Ats

[EricHugo]

My my my what a nice thread this turned into....

Shane, it was so long ago that I can't remember what and how much I fed that tank. It bordered on ludicrous, as I recall...five times per day?

Mark, nice screen! Nice mangrove leaf, too!

Fred, it would work, but the turfs that you want to promote seem to do best in that intertidal area - like where waves hit a rocky shore. There is some evidnce that some of the species may be able to translate flexion into energy or photosynthetic enhancement. They certainly do best with that partly exposed, partly submerged back and forth action of the dump bucket. I think you could also make it work by having a surge flow onto a screen where it was actually out of the water --- that would simulate the same conditions. It woudl really curtail the force of the surge, though.

On Adey and Inland...I won't go into it, but the rumor Mark just spread is eerily accurate from what I know, as well. Tragic, and also kind of odd as Walter is a super nice man. However, I have also been told he has an attorney in the family with whom I got the distinct impression that the handiwork is his doing. It is a major shame for Morgan and Walter - and neither party should have to go through anything like this as it is incredibly counterproductive to a product that has yet to see its time come and was just beginning to make some strides....so no, you can no longer order ATS from Morgan and because of the situation, I'm not sure I would personally support the true ATS design out of loyalty to my friend. I might be tempted to use one of the "alternate" algae scrubbers that have been around for a long time, even if they were the "competition" when Morgan had the license.

sigh. money. it ruins friends, businesses, marriages, families...I vote for a non-monetar based system - maybe we can go back to a trading system?

 

[Mark]

Mark, nice screen! Nice mangrove leaf, too!

Thanks Eric! I have a feeling the algae growing on the prizm skimmer does more for the tank than the actual skimmer. The mangrove is one fast growing tree! It's funny how a tank set up with leftover and cheap equipment w/ no regard to aquascaping/decoration, can end up more beautiful than the tank I baby and spend all my money on!

Eric is right about Adey. I met him at last year's MACNA, and he was a warm and friendly guy. That's why I was surprised to hear about the lawsuit. IMHO, Adey made a big mistake breaking his ties with Inland. Inland Aquatics is about the best advertisement/testament to what an ATS can provide. To be fair, I've exchanged emails with the folks at algaeturfscrubber.com, and they have always been friendly. But I still bought my screen from Morgan.

Here's a pic of it installed on my screen. I cut a corner off and zip tied elsewhere on the screen to speed up coverage/colonization onto the bare areas. Eric, did your screen look like this? I always thought the screens were made up of more reddish turf alga. It may sound corny, but this is getting exciting. I feel like I'm entering a whole new facet to reefkeeping. I've always believed in less technology/more biology. Now I get to practice what I preach!:beachbum:

 

[EricHugo]

Hi Mark:

The image you attached didn;t load for me - I got an error message for it - but all the other potos on the page load fine.

Anyway, I know Morgan said there were a lot of different turfs seeded, and I got mostly long green filamentous types for many months with a heavy wet weight. It was probably about six months before I saw their replacement by the shorter turfs. At the end of my ATS tank time, and also when I re-set it up a few years ago with a fully screen instead of a starter patch, I would estimate about 60% of two predominant types of red turf (a soft and a stiff), about 20-30% of slightly longer (maybe by 1-2mm) very tough green turfs, and the remainder the longer filamentous types. The short turfs were very hard to scrape, as a plastic blade or card just sort of went right over the top of them...you almost had to grab a corner and peel it off like a mat. After dong this, the screen looked almost bare, but it wasn't, and developed the same fby time the next scraping came along. I would go 2-3 weeks without scraping at this point, whereas with the long filamentous types it was twice per week before the weight of it stopped the dump tray entirely.

 

[LiquidShaneo]

Mark: The photo you attached is pointed at your C:\ drive and that's why neither Eric nor I can see it. Upload it to yer website and repost the link.

Eric: Do you have any idea what "volume" you were feeding during your ATS experience? You mentioned in the article that you fed anywhere from every couple days to 5 - 6 times per day and I was just curious to know how much stuff you threw in there every time.

Also, I read a thread on FishNet that stated that the turfs will even out-compete macroalgaes. Do you agree or disagree with this statement Eric?


Man, that's too bad about the whole Inland / Adey issue. I agree that Adey made a big mistake by severing ties with Inland as that's the best place to showcase the technology. His loss I guess...

Shane
(aka "liquid")

 

[Mark]

Wow that's weird. I did upload it to my web site, and I put the link in properly. But then I went in to edit my post this morning, and I noticed that it was indeed directed to my C drive. I fixed the image, so it should work now.

 

[Fredfish]

Liquidshaneo
ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œI believe Morgan said something about the need for the ATS screen to be surged back and forth ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œ

The idea is to have the water from the surge device surge over the algae screen instead of doing it by dump.


Mark
ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œFred, Looks good to me. But why not put the algae inside the surge device? That would save space and plumbingââ"šÂ¬Ã‚

It would save space and plumbing, but would it give enough water velocity over the algae? When the ATS info was up at Inland, they mentioned something about needing enough water velocity to remove waste from immediately around the algae. If the velocity is too low, a thin boundary layer of water forms around each strand of algae. Waste products build up in this boundary layer and this interferes with the nutrient exchange process. I wanted to make sure there was enough water velocity to avoid this.

Eric
ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œFred, it would work, but the turfs that you want to promote seem to do best in that intertidal area - like where waves hit a rocky shore. ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œ

What if I angle the screen so that part of it is under water, but most of it is at and above the low water line? I could also set the screen on an angled piece of glass so that the water flows over the screen.

Hmm... If I built the container that holds the screen so that it angles up and away from the surge, the water from the surge would run up the screen and then back down. It might take a little fiddling to get the angle right, but this would probably work.

Eric. Does it matter how much time the algae spends below the water and how much time it is immersed? I can also fiddle with the drain rate into the sump to adjust the submersed/immersed time.

Fred.

 

[Flatlander]

Hey Mark, that looks like ca-ca,

Interesting point, Fred, on the volume of water, flowing over the alage. A point, I will keep in mind.

Eric, I feed 5 times a day now. :eek2: I think its normal.

 

[Mark]

Hey Mark, that looks like ca-ca,

Smelled like it too, when I first got it!

 

[EricHugo]

Mark:

No, those are the long filamentous turfs - they are efficient, but a PITA. The turfs I am talking about that become the climax community are short short short....like artificial turf short at their longest. those are the ones you want. If you see them start to develop, work extra hard to prune away the longer types at their borders and help them fill in....you'll be happy you did.

Shane:

Turf algaes are far far far more efficient than macroalgae. Its hard to say what outcompete means, though. They will outstrip nutrients, but they are also tasty and well grazed and macroalgae are well defended via calcium or chemicals...so macroalgae probably wouldn't outcompete them spatially, but would in terms of nutrient limitation. Macroalgae are not really that good at nutrient assimilation - I mean, they are good - better than a mangrove or seagrass, but less than turfs, and probably less than a lot of corals and sponges. I'm sure thats a case by case basis, but the point is that macroalgae outcompete corals in nutrient rich environments, but corals outcompete macroalgae in nutrient low waters....you see? So, are corals then more efficient? Furthermore, if one assumes the ridiculously low nutrient levels in ATS systems, you would be dealing with those same nutrient low conditions. Also, grazing is a huge giant factor in it all.

 

[Mark]

Mark:
No, those are the long filamentous turfs - they are efficient, but a PITA. The turfs I am talking about that become the climax community are short short short....like artificial turf short at their longest. those are the ones you want. If you see them start to develop, work extra hard to prune away the longer types at their borders and help them fill in....you'll be happy you did.

Ah, I see. Thank you. Since this system is in other ways fairly low maintenance, I will be quite diligent in trying to culture the short turfy stuff.

Btw, your description regarding nutrient competition with macroalgae was excellent. It's funny how so many people on this board and others preach the use of Caulerpa as a form of nutrient export. This includes me. But yet, algae turfs are so much more competitive/productive at assimilating undesirable nutrients. It's a bit surprising the ATS hasn't already caught on. I mean, look at protein skimmer trends. reefers are constantly driven to develop more powerful skimmers like the bullet, and we constantly thrive for more powerful lights(both, imho being counterproductive to some degree). With all these desires to go for bigger,better, more powerful; Why not go for the most productive algae? I consider the ATS to be the supercharged algae export. Plus, it's efficiency benefits the reefer by needing less surface area to get the job done. What I mean by that is, you'd have to have a fairly large sump full of Caulerpa to get the equivalent productivity of a small turf screen.

The only aspects that I can think of why Caulerpa is still the favored choice is that:

1. It's much easier to throw a light over your sump and dump some Caulerpa in, than incorporate an intertidal system to encourage Turfs to grow.

2. Most of us realize the benefit of a refugium. By setting up a separate tank or sump to grow Caulerpa, we not only establish a form of algal export but also the benefits of a refugium.

 

[EricHugo]

What else could I possibly add to that? Exactly.

 

[Flatlander]

The thing is, I found no benefit what-so -ever, in running a 55 gal. sump/deep sandbed/calerpa, on my 170. It runs better/as good, with a normal sump, and my Euroreef.

I figure the sandbed in the tank is enough by itself. The sump/refugium was also a pain in the backside. After the calerpa finally crashed, I just ran the sandbed, sometimes with the skimmer, sometimes without.

Any life produced by the sandbed and/or refugium, had to go through the main line Iwaki pump, never mind, skimmers and powerheads, to be of any benift to the tank. So, this concept for me, was just a filter, doing the same job as running my efficient skimmer.

Now with a scrubber, sitting on top, its a total different concept. Much better use of turf alages, no sumps, no large pumps and the one feeding the filter, will be before it and not after. Of course the downsize, is the cost of an ATS.

 

[Silicone]

Hi

A very interesting thread. I have read the article by Eric in a friends magazine when it came out, does anybody have a copy they could email me?? as I cant find the magazine and I would really like to read it again (assuming Eric doesnt mind??).

I have always thought about installing a screen into a small carlson surge bucket, if setup for a fast surge then conditions inside the bucket/container would be similar to a dump bucket but without the moving parts, hopefully encouraging the same sort or algae growth as seen in regular dump bucket scrubbers.

 

[Snailman]

Shane...I had a 20 gallon surge device in a Sterlite tub. I put a piece of eggcrate covered with finerglass window screen in at an angle just like your drawing. I put a LOA 27 watt PC fixture right over it. I let it run for many many months and all it ever grew was cyno.

 

[LiquidShaneo]

Snailman, did you ever try buying a section of Morgan's screen for your surged screen? Maybe that would have sped things along?

So Doug, when do you anticipate having the ATS250 up and running on your system? And do you have any pictures of it by any chance (other than the cracked end)? I'd love to see it.

Shane

 

[Snailman]

I did not buy a seed screen because an unnamed marine biologist that has an ATS was going to send me one. I waited and waitied and waited and finally took the surge device down to replace it with one in a 44 gallon Rubbermaid Brute trash can. I am still tweekeing it. All that was on it was cyno, coralline and Aiptasia.

 

[64Ivy]

Whoa, whoa, whoa guys; first I get convinced to finally put a refugium on my tank and now THIS?!? Are we talking about the old Six n' One Half Thing, Winter's Coming So I Gotta Diddle With The Tank Thing, or This Is The Real Thing?

 

[Snailman]

This is a fancy $800 refugia full of algae.

 

[caevan]

Hi I am new to this board, it is great to finally read a positive thread about algal turf scrubbers.
I built one 8 years ago using the basic description and photos in Dynamic Aquaria vol 1 and it has been in service since. I basically let it seed itself from the tank ()nobody in Sydney Australia to buy seeded mats from) which took about 4 weeks. Dr. Adey covers the issue of surging versus no surging over the algal mat, and basically says that he had tried both and found creating a surge over the mat promoted faster algal growth.

Hopefully now people may take interest in non-traumatic pumps as well. Plankton friendly arguements aside, non-traumatic pumps have other benefits as well. Most non-traumatic pump designs are based on positive displacement pumps ( eg. piston, diaphragm or screw pumps), all which can maintain flow rates as head increases.
I built myself a version of Dr Adey's motorised bilge pump (Dr. Adey was quite helpful) and was able to mount the pump above my light hood and get it to suck the water from my sump (a distance of about 2m ) and pump it into the tank and still maintain a flow rate equal to the Quiet One pump in replaced. The other big benefit was water was pumped into the tank in wave like surges.

 

[Snailman]

caevan



[welcome]



Please let us know when your web site is working because I would love to see your pump and ats.