre pumps), algae growth is much less than before in dt but now I have several spots of red cyano? my tank is about 9 months old. any idea of what can be happening?
is this cyano outbreak a phase?
What can I do about it?
I have 2 ATS installed in my 600g system, one 2 cube and a 4 cube. I am feeding 2 cubes everyday.
Will ATS do something for red cyano in dt?
Why did the red cyano appear if ATS is installed?

Thanks for your help

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

cyanobacteria is kind of algae but not really. Cyano is basically able to form it's own source of food. Cyano can fix it's own nitrogen so it is very hearty. It's usually the "last thing to go" when you're running a scrubber, after the opportunistic algae is eliminated or is waning, it now has an available source. So this can and does happen (cyano outbreak) but again this is typically a phase and not everyone sees it, and when they do, it has varying degrees.

The scrubber will win over time if it is strong enough, but you still have to keep it at bay as best you can so that it doesn't get too entrenched. Eventually the system will balance and it will not have the ideal conditions anymore, and it will wane. The "balance" is at the center of all of these issues typically.

What happens when you make a change to the filtration system (which includes adding or removing equipment, adding or removing live rock or dry rock, etc) is that the "set point" of the system shifts. This typically results in a change to the overall dynamics of the system (many things we cannot measure) and while that happens, you get opportunistic organisms finding their place. It's very important that you do not chase these issues drastically and constantly by doing things like removing rock and scrubbing them off, flipping rocks, making drastic lighting cycle changes, major flow pattern changes, etc, in hopes of finding that one thing that solves the problem - you will in essence cause the problems to compound. These all can cause the bacteria that are established in their ways to change, and there will be a die-off and growth cycle that will oscillate for a while until it finds a new set point.

Changing one thing at a time is fine, then give it some time to re-establish. Sometimes it can take a month or two. I'm guessing that you're on the tail-end of this oscillation cycle and the cyano is finding a home, but it shouldn't last and it shouldn't get out of control.

What I would do is about 2x/week, or more often if needed, is try to siphon it out. The technique used for this is the same one for siphoning dinoflaggelates. Take a length of stiff airline tubing (the kind we all used to use for undergravel filter bubbler tubes) that is long enough to reach to the bottom of your tank. Attach a length of flexible airline hose to that, long enough to reach a 5g bucket on the floor and enough extra to hold it in your hand and pinch off the flow. Start the siphon into the bucket and pinch it off. Now use the hard line to pinpoint the cyano and unpinch the line and suck it out, and travel around the tank and suck out as much cyano as you can. You should be able to do this to all the problem areas throughout the tank in 10-15 minutes and only remove a gallon of water, if that. I was able to suck dinos out of my entire 120g tank in 15-20 minutes and only pull out maybe a cup or two of water. Works very well. Your goal isn't to 100% remove the cyano/dinos, it'll be pretty hard to do that as some of it will want to stay attached or will be hooked into gravel. But remember, you have to let it "burn itself out" i.e. exhaust it's fuel source, which will take time. You are just mitigating the damage it can do to your corals and livestock during that time.

In addition to what you remove from siphoning, you can also take a power head in hand and blow off your rocks and use a brine shrimp net (fine net) to net what you can that is floating around afterwards. Also make sure you are running a clean filter sock in the system when doing this, let it collect for an hour afterwards, then remove it and clean it (soak in a bleach/water solution for a few hours, etc etc). IMO you only need to run the filter sock during/after this blow-off time, and not continuously, but that's just my opinion.

I think you are also running a skimmer so that will also help. Running a bit of carbon doesn't hurt either - attack the cyano from all angles, but with minimal impact on the set-point (hence why "a bit of carbon" not "a massive amount"). Could also run a small amount of GFO also. Both of these could be run by just placing the media in a media bag that is sitting in the sump in the general path of water flow (doesn't have to be a reactor - more of a "passive" media method)

HTH
Bud

 

[sensei]

Thanks a lot, I will try to siphon it using your tecnique

 

[Wally.B]

Thanks a lot, I will try to siphon it using your tecnique

Yes, stick to JUST SIPHONING the Cyano.

Don't do the "Blow The Cyano Off the Rock" thing.

Last year while I was running Too high on nutrients, I got a small Cyano outbreak.

Being lazy, I didn't siphon, I got a power head and blew all the stuff around.
Tank Rocks look great that night.

Picture below explains what happened next.

Then I did the Siphoning way, and it went away after about a month.

Don't panic with Cyano. The Cyano based on my experience is Harmless. Looked awful, but Corals didn't care, and none grew on them (It just covered the rocks, sand, and glass). When it went away, under it was the best Coralline I ever saw.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Yes, stick to JUST SIPHONING the Cyano.

Don't do the "Blow The Cyano Off the Rock" thing.

Last year while I was running Too high on nutrients, I got a small Cyano outbreak.

Being lazy, I didn't siphon, I got a power head and blew all the stuff around.
Tank Rocks look great that night.

Picture below explains what happened next.

NOTED!!!! :lolspin:

 

[sensei]

Thanks Wally for posting the picture

I just did the siphoned most of the cyano with the rigid tubing.
Floyd, your tecnique worked great, thanks a lot

 

[Psyops]

I have not used a ATS for about 10 years now. I made the horizontal flow type years ago.

My present system is about 7 yrs old now. I guess my live rock is getting aged and is releasing a lot of phosphates at this point. I wanted to add a ATS to my system but a small one.

I have a 180 SPS DT, 34 gallon tank with atlantic lobster in it, and another 34 gallon tank with seahorses. They are all hooked up to the same system.
My phosphates are around 0.05-0.08 and nitrates are around 5-10 ppm. My seahorse tank has a lot of macroalgae growing in it.

Reason for adding the ATS is to just keep the system a little cleaner and decrease outbreaks of blooms I sometimes get.

Wierd question. Do they have immitation plants for my seahorses when the scrubber really starts working? and what types of scrubbers do you guys recommend? I am on active duty so don't have time to build one like I used to.

Thanks Guys
Alex

 

[SantaMonica]

This is similar to FW.

Many FW planted people add a scrubber, and you would think the plants do all the filtering, but nuisance algae still pops up because the plants are slow growers. I don't think I've heard one case yet of a scrubber killing the plants though, probably because as nutrient come down, the scrubber filters less. I do see scrubbers killing chaeto a lot though.

For a sps DT + macros, it will be a neat trial. The focus of course is the macros. If chaeto (probably not your case), you will want to start scrubbing small. If ulva or some other fast grower, you might not have to worry. Size guidelines don't apply here. Also, the type of scrubber does not matter. It's just what space and harvesting style you prefer.

You can vary your scrubber by changing the hours of light, and if upflow by changing the bubbles.

What I would do is start with one scrubber, and if it helps and does not kill the macros, add a second unit. The basic size is probably a 2-cube size scrubber (4 x 6 inch growing area, 2-sided).

 

[Psyops]

thanks santa monica. Maybe I can modify my old horizontal scrubber to run vertical. It's as easy of just taking parts of it and putting it horizontal. Now if I can actually find it that would be a miracle. If not which one of your ATS do you recommend?

Alex

 

[PolyReef]

I just found video in European Reef Forum.
Looks like somebody just explain how scrubbers work...
https://youtu.be/9KR2xZP5LdA