Algae turf scrubber: waterfall or upflow?

[nanomania]

I have a 30g system (might attach a new 25g tank)... after reading loads of threads and watching LA fish guys videos (jim himself is using 1 on his system), santamonica ATS and saw on youtube it being used by famous and really known breeders/coral farms/ famous hobbyist, im planning to setup for my system too. im confused between the air bubble up flow or water fall (water fall would be better as all ill have to do is just connect to my system)... The reason is, im planning on it is coz im having some algae issues not major but small ones like cotton candy algae, green turf & bubble algae (i got bubble due to a friend as i bought a coral attached to his LR and i know he had bubble algae never had this prob in 3yrs)... im using GFO, Carbon, cheato and skimmer as current filteration..

Anyone using ATS?? would like to know the size and flow...

Here is some info i found online:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_scrubber

 

[jwoyshnar]

It is the single best device I have added to my tank. I use the water fall type. I based it on the old standards which is based on tank size. This works well for me and had for the past two years. I'm not a big fan of the up flow one. Salt creep was just out of control.

 

[nanomania]

kool..... what is the recomended size for 30g and 50g? and what about water flow rate? how often do u clean it?

 

[Jodah]

Go to Advanced Topics forum, look at top most sticky. After your brain stops sizzling, re-read said thread. Enjoy!

Apparently upflows are all the rage now, but, for most a simple waterfall style will be mroe then sufficient.

 

[nanomania]

im planning on using led instead of cfl/pll...

 

[bertoni]

There are a lot of styles of systems that are called "algae scrubbers" at this point. Looking in the Advanced Topics forum seems like a reasonable idea if you want to do some reading.

 

[nanomania]

i did but there are some questions in my mind as iv not found anything related to them.......

1)Can i use 1w warm white with plant grow led?
2)Can i go for bigger ATS then recomended (as im plannin on attachin a tank to my current setup)?
3)Does it help eliminating pest anemones?
4)i have cheato and skimmer, do i need to get rid of them?
5)im using GFO and Carbon, do i need them too?
6)Will it help geting rid of bubble algae that comes even if the nutrients are low-0?
7)How heavy can i go when it comes to feeding/Stock?
8)Im also facing a small issue of cotton candy and green turf... how long it takes to eliminate all these algae?
9) does it help pod population and plankton to increase?

 

[bertoni]

I don't know enough about lighting to help with the first question.

A bigger ATS should be fine. The scrubber might help some with pest anemones and various algae. I'd be more confident that it'll deal with the algae than the anemones. That's hard to predict. I would keep the skimmer, the GFO, and the carbon, and the Chaetomorpha won't harm anything, although it might fade away over time. You might see an increase in the small animal population, like amphipods and the like. That seems common.

The feeding rate limit will depend on how well the lighting supports algal growth.

 

[JustinGr]

I installed one of the "dump" tray wave maker ATS's on my 75 a month or so ago. Takes some getting used to (the bump and rush of water), but the algal growth in the tank has stopped.

 

[Jodah]

i did but there are some questions in my mind as iv not found anything related to them.......

1)Can i use 1w warm white with plant grow led? Nope, need to use 3w reds unless you feel like sticking 100 leds on both sides of the screen
2)Can i go for bigger ATS then recomended (as im plannin on attachin a tank to my current setup)? current sizing guidelines are by feeding amount, not tank size.
3)Does it help eliminating pest anemones? Not that i'm aware of
4)i have cheato and skimmer, do i need to get rid of them? nope
5)im using GFO and Carbon, do i need them too? Not right off the bat, but after the screen has been up for a while, you won't even need them
6)Will it help geting rid of bubble algae that comes even if the nutrients are low-0? Not sure, I would think so
7)How heavy can i go when it comes to feeding/Stock? Again, this goes back to how you size your screen, which is based off feeding amount.
8)Im also facing a small issue of cotton candy and green turf... how long it takes to eliminate all these algae? Not entirely sure
9) does it help pod population and plankton to increase? To a certain degree if you are able to get the pods out of the screen and into the display.

Pretty sure most of your questions are answered in the sticky. I know it's a pain to read through the entire thread, but there is an abundance of awesome info in there.

 

[nanomania]

Pretty sure most of your questions are answered in the sticky. I know it's a pain to read through the entire thread, but there is an abundance of awesome info in there.

Well no one had replied here earlier so had to post there too..... Yes i know its 170 pages and many things i couldnt come across.... as far as light goes, santamonica suggested going for 660nm red grow led lights.... i cant go for cfl due to space issues......

 

[Jodah]

yeah, If i remember correctly, Floyd R was using the 660 phillips (bridgelux) led's. Don't think he went dimmable though, just a standard 700ma driver.

 

[nanomania]

i dont understand mA...

 

[Bugcrusher]

milli-amps, 1000'ths of an amp...aka current.

 

[nanomania]

ok...

 

[sail33]

Other than salt creep I didn't see one part of the original question addressed. Up flow in the display tank also tends to suffer from light bleed. That is to say, it's hard to keep the light on just the algae. It then grows heavily in the area of the bubbler.

Or at least so I've been led to believe.

 

[sabbath]

I have a UAS that has been going about 2 months. I get very little algae on it. I'm going to try a water fall type next.

 

[tomservo]

I started a 15" cube back in may and the filtration is all by the LR and a scrubber. It's upflow type, built into the tank. I've been very happy with the tank, and maintenance has been low. I add my KH buffer every evening (dosing pumps to be connected soon) and dose Ca/Mg periodically - I only got those test kits recently so I'm still figuring out how much I will need to dose on those two.

For whatever reason, I have been lucky to get a macro algae growing in my scrubber called narrowleaf sea lettuce (http://txmarspecies.tamug.edu/vegdetails.cfm?scinameID=Ulva%20fasciata). This is not much different from growing chaeto, except that this algea is from shallow coastal waters, so you can just hose it down with light, which chaeto can't handle. I have successfully transplanted it to friends' scrubbers including a waterfall type.

 

[nanomania]

I started a 15" cube back in may and the filtration is all by the LR and a scrubber. It's upflow type, built into the tank. I've been very happy with the tank, and maintenance has been low. I add my KH buffer every evening (dosing pumps to be connected soon) and dose Ca/Mg periodically - I only got those test kits recently so I'm still figuring out how much I will need to dose on those two.

For whatever reason, I have been lucky to get a macro algae growing in my scrubber called narrowleaf sea lettuce (http://txmarspecies.tamug.edu/vegdetails.cfm?scinameID=Ulva%20fasciata). This is not much different from growing chaeto, except that this algea is from shallow coastal waters, so you can just hose it down with light, which chaeto can't handle. I have successfully transplanted it to friends' scrubbers including a waterfall type.

Kool... My first ever reef tank was 15" cube and i miss it.... well i just had an eheim HOB and a tiny WM pump... everything grew well... (algae too..lol) But the only fish i kept was a chromis.. Now iv got a bigger setup with sump and every possible filteration.. My main reason on planning ATS is i can get rid of my sump and convert it into another display tank with side scrubber... the only algaes in my tank are green turf, red bubble and green bubble. there are a few more concerns when it comes to ATS which im plannin to start a new thread. and i personally dint like UAS coz i hate bubbles in any of my tanks..