Algae Scrubber Basics

Hi guys, I am about to rebuild my tank.
Attached is design that I plan to use. The little white box is the chiller. It is fed from the return pump which has a ball valve to adjust the flow.

I will be adding an algae turf scrubber but I am trying to figure where to place it and how to feed it.

Some notes:
  • The sump(1) doesn't fit under the tank.
  • The height under the tank is about 3 feet or less.
  • I have one additional pump that can be used to feed the ATS or the chiller.
  • I have a smaller container that can be used as a secondary sump(2) for the algae scrubber and can fit under the tank. However due to height limitations a larger pump will be needed or gravity feed. If I use gravity feed I can direct all flow from return pump to the Display tank and use the second pump for the chiller. But I need a way to return the water to the primary sump(1) without overfilling the DT or and draining the ATS sump(2).
  • I can get a bin and place the ATS in there, but I can't think of a way hide it. Additionally it will have to be placed somewhere higher and use gravity to return the water to the primary Sump(1) to avoid the risk of draining or overfilling.
  • The pipes from the return have a large diameter and I am not sure if I can modify them to use them as gravity feed for the ATS.

In other words, I am trying to add an ATS in my setup but don't know how to hide it and how to feed it(depending on how it will be setup).
The tanks is 75 gallons.
The screen will be 8 x 10 in., vertical and lit on both sides.
Needed flow is around 300GPH. Pump that will be used is rated at 600GPH, but I will be happy if it actually outputs 300GPH.
 

Attachments

  • setup.jpg
    setup.jpg
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You could make one that sits on top of the smaller tank and let the drain feed it directly, or are you wanting to hide the ATS completely? Something like the Santa Monica 100 would be good in a situation like this, an enclosed box with full light blocking. You would need more flow, around 700 GPH, but if you have 3 feet under the tank that's plenty of room for a 30 long sump and a 7" tall ATS on top of it, total of about 23" I believe.

If you do it right, you fan put a fan across the ATS screen and put a temp controller on it and ditch the chiller. Evaporative cooling is very efficient.
 
rysher said:
my sump is full of red slime now, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
nothing on the DT, i think this is because of the light on the ATS.
hopefully it wont go to the DT.
Click to expand...

Knock on something solid, I don't have this issue. My acrylic box is clear and my sump is acryllic so I got light overruns everywhere. However, I have LOTS and LOTS of macros in my sump. I have 6 mangroves, 2-3 balls of chaeto, and several large pieces of sea lettuce. All of them are growing!

I have no signs of cyano anywhere in the sump or display. So, I'm thinking the macro algaes are absorbing the light that would foster nuisance slime growth...

I know it's counterproductive to have an ATS, skimmer, and macro algae all working against each other, at the same time, it's keeping my sump extremely clean. ;) I think I actually have coraline algae growing in my sump... (not a bad thing in my opinion... LOL...)
 
i have a question, when you clean your scrubber, do you have to completely remove all the algae on both sides? do you have to scrub it clean with like...a brush or something? Thanks.
 
Floyd R Turbo said:
Blocking the light is a major benefit here. You definitely want to minimize light shed into the sump, unless you want light there for another reason.
Click to expand...
i'm making a new ATS box now, will post pics when done.

travis32 said:
Knock on something solid, I don't have this issue. My acrylic box is clear and my sump is acryllic so I got light overruns everywhere. However, I have LOTS and LOTS of macros in my sump. I have 6 mangroves, 2-3 balls of chaeto, and several large pieces of sea lettuce. All of them are growing!

I have no signs of cyano anywhere in the sump or display. So, I'm thinking the macro algaes are absorbing the light that would foster nuisance slime growth...

I know it's counterproductive to have an ATS, skimmer, and macro algae all working against each other, at the same time, it's keeping my sump extremely clean. ;) I think I actually have coraline algae growing in my sump... (not a bad thing in my opinion... LOL...)
Click to expand...
i dont have anything, no macro, no skimmer, no reactor,,,,
my tank is as simple as it gets.
 
I thought I read on here to only remove what is easily removable. If you remove too much algae from the screen you risk starting the ATS over with the 3-4 week growth period and cutting your water cleansing ability down too low...

At least my understanding. I think that I'd take a brust to it. I just take something fairly smooth and run it along the screen scraping what I can easily get off and leaving the rest. When I clean mine tomorrow it will be the first time I get anything tangible out of my scrubber.
 
Floyd R Turbo said:
You could make one that sits on top of the smaller tank and let the drain feed it directly, or are you wanting to hide the ATS completely? Something like the Santa Monica 100 would be good in a situation like this, an enclosed box with full light blocking. You would need more flow, around 700 GPH, but if you have 3 feet under the tank that's plenty of room for a 30 long sump and a 7" tall ATS on top of it, total of about 23" I believe.

If you do it right, you fan put a fan across the ATS screen and put a temp controller on it and ditch the chiller. Evaporative cooling is very efficient.
Click to expand...

Due to the pieces that support the tank, the width that I can work with under the tank is 25cm which is about 10 inches.
The length is 48 inches. I did see some ideas on this thread where they use the regular T8 lamps which I have around sitting and I could use those for the ATS instead of other lights.

But I will still have to figure a couple of things out.

Given my tank volume I must have around 80 sq inches double sided area.
I can go with a height of 12 inches and width of 7-8 inches.
That width will require a flow of 300 gallons (which I can get from gravity feed). I will have to mod my return but since I can hide the algae scrubber I'd rather do that than have in next to the display tank.

So lets say that the drain from the DT goes down and into the cabinet and feeds the ATS and into the sump1. This water will be filling the sump1 so I will need to pump it to sump2(which will be holding the skimmer, heater, reactor, etc).

So I will be using pump1 to send the water from sump1 to sump2 and pump2 to send water from sump2 to DT.
How can I be sure that I won't overflow or drain one of the sumps(and burn a pump)?

In my previous setup, I had the level of the water in the sump marked so that I knew how much water I needed to top-off. (for the new setup I will be making an auto-top off).

Can I have some suggestions? It will be easier for me to have the auto-top off add water in the sump1(where the ATS will be).
 
I can tell you this, it will be next to impossible to balance the flow between 2 sumps with one pump feeding into the other sump. You are asking for a disaster. Don't do it.

Even if you could balance it, it would have to be 100% in perfect balance, and it won't stay that way. If (when) one pump fails, that sump will fill up and the running one will go dry. Your sumps would have to be sized to handle the volume of extra water in the tank plus the operating water in the other sump.

You could have each of them on separate drains and return to the tank independently. However if one pump fails, water will continue to drain into that sump and eventually it will either overflow or the sump with the working pump will go dry, same as before. Either way, it's bad.

The only way to make a 2-pump, 2-sump system work safely is to put them at the same level (top of sump1 to top of sump2 is equal) and interconnect them below the top with bulkheads and tubing. That way if one pump fails, the water will continue to flow back to the tank from both sumps.
 
I just thought about this though, you were planning on draining to the lower sump, then pumping up to the higher sump, then back into the tank. This is the disaster scenario. However, if you put a bulkhead in the middle-level tank and allow it to gravity feed to the lower tank, then plumb the overflow from the DT into the middle tank, you only need one pump to return water and you have no problems with a disaster, unless the drain line from the tank to sump1 or from sump1 to sump2 clogs.
 
First off, great thread! Thanks Floyd and all those who contributed. I'm in the process of designing my algae scrubber. I'll post pics when done.

One question "¦ I've found sources for all the stuff I need except two. Where are you all getting your o-rings to prevent water from coming back down the source water pipe that holds the mesh? The mesh itself, seems like I can source locally from craft stores for 10"x13" squares, but is there a craft store chain that I can source a single sheet of mesh 22"x16"?

Thanks!
 
The largest I have found is about 11x17 or 12x18 I think, found that at either Michaels or Jo-Anne Fabrics.

The o-rings you can find at Ace Hardware, I found that they have the best selection of all kinds of sizes and types of o-rings. I personally like this one instead of an o-ring

IMG_9758.jpg


IMG_9759.jpg


I think I got it for 75 cents or something
 
Algae scrubbers will eventually beat down the cyano. I wouldn't say it was necessarily the cause. If that was the case, you would hear all kinds of people running scrubbers complaining about how their tanks are overridden with cyano, and you just don't hear about them that much. The tank I run it on has zero nitrates (even on Salifert looking from the side, it's perfectly clear) but I still have phosphates, and no cyano at all.

So there could be hundreds of reasons why he got a cyano outbreak. With a scrubber, if you have algae in the display and phosphates have been present for long enough, the rocks and substrate will soak up the P like a sponge and then leech it out as P drops. So occasionally you will see a tank running a scrubber with N + P = 0 and algae all over, because the LR is a constant source. The same is true for cyano in some fashion. If you start a scrubber and it battles away the hair algae in the display, once that battle is over you can get a cyano outbreak, but the scrubber will win if it is strong enough and given enough time.

I have won the battle over cyano in a high nutrient FO tank without a scrubber so there are plenty of ways to do it, pinpointing one reason for it is pretty much impossible. Cyano battle requires persistence and time.
 
I may have missed this...

Does using a UV sterilizer have any negative impact on a scrubber? I've had to run one for the last 24hrs to clear up a major bloom I had (not related to the scrubber!), and I was just wondering if I should be on the look out for anything with the scrubber.
 
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