algea scrubber

Coraldomination:
Yup, the lighting makes sense. Just a little rusty I suppose! I'll interpret it as, light is what gives the algae fuel/energy to do it's job. The more energy you give it, the more it's going to do.

srusso:
Nice find on the bulbs, I'll be going today to hopefully get the same deal!
 
4a5a9de0-bdea-5a41.jpg


Here they are, they are actually ecosmart brand now that I am looking at it in person...

But stock up on them, you need to replace the bulbs every 3 months. They will still be working by the end if the 3 months but they will have lost most of their par value. I keep my used bulbs in a box to be used in lamps around the house, etc...

They are 23w bulbs that are labeled as 100w equivalent.
 
I too have had an ATS running for abouta year now. No skimmer/filters, etc. I grow coral in my 300 gallon tank and have about 20 habitants in there(i know, not much for 300 gallons but i only buy fish as i see something i like, though i will prob be buying a school of fish, just havent decided on what type).

I have read through Santimonica's threads on it and (going back to page 1-2) it has on their that the reason why algae scrubbers arent popular is because of the bad rep from the misunderstanding they had 30 years ago. Protien skimmers are easily marketable compared to ATS, as you can see form this forum and others that they dont have the same results. I think persoanlly the reason for inadiquate results is from the lack of understanding of their ATS.

Sometimes it can take weeks or months for it to take off, depending on materials used, lighting, and proper water flow. Protien skimmers get the source of the nitrates/nitrites by getting rid of the organic material before it can break down and puts it in a nice container for you. But that has its negatives as it can remove good bacteria and other things that are beneficial to your tank.

I have been having trouble maintaining the big green hairy algae (cant think of the name off hand) but its due to insifficient lighting (which im upgrading to LED currently) but its keeping my system clean and i do believe i have noticed some extra growth acceleration in my tank since introducing it.

My current setup is gravity fed through 2 3/4" pvc to a 1" pvc that the scubber screens are under. The screen that i used was door screen that didnt have anti mold, etc, on it and its doing really well (the fiberglass/plastic type). It hangs above (out of water) my 55gal refuge. I plan on building a nice box for it as some of the splatters end up on my tile floor and creat small salt spots. But i find myself cleaning the Scrubber as much as i didn the Skimmer, and it costs me nothing to run the Scrubber. I would send some pics but as i just upgraded my Scrubber, there isnt much to show. Once the screen fills up again maybe i will. Though the only other issue i have with using the door screen is that the stuff is pretty flexable so something to hold is scraight as can be is nice. I lined the bottom of mine with an acrylic strip and used weedwacker wire to hold it all together.
 
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I'm interested in what type of LED lighting your planning on using for the scrubber. I was looking at this at another site and no one was coming back with good reports with leds and scrubbers. That's just the threads that I seen and they could've been old.

I'm with you on skimmers, I've used them in the past and I personnally don't care for them. I'd rather keep all the good stuff that I possibly can in the tank. I've read some of the studies on what they remove, and what I learned from researching them is the reason I went natural in our current tank. I fell for the skimmer hype when I was new, I've learned alot since. Although, still have lots to learn, and in this hobby you never stop learning.

Marketing is the reason scrubbers aren't so popular, of course you could try to sell a scrubber but they're just too easy to make. The majority is not going to buy one for 200-300$ when they can simply make one for as little as 10$, depending on how far you want to go with the design, and I also used the fiberglass screening. Rest assured though, scrubbers will catch on, there's no reason for them not to. It's just going to take some time for the word of mouth and success story's to pursuade people. Some day, people will tell newcomers to use a scrubber and save a couple hundred bucks before you try out a skimmer.
 
Let's try not to attract the wrong vibe to this thread by coming down on skimmers. Though they have their downsides, it is very clear that for many people with excellent tanks, skimmers play a leading role in water filtration. :)

In regard to using LEDs on the scrubber-

While it's been shown that cool white CFLs aren't very successful for ATS setups, I'll be using the warmest binning LEDs I can reasonably find. Cutter has some 3000k XP-Gs, and another site has 3500k. I would imagine either of these would work well.

I know people on SM's site are using red LEDs, but part of me wonders if this is a bad idea because it might in fact limit the number of varieties of algae that can inhabit the screen. While everyone's system contains a unique blend of flora, I wonder if this would become problematic for some.
 
I'm not sure what to do for the LEDs because I too have read people mentioning other people not having any success. I was going to compare the differences in light spectrum of 6500/5000k LEDs and cfls. I don't know why they wouldn't work unless the LEDs are missing something. But her we grow corals easily with them. After I get my current led project done that's when ill start with converting the scrubber with some led tests of my own.
 
As far as the red LEDs, the only thing I have read about those is they are using them with warm whites and such to help cover the spectrum that's missing. But so far they seem to be having equal results to cfls
 
I may have been the first to try seriously colored LEDs on and ATS. I first went heavy blue then switched up to heavy red. I came away from those tests with the belief that white is where I'd go next time. I think warm white would be the best too.
 
Its hard to justify LEDs for a scrubber, CFLs have proven to be extremely successful. Cheap to run, ($2.25 a month for my tank) plus the cost of the bulbs... But I can see why people are trying to get them working.
 
srusso said:
Its hard to justify LEDs for a scrubber, CFLs have proven to be extremely successful. Cheap to run, ($2.25 a month for my tank) plus the cost of the bulbs... But I can see why people are trying to get them working.
Click to expand...

i think the justification is the long term cost of having to replace the bulbs every 3-4 months over the next 5-10 years. Not to mention the lesser amount of electricity they use.

Mine is gravity fed so really its not costing me anything but the lights at the moment. I'm assuming your 2.25 is the energy needed to run a pump for it? or the replacement of a bulb every month?
 
Adapting new technology to the ATS is part of the fun :)

Although it doesn't hurt that LEDs are more compact, produce 2x as much light per electricity, much less light spill, don't have to be replaced, less heat issues. :lol:
 
So far the issues I've read about with LEDs are the K rating and a couple other things, the light from them just isn't the same as CFL / T5 and algae doesn't seem to like it as much. Time will tell.
 
BluScrnOdeth said:
i think the justification is the long term cost of having to replace the bulbs every 3-4 months over the next 5-10 years. Not to mention the lesser amount of electricity they use.

Mine is gravity fed so really its not costing me anything but the lights at the moment. I'm assuming your 2.25 is the energy needed to run a pump for it? or the replacement of a bulb every month?
Click to expand...

My scrubber is also gravity fed, that is the cost to run the lights.
 
widmer said:
Adapting new technology to the ATS is part of the fun :)

Although it doesn't hurt that LEDs are more compact, produce 2x as much light per electricity, much less light spill, don't have to be replaced, less heat issues. :lol:
Click to expand...

Totally agree the fun. And I know they will be cheaper in the long run. It just I don't have the cash to test one set of led's vs another. I guess I will leave that to the big spenders. ;)
 
I too joined the ATS crowd. Here are some pics of my recently set up scrubber:
IMG_20110206_100857.jpg

IMG_20110206_104544.jpg

I guess you could count it as a submerged ATS as the bottom 1" of the screen is submerged in my sump water. (The first pic doesn't show this as I lowered it after I took it.)
 
In the cube we had 12xpg cool whites and algae did grow, but honestly not as much as I thought it would. 4 of them went out yesterday so were down to 8.... oh well I need to order the blues this month anyways. Hopefully the warm whites will be better, 2700k-3700k is what the quick spec sheat says for them. I would think it'd work but I'm not an expert in the color spectrum.

I'm shocked that the red/blue combination didn't give great results. I just double checked to see what grow lights were using and they're using heavy red/blue combination.

frankpayne32,

I submerged the bottom of mine as well. The only thing to watch out for from what I've read is that the pods will eat through the algae and knock some of it off if you fall behind on your cleaning which could lead to the yellowing water. I believe that's one of the reasons why some people started using a trough or tray at the bottom of theirs. It's nothing I'm concerned about though since my water level fluctuates and I really don't feel like putting any extra effort into it currentlly!

EDIT: Some food for thought, those grow lights rated at 12w and 24w LED's were outgrowing a 150w metal hallide! They're also using the 1w LED's.
 
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Can we get some specifics? To prevent others from having to fail at the same mistakes we need to isolate whats going on, whats missing, what can be improved. Cant do that with all the speculation/suggestions on here. Blues/reds work but not as well, this and that..... Please!
 
"For example, red algae use mostly blue light, green algae red light, and brown algae use yellow and/or green light. As a result, not only do the model ecosystem's artificial lights have to be intense, they must also emit a broad spectrum of light."

reference: http://www.sms.si.edu/smee/behindthescenes.htm

That's all I could find for lighting specific to algae for now. But I believe this part is already known.
 
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