Algae Scrubber Basics

[Horace]

Horace. You need air somewhere. How are you getting the air to water interface against the algae?

Bah, I knew I was missing something! Didn't know about the algae growing faster with the added air interface (more co2). Certainly the algae would grow, but not nearly as well. Bummer!



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[Horace]

So assuming for a moment I continued with my current plan, and either fed air similar to the way Santa Montica does, or used a skimmer pump, do you think the bubbles (especially with a skimmer pump) would interfere with light penetration???

 

[Horace]

Another design thought I have been considering is doing similar to what a fellow reefer here in Atlanta has done. He has a similar design to Floyd, but instead of dripping water from the center, he has two spray bars that spray the algae with several small streams of water instead (one on each side of the canvas). The advantage of this is it allows the center algae strip to be removed w/out disconnecting any water and it makes maintenance a breeze.

Where I am thinking of changing that up a bit more is to build laminar waterfall streams from both sides, rather than spray bars. I don't don't know if that will work any better/worse, but it sure would look cool . I think it may also limit splashing a bit.

For reference, this is a laminar waterfall (though mine would have to be substantially lower flow)

 

[karimwassef]

I tried the laminar stream. Couldn't get it right. Post lots of pics if you try.

Bubbles disperse light but if an updraft ATS works in general, it should work for you too.

If I were to try a waterfall again, I'd create a lip and have water fill a small space behind it and then overflow the lip. No slots or holes or pipes.

 

[Horace]

I tried the laminar stream. Couldn't get it right. Post lots of pics if you try.

Bubbles disperse light but if an updraft ATS works in general, it should work for you too.

If I were to try a waterfall again, I'd create a lip and have water fill a small space behind it and then overflow the lip. No slots or holes or pipes.

Yeah one way would be to have it flow down a V shaped glass panels, rather than shooting out via pressure by cutting a long narrow slit. I agree it will be challenging to get a perfect "slit" waterfall. If you look at how complex the inside of those Laminar jets are (hundreds of small straws, scrubber material, etc), that would be hard to do in this environment. The material would get clogged with garbage and need cleaning frequently etc. It would be far less maint to have a means to get a nice even waterflow over a lip like you mentioned.

However, the question is, is it really worth it? My buddy's spray bar(s) design works pretty damn well too, and is a very very simple/cheap design to build.

 

[karimwassef]

perfection is the enemy of the good.

 

[SantaMonica]

2. Acrylic box misting over to block sunlight.
3. Acrylic box developing algae on inside to block sunlight.

If you use strings which can rub the acrylic, they will help wipe growth off of it.

 

[aiber]

Nice! If you're handy, what you could do now is cut a circle in some thin lexan (anything from Lowes/Home Depot should work) and put that back in it's place.

If if you can't get a nice clean circle, if you look close on the fins there are 4 points where it is prepped for a screw, so you could rough cut something and drill a few holes to line up with those points and screw it in, but it would probably be better to have the circle thing...though there is no seal in there anyways, so moisture could easily get to the PCB no matter what.

You could also just drill out the lenses but then you have no lenses for the future if you need it

I owe you a beer Turbo!!! Check the pictures below. You were right. Now the light is more spread out and the growth is more consistent. Very dark green with a little red. Is this good? Is this typical? I just added a couple of clowns so I am feeding more.

Any comments or advise is welcomed!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Looks good!! happy to help, thanks for posting the "after" pics

 

[Horace]

I'll give you 3 guesses what I'm building

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[Floyd R Turbo]

Wait I know...a discotek

 

[karimwassef]

what color are they

 

[bks2100]

I want to run an algae scrubber on my tank I'm setting up (90g tank, about 100g water volume) but I'm having trouble figuring out how big to make it. I've read all the guides a bunch of times and I'd have no problem sizing one for a tank that I have running and know how much food I'm adding. But my bioload will be fluctuating all over the place the next 6 months (or maybe a year).

I have pukani rocks curing now, they've been going for 3 months (since March 17) and they're still releasing phosphates (about .3ppm a week). Once the phosphates coming out of the rocks are manageable I'd like to aquascape and then I'll start testing to make sure the tank doesn't go through another cycle (I could see myself taking too long with aquascaping and some bacteria dying). Then I'll start slowly adding fish and frags. So from when I actually start the tank to a year from that point, I'll have various changes in how much phosphates and nitrates are in the system.

I'm looking to use the 20w floodlights (they're the right colors) and doing a waterfall ats. I've seen other people run them on 6x7 screens with good results and Floyd's guide says 10w led fixture on 6x6 is about right (compared to the luxeon sizing guide). Now with this light, a 6x6 screen and assuming I have enough flow from the pump (I know I need minimum 210 gph actual) that would be sized for 3 cubes per day with both sides lit and 1.5 cubes 1 side lit.

So I'm thinking of setting up a scrubber that size and tweaking the lights to accommodate my bio load. So if lighting from both sides is too much I could play with the light schedule and maybe move them a little away, or worst case turn off one side and go single sided (and play with schedule and distance on that one light). Not to mention I could raise or lower how much I feed to make sure that the scrubber has enough nutrients to keep going, 3 cubes sounds like the higher end of what people feed my size tank with a lot of stuff in it so I fully expect to only run one side the majority of the time but I'd have the other side I could turn on if I did want to feed more or ended up having a bigger bioload than expected.

Does it sound like I'm missing anything or I'll have any troubles with what I'm planning? I still need to figure out logistics on where I'll have it in the sump, how I'll mount the lights, and whether or not to use a container, but I just want to make sure I won't work on those things and figure out I missed something and to start over on something.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Yup, you pretty much nailed it! 2 cubes/day for a 90-120 tank is pretty typical, some might consider that heavy feeding, some might push it to 3 cubes/day with a lot of livestock.

So a 6x6 screen is about right, that's a very flexible size to start with because you can play with the lights (distance, diffusing, photoperiod, etc) and figure out what works best for your system.

I would try to do that vs "feeding the scrubber", you shouldn't really have to do that. Feed what you need, adjust the scrubber.

Go 2-sided if you have the space. Instead of going one-sided to cut the filtration in half, put each light on a different timer and alternate which one is on. this will effectively reduce the filtration capacity, but not have the negative effect of a true single-sided scrubber.

In fact, this is probably not a half bad idea and I don't know why I didn't think of this before...if you are running a 9-12 hour photoperiod, you can actually run a 24/7 photoperiod, but just alternate which fixture is on. Side 1 on 6am-6pm, side 2 on 6pm-6am. Etc.

 

[karimwassef]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/69-8Ji2_cCs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

sharing how I take my turf and feed it back into my display tank

 

[salty joe]

My only concern with feeding turf back to tank is heavy metal buildup.
It seems almost certain that unwanted metals would be introduced no matter how you maintain calcium, alk and mag.

 

[karimwassef]

That's what water changes are for. Trace metals in low quantities are actually beneficial.
Unless there is a constant source of contamination (bad RODI or bad food), water changes should keep things in balance. There's a reduced need to add outside food too.

 

[salty joe]

Oh, IDK why, but I thought you were using a no water change method.

 

[karimwassef]

I do about 100 gals every month.. so 1/6th of the tank.

 

[jason2459]

Always more then one way to skin a cat.