Algae Scubber and sps

fishguy597

Member
I am getting ready to plumb in about 160 gal of sump into my basement. I'm thinking about using an algae scrubber to help with nitrates and po4. I was thinking aboud a dsb fuge but I'm kinda scared about a detritus trap forming. Any tips for doing this? I also want some nitrate and po4 in the tank so I think I'm going to slightly undersized the scrubber. I would like any info from people running these or are against them.

Thank you.
 
Yes I still run a skimmer. I don't have any good pics. I just started dabbling into sps. The frags I have are still fairly small and hard to photograph in a large tank but the colors look really good on my pearlberry, lime in the sky and Steve Elias. My purple stag also looks really good. I did get some freebees that are kind of brown. But the guy that sent them to me said they were a lavender color so I'm going they color up once my new bulbs get here later this week.
 
How did you size your screen the thread is really long. Did you go 10x10 per 100 gal? I have a 200 with if full 180 gal sump. So I'm figuring 300 gal total volume.

Are you running a carbon like rox?
 
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I just used a full 12x12 sheet. I still run small amounts of GFO in a reactor as well as a mixture of rox and lignite carbon. I am an over feeder so I like to be sure I don't end up with nutrient issues
 
I have a 20" long x8" scrubber. About 150 gal total wv. Going to hook up an aqua remora.pro in the sump also. Just looking for a mag 3 for sale.
 
This is a three panel water fall algae filter currently driven by a variable speed Waveline DC pump, supporting a 300 gallon DD reef/85 gallon sump. It is illuminated by six 45-50 watt LED panels, three on a side, two per panel. Each panel is illuminated 8-10 hours a day, seven days a week on a rotating schedule, with at least one panel illuminated at all times. I have reservoirs in the bottom of the algae filter holding Florida live rock with tunicates and sponges (and a good growth of halimeda) as wells miscellaneous other fauna found on this cultured rock.
I likewise would never run another system without one.
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The newly-set up water fall algae filter (and the rest of the stuff, too), with only two of the six LED panels in place. Lit on both sides.
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What one of the three panels looks like after the filter is established and every two-three weeks afterwards.

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What it looks like supporting some acros and such – this pic is from March 2014.
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Same coral, different angle (sorry) in May 2014. Little bit of hair alge left over from removing all of the sand an replacing with coral rubble. I also increased water flow drastically using a lateral Gyre –that’s what moved the sand from one end of the aquarium to the other. Oh, this is looking down the 6ft length of the 300DD. Photo-bomb by the Flame angel gratis.
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Another photo from the same end, a little lower in the reef. This photo bomb from one of the anthias. Note the purple acro frag in the center of the frame over growing the epoxy mount.
 
I had two 12x8 screens for a 300g once. And frankly, vinegar with skimmer is a lot easier to go low nutrients for sps. Be prepared to expend more on electricity/sump space with a scrubber. Maybe a bit more messy as well, but less stinky than the dark skimmate. I did have a lot more stoma snails with all the algae bits though and definitely missed those little buggers.

I think that depends a lot of the style of the scubber, dumping or vertical curtain like the one above. You can get a very good export going with a much smaller ATS these days.

Like everything else in this hobby, it depends on your reef tank and the rest of variables.
 
I ran one for a while but as soon as my coral started coloring up nicely the algae wouldn't grow much anymore so I removed it, only thing I noticed was less noise. It did help the blooms I was having at the time but feeding less and removing the sandbed has kept it away w/o the scrubber.
 
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