Algae Scrubber Basics

[_shorty_]

how to add potassium? can i use potassium chloride? do you have a system that has no filteration xcpt ATS? like no gfo/carbon, no skimmer,no cheato, etc.??

nano, See ssruso's findings below. I started searching after floyd's post.

I am reporting that using "NoSalt" as a potassium dosing method has not worked for my tank. "NoSalt" is mostly made of potassium chloride, the brightwell potassium product is made mostly from potassium sulfate.

In my findings are dosing potassium chloride did not have the same "blue-ing" effect that the brightwell dosing had on my blue corals. Also did not see the healthier growth I saw when using the brightwell potassium.

I will be ordering a one pound bag of potassium sulfate from aquarium ferts. to see if it has a similar effect as the brightwell.

I would NOT recommend dosing potassium chloride or "NoSalt" as we discussed in the past after completing my own tests... I do not believe it is a suitable potassium dosing method for replenishing a potassium limited, algae scrubbed aquarium.

 

[JohnnyB in SD]

I wouldn't be dosing potassium unless your testing for it first. With a small scrubber in a decent sized system you may not need to be very concerned, especially in the short term.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

do you have a system that has no filteration xcpt ATS? like no gfo/carbon, no skimmer,no cheato, etc.??

I do do exactly this. I think it may have limitations though, but it all depends on how the scrubber is constructed. for a smaller <100g system, it's been done more frequently. For a larger system, 200g+, most use multiple filtration. When you get into a big investment level I would think that most typically want to do everything they can to protect their investment and this means multiple forms of filtration, which is really the smart thing to do. Not saying that a large scrubber-only system cannot be done...

yep i mis-spoke... Looking back at logs, my pH stays between 8.2 and 8.3. Just tested half way through night period, and it's still at about 8.2, or maybe just a tad under. Does pH in the ocean swing at night? You'd almost wonder how it doesn't...

Don't be concerned with pH to the point of trying to correct it. Just let it be. If it's within the 7.8-8.4 range most of the time you are fine. Rapid swings is what you want to avoid. So for pH a stable pattern is all you care about I guess.

Keeping your Alk in line will help stabilize pH. I don't even test pH.

I wouldn't be dosing potassium unless your testing for it first. With a small scrubber in a decent sized system you may not need to be very concerned, especially in the short term.

+1 on that. As with any level you dose - test first, or at least know the drop rate and set up a doser. But what makes K special in the case of an algae scrubber is that algae, like a plant, needs N P and K to grow. I have 2 scrubbed tanks and one non-scrubber tank (well, it was up until a month ago). Both scrubber tanks (a 120 and a 144) tested K=320-340. The non-scrubbed tank (with no PWCs for almost a year) had K=390-400. My non-scientific conclusion is that a tank with an algae scrubber can potentially have a K deficiency.

But, if you were to look at the monti caps in either scrubber tanks, you would not guess there is a K deficiency. I'll post pics in a bit.

 

[_shorty_]

I was thinking of just dropping in a banana and hoping for the best... LOL

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

That took me a second to get that one. LOL

 

[rrasco]

Sorry to be jumping up and down for attention...but can someone advise me whether this is normal growth back in Post #4448?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Pics, as promised

Weekly growth (4x6 screen w/6x 660 red and 1x 455 RB per side)

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Same Monti Cap from December 17th, 2011

...and from February of this year.

Repeated pic from above, for comparison

Oh, what a difference a year makes!!!

 

[_shorty_]

Sorry to be jumping up and down for attention...but can someone advise me whether this is normal growth back in Post #4448?

That might be a hot spot in the middle of that first pic? Is your light too close?, is flow too low? Other than that, as long as your getting growth and seeing results - near or at 0 nitrates and phosphates, then it's working. Or at least consistent reduction in levels if you started with high levels... My guess is eventually you'll start seeing more green growth eventually.

Nice pics Floyd! So you think Dosing of K helped contribute to that growth?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Sorry to be jumping up and down for attention...but can someone advise me whether this is normal growth back in Post #4448?

It's hard to qualify "normal" in the first 6 weeks. Looks like there may be a flow or light problem. Clean and let it grow a week, and post a pic. Probably should go to weekly cleaning or 10 days max. You should never go 3 weeks, no matter what - even if your cleaning is just a quick rinse in tap water.

 

[nanomania]

hey Floyd R Turbo, amazing growth pics..... is this the scrubber only tank with just 4"x6" screen?

 

[Kenfuzed]

 

[symon_say]

I'm building my scrubber, and i have some questions i'll like to discus with you, a little bit of details of my tank, i have BeanAnimal overflow, that i love because of the silent operation and the peace of mind it gives me, i plan on feeding the scrubber from the overflow, but my fear is with the constrain the slot pipe will make to the main pipe.

I guess i'm running around 500GPH (I'll measure later) from my pump (is "1050 GPH" capable), this is a mix of question.

I want to use grow lights bulbs, but if i use the bulb i'll have to use a 6x6 or 7x7 screen and the slot will be smaller, if i build leds i can use a 4x10 or 4x11 screen, this slot will be bigger and handles a lot more water, but spread leds gives hotspot that cluster leds avoid.

will 7x7 with grow bulb, and 7" slot handles the flow of my pump (i want to keep using my main pipe as full siphon and the 2nd as open to avoid sound) or should i go with longer slot that i think might handle more flow and keep my overflow working like until now??

 

[OkStudent]

Symon

Symon

I am running a full siphon also.I am running 440 gallons per hour through a 10 inch slot with roughly 4 feet of head when I increase my flow through my main pump I will have to tee off just before the slot with a gate valve to adjust the flow over my 10 inch screen you will probably need to do that also but first you must measure your flow. I just measured this flow two days ago I am using a mag 12 pump and I am surprised at how low flow is it may be too low of turnover for a 180 gallon tank.

 

[symon_say]

I am running a full siphon also.I am running 440 gallons per hour through a 10 inch slot with roughly 4 feet of head when I increase my flow through my main pump I will have to tee off just before the slot with a gate valve to adjust the flow over my 10 inch screen you will probably need to do that also but first you must measure your flow. I just measured this flow two days ago I am using a mag 12 pump and I am surprised at how low flow is it may be too low of turnover for a 180 gallon tank.

Great idea, that will solve my problems, i'll Tee the main pipe to the refugion, and close the valve from my pump to the fuge.

This came out even better, than what i thought, i have been looking a why to change my RP to hose instead of PVC pipe but my fuge was stoping my, now i can do it.

2 birds with 1 shoot.:wavehand:

 

[_shorty_]

I am running a full siphon also.I am running 440 gallons per hour through a 10 inch slot with roughly 4 feet of head when I increase my flow through my main pump I will have to tee off just before the slot with a gate valve to adjust the flow over my 10 inch screen you will probably need to do that also but first you must measure your flow. I just measured this flow two days ago I am using a mag 12 pump and I am surprised at how low flow is it may be too low of turnover for a 180 gallon tank.

I have a mag18 - and yes they get much less flow than expected unless you plumb them correctly. Some on these threads are very opinionated about thier distaste for the mag pumps. But IMO they're cheap and they work. The catch - is that you should probably use 1.5 inch pipe - which is even stated in the manual, to get close to the flow curve they advertise.

I had considering this overflow setup as well - couldn't you just as easily elbow and valve the flow after the screen slot? Based on what little experience I have with this type of plumbing, I would not reduce the size of pipe after the elbow or T, but just valve it so it's fully adjustable.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

LOL

I'm building my scrubber, and i have some questions i'll like to discus with you, a little bit of details of my tank, i have BeanAnimal overflow, that i love because of the silent operation and the peace of mind it gives me, i plan on feeding the scrubber from the overflow, but my fear is with the constrain the slot pipe will make to the main pipe.

I guess i'm running around 500GPH (I'll measure later) from my pump (is "1050 GPH" capable), this is a mix of question.

I've come across many that do it this way. The a BA system I would run the siphon line as to say direct to the scrubber and put the gate valve at the lowest vertical pipe location you can, then do a double-45 to the scrubber instead of a 90. you should have no problems maintaining a siphon as the slot pipe does not inherently allow water to suck in and break the siphon like a open pipe above the water in a sump does. Tune the gate valve so that nearly zero water flows through the open channel pipe when the screen is freshly cleaned. If algae grows into the slot and creates a little back pressure, then the OC will flow a little more. You can actually gauge when you need to clean the screen according to the amount of flow through the OC if you have a way of "seeing" that.

As pumps, see my answer below

I want to use grow lights bulbs, but if i use the bulb i'll have to use a 6x6 or 7x7 screen and the slot will be smaller, if i build leds i can use a 4x10 or 4x11 screen, this slot will be bigger and handles a lot more water, but spread leds gives hotspot that cluster leds avoid.

will 7x7 with grow bulb, and 7" slot handles the flow of my pump (i want to keep using my main pipe as full siphon and the 2nd as open to avoid sound) or should i go with longer slot that i think might handle more flow and keep my overflow working like until now??

Measure your flow and size the screen appropriately, if you need a bit more flow per inch I would just build it the standard way (1/8" slot) and test it out to make sure the full siphon line can fully flow with no OC flow, if not, widen the slot by 1/32" and try again, repeat if necessary.

So if you want to stick with 7" wide and you have >35GPH/in then you will probably need a wider slot, or maybe just make it 8" and you'll have a little extra screen. That doesn't really hurt that bad. IMO you can go to 1.5x what you feed and be OK. Going over 2x the size of what you feed is probably the limit of what I would recommend. So if you feed 3 cubes/day and want 6x6, you could go up to 9x6 or a maximum of 8.5x8.5

I am running a full siphon also.I am running 440 gallons per hour through a 10 inch slot with roughly 4 feet of head when I increase my flow through my main pump I will have to tee off just before the slot with a gate valve to adjust the flow over my 10 inch screen you will probably need to do that also but first you must measure your flow. I just measured this flow two days ago I am using a mag 12 pump and I am surprised at how low flow is it may be too low of turnover for a 180 gallon tank.

I feel your pain on the MAG pumps. I wrote up something a while back on this, might have been on a tank thread of mine. I was running a mag 12 that returned via a 3/4" bulkhead through an overflow wall. The plumbing was 3/4" ID hose all the way through. The problem here is that if you use an adapter to go from 3/4" ID hose to a 3/4" threaded bulkhead, that adapter is more like 1/2" ID and is a choke point. That's problem #1.

Next, the Danner recommendations for the Mag 9-12-18 pumps are that you use return plumbing that is 2x the diameter of the outlet on the pump - in the case of the Mag 12, which has a 3/4" threaded outlet, you will need 1.5" plumbing all the way to the tank to get their flow curve.

I was getting return flow in the range of 400 GPH out of my Mag12. I replaced the return from pump to bulkhead with an adapter that went from 3/4" threaded to 1" hose barb, then a 1" to 1.25" (I could not find 3/4" to 1.25" or 1.5") then the reverse back to the bulkhead. The 1" to 3/4" threaded adapter was 3/4" ID so that relieved the choke point a bit. Did the same on the inside of the overflow box, 3/4" thread to 1" hose barb, then to the elbow and through to a dual loc-line jet output.

That increased my flow from 400 GPH to almost 800 IIRC. This of course also caused the overflow drain to be extremely noisy!! I had to get a durso in there to make it quiet and I was never happy with that setup. Seemed like it had a failure potential. Nevertheless, 2 months passed and the tank cracked and had to be replaced, and now I have it running a ~3000GPH BA siphon and pump fed scrubber.

Anyways, hope that explanation on Mag pumps helped.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Nice pics Floyd! So you think Dosing of K helped contribute to that growth?

Thanks! That's my new Canon T3i DSLR - still learning how to use it but it's awesome.

I have never dosed K, but I know that in this tank it is low - 320-330. srusso keeps bugging me to start dosing, I just need time to set it up.

hey Floyd R Turbo, amazing growth pics..... is this the scrubber only tank with just 4"x6" screen?

Yes

 

[_shorty_]

I am running a full siphon also.I am running 440 gallons per hour through a 10 inch slot with roughly 4 feet of head when I increase my flow through my main pump I will have to tee off just before the slot with a gate valve to adjust the flow over my 10 inch screen you will probably need to do that also but first you must measure your flow. I just measured this flow two days ago I am using a mag 12 pump and I am surprised at how low flow is it may be too low of turnover for a 180 gallon tank.

I have a mag18 - and yes they get much less flow than expected unless you plumb them correctly. Some on these threads are very opinionated about thier distaste for the mag pumps. But IMO they're cheap and they work. The catch - is that you should probably use 1.5 inch pipe - which is even stated in the manual, to get close to the flow curve they advertise.

I had considering this overflow setup as well - couldn't you just as easily elbow and valve the flow after the screen slot? Based on what little experience I have with this type of plumbing, I would not reduce the size of pipe after the elbow or T like some might be tempted to do, but just valve it so it's fully adjustable.

 

[_shorty_]

Thanks! That's my new Canon T3i DSLR - still learning how to use it but it's awesome.

Right on. We have a canon DSLR. I only recently started using our little 'nifty-fifty' lense for the first time on tank pics. It's a cheap (we bought ours used, but I think max $100 new) 50 mil lense, and I am now getting pretty clear pics with it pretty easily. You can get the aperture down so much, it makes it a lot easier. Much more easily than the standard zoom lense that came on the camera. I thought I was going to have to get an expensive macro lense to get better pics, but I'll be using the 50mil from here on out until we get something better.
Now I just need some rapid coral growth, to have something to take pictures of!