Algae scrubber coral experiences

[reefkeeper2]

What I first noticed was a decrease in micro and hair algae growth in the display. Also the sand became noticably cleaner. The perpetual cyano growth which had been growing on the shell of my clam since the beginning of time disappeared as well. That alone was a sweet victory.
As far as the corals go that is harder to say with any certaintly. I think that the colors have improved. But that has been happening since I got the lights so I can't say for sure it is the scrubber. If so, I think it is because of the greatly increased food available in the tank.
I havn't tested for P in a year. My reagent expired and I just don't see the need to replace it. I did test for nitrates last month and they are still undetectable using the Lamotte test kit.
The scrubber is 20" square and is lit on both sides. I don't think that it is undersized. I used the calculation posted on the algae turf scrubber basics thread. The LEDs have worked well and I actually compared one with a CFL to see if there was any difference. The CFL grew algae in a larger area, but the LED grew more in a smaller area. It was also a bright neon green compared to the darker algae under the CFL. I didn't have a really good reflector for the CFL bulb so it might have done better if I did. I'm stickin with the LEDs. So what I really need is two more LED spots to completely cover my mesh screen with bright green algae. I plan on going to Costco to get them friday.
I only dose iodine and don't supplement with anything else.

 

[Vannpytt]

My experience was the scrubbers work almost too well. I was feeding 2-3 cubes of frozen food daily for 4 small fish in a 40 br. That wasn't counting coral feedings and occasional pellets. It only took afew days of neglecting the feeding schedule to see corals begin to turn pale. I did heavily oversize it, though. It used about 180 in sq and 90w of light.

This is quite the same experience I had. Too little input with a massive 85cm*25cm 6xT5HO (3 on each side) lit scrubber. Needless to say, I came to the conclusion that running that kind of filtration leads to new problems:

1. To actually have any benefit from it I would have to fed WAST amounts to let corals survive. I killed several corals, though this is not the scrubbers fault, but mine for building such an over dimensioned filter.

2. The cost of having it lit, the cost of feeding 15-20 cubes of food a day, the cost of replacing 6xT5 39W HO twice a year, the time to actually feed that much food, and the evaporation rate made me go back to skimming.

That said, I should build a scrubber for 3-5 cubes worth of food and start it over in 1/10th the size.

 

[mgraf]

I run an Ats only filtered reef. I personally love it. I like to feed my fish...my kids like to feed my fish.....my wife likes to feed the fish. If it wasn't for the scrubber I would be burried in algae and N & P's. I have a mix of mostly softies and Lps but, do have a couple young sps colonies going and a few sps frags.
I have what I would call a heavy bioload because I have several fish including 2 tangs, and alot of different mobile inverts. The scrubber allows me to feed all the livestock well, which in return they produce poo, poo = coral food. I believe my corals have good color. I do know that everything is healthy looking and growing. I vacum the sand when I do a water change, stick a filter sock under the drain to the sump, Use a turkey baster to blow off rocks, and scrape my scrubber screen. It takes 45 min- hour to do my weekly maintenance and my tank looks great. Love it

 

[jimrawr]

Just started an ATS 2 weeks ago in an attempt to help me with exporting nutrients since I couldnt get macros to grow in my fuge. Will report back after in a month or so to let you all know how its going. Before the scrubber I had some GHA in my display and some diatoms, coral growth seemed to stop for awhile even though colors were ok. Hoping to get rid of my GHA/Diatoms and see SPS growth take off

 

[metalmagiccusto]

turf scrubber

turf scrubber

do you guys think there are any benifits to a wave style? i go to inland aquatics alot and they seem to only use the dumping style because they believe it has way more benifits to the algea and the coral/tank

 

[reefalot]

tagging along

 

[Vannpytt]

Just started an ATS 2 weeks ago in an attempt to help me with exporting nutrients since I couldnt get macros to grow in my fuge. Will report back after in a month or so to let you all know how its going. Before the scrubber I had some GHA in my display and some diatoms, coral growth seemed to stop for awhile even though colors were ok. Hoping to get rid of my GHA/Diatoms and see SPS growth take off

Just remember to increase feeding according to your scrubber size. If you don't you won't see anything bar algae on your scrubber grow and coral mortality rocket.

 

[jimrawr]

Just remember to increase feeding according to your scrubber size. If you don't you won't see anything bar algae on your scrubber grow and coral mortality rocket.

Yeah its tough to increase feedings when the DT has hair algae though.. Want to first clean up that problem

 

[Vannpytt]

Reduce lights while feeding steadily during startup (Depending on how strong a scrubber you are building). Once the algae lets go (which in my experience happens very fast without much light in the DT and a scrubber pulling out nutrients in week 2-4 with a proper grown screen), your corals will end up as collateral in that fight unless you keep up feeding and either manually remove algae, which is best, but more hassle, or let it run its course while feeding properly. Feed coral food often.

 

[redneckgearhead]

I have run my scrubber for about 9 months now. My tank is a 75 g with a YT (that doesn't eat HA) a maroon clown and a massuda hog fish. My montis have taken off, with the exception of one, a small frag which I recently lost over night for reasons unknown. My frogspawn has doubled in size (I feed it fish oil soaked pellets once a week) My zoa's are recovering nicely from a asterina starfish infestation (harlequin has taken care of that) My candy canes have exploded in growth (recently sold half of them back to the LFS, colony the size of a baseball). In the last year I have lost two frags of SPS the monti and an unknown freebie that I got from my LFS that I had thought I had saved it, but lost it overnight. I recently had my ATS lights shut off for a week before I noticed it and the HA has started making a come back in my DT. My pod population has BOOMED I haven't had N or P in months. Disclaimer: ATS is not my only means of filtration, I use a SWC160 skimmer that pulls out some nasty stuff.

I feed at least a cube a day.