Waterfall Turf Algea Filter: CHEAP and EASY to build

[miwoodar]

Tang Salad - Wow, that came directly from Bob Fenner himself! Good find.


Hot Tuna - I agree with Tang Salad. No need to let this thread go down if you don't want it to. If you want to do a turf scrubber, by all means do! Let us know how it works out. You already have all the information you need to install a system per SM's concept. Couple that with a little investigation and Q&A posting here in this thread or on RC in general and you're good to go. If you need a cheerleader, take heart, SM has identical threads posted in every major forum on the net. However, every one I've checked out has been met with critical feedback similar to what you've seen in this one. Some of them much more so.

 

[vitz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13321817#post13321817 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mhurley
vitz,

There's a way to get across your point and a way not to.

Guess which side yours fell on?

Please don't insult people here.

nothing personal, please believe me-

i don't know how much clearer i can be that i'm NOT insulting anyone-i simply refuse to spoon feed anyone upon request, and explained why

perhaps my posts are being misread, or not read in their entirety ?

When someone makes a statement they could at least supply some links for information to back it up. Isn't that what SM is being accused of?

er-no, not exactly-

santa is being accused of intentionally misinforming noobies in order to stroke his ego, in the face of information and data that has been hashed out and established for decades, and is considered to be common knowledge by many-and when told so by multiple 'long timers' in the field of marine husbandry, gave nothing but an immature 'i'm right you're wrong' reply


the onus of (proper)proofs for all of his outlandish statements was solely upon him-why he fails to get that, beats me

anyone who claims anything needs to be ready aforethought with backups to those claims-but when someone says, presents as an irrefutable fact, even, that a skimmer doesn't remove PO4 or NO3 from a system, and hence it's a poorer remover of those than a scrubber, imo, they should be shot down with no mercy at all-that is the mark of a true ignoramus

are these pleasant things to hear? mebbe not. imo, that doesn't mean they shholdn't be said

fyi, i did indeed provide a link on one of the rdo threads that completely disproved his entire central premise brought up by his initial 'sales pitch', which was totally ignored by santa

it gets kind of old having to 'prove' things that are already proven, simply because those who are (innocently or not) ignorant of the subject matter at hand

it's like me going up to a nuclear physicist who's telling me something about a quark and a muon, and me challenging him to prove it, when i haven't even learned about basic atomic structure

abit arrogant, no ?

i'm trying to say that my impression in general is that this generation has simply lost the ability to teach themselves-i think that in some part it's due to the more experienced sometimes teaching too much, and no one 'standing up' to the yappers that insist on non stop spreading of misinformation, for whatever reason(s) they have

my first lfs boss once told me 'the best school to learn in is the school of hard knocks'

i'm, not saying that everyone should get a knock instead of an answer, but those who really want to avoid knocks will always be able to find out what they want-the only help they should need is a nudge here and there to help them filter out the kaka from the true data-and sometimes the ONLY thing that can do that is actual hands on experience

 

[truebeliever71]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13322201#post13322201 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tang Salad
Great breakdown there Mike!



Fair enough. I think we're now able to talk about this with less acrimony No need to have the whole thread go down in flames.

WetWebMedia is a great general resource for people looking for background information and opinions. You can check out some good Q&A about TAS here and here. Keep in mind these pages are often many years old. And you'll need to skim a bit to find the relevant parts. Here was one response Bob Fenner had to a general question about TASs:


Edit: forgot to mention, my signature below was there long before I saw this thread! Just don't want anyone to think I'm biased.

Tang,

Good links. I found them this afternoon and have been making my way through them. This is the type of posting that makes these forum work.

Thank you.

 

[UrbanSage]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13322581#post13322581 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vitz
anyone who claims anything needs to be ready aforethought with backups to those claims-but when someone says, presents as an irrefutable fact, even, that a skimmer doesn't remove PO4 or NO3 from a system, and hence it's a poorer remover of those than a scrubber, imo, they should be shot down with no mercy at all-that is the mark of a true ignoramus

I bet anyone $100 on paypal that had SM started the thread by acknowledging what past users and experiments have concluded and then set out to disprove those past findings, people would have reacted very opposite of what they currently have.

 

[vitz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13322961#post13322961 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by UrbanSage
I bet anyone $100 on paypal that had SM started the thread by acknowledging what past users and experiments have concluded and then set out to disprove those past findings, people would have reacted very opposite of what they currently have.

you lose, heh

it's all there to see on rdo-but i'll bet you didn't even bother to research your bet first

the links are all on these threads

 

[UrbanSage]

You don't think he would have been given the chance to fail with more support?

As opposed to the current behavior of proclaiming the world wrong and him right.

 

[hottuna]

about 8 yrs ago I experimented with a couple tanks using soley mmfi scrubbers...excellent results with fish only...better than average results for reef..
I was just encouraged to see this thread started...
sm should have expected that something" outside the box" would be met with skepticism...
maybe he took it too personally...

 

[vitz]

You don't think he would have been given the chance to fail with more support?

i'm not sure what you mean by that, heh


fwiw-the initial criticisms were very fair, and reasonable

heck, i even said he might have discovered a better scrubber re: the design, and complemented his diy pic layout as very well done

the only problem anyone seems to have had with his posts was the grandiose and dogmatic statements made that were obviously not backed up with any experience testing or data

the only response to those valid criticism points were 'ad hominem!', and a childish display of making a point to announce his ignoring of the people he didn't 'agree' with, and calling for mods to ban those folks, or for other readers to complain about the 'dissenter's' to moderators

many tried to simply educate him and were (very) rudely rebuffed in an extremely childish fashion


having said all that-it seems like many are not filtering the 'disagreement' issue from the real 'noise', and are missing the one critical and far more central point....

by everyone's admission, algae is feeding on some of the wastes produced by the system-to what extent is irrelevant, unless the SOURCE and PRODUCTION of said wastes are dealt with

not adressing the source, and dealing only with the ysmptom, is a fool's errand, in the long term-and this goes for every field or endeavor of man

a patient has a growth on his arm-the doc says 'snip it weekly, and it won't grow further'

wouldn't you rather stop it from appearing altogether ?

any algal 'scrubbing device' is simply relocating a problem indicator to a more localized are of a system for easier removal-it's really doing NOTHING to adress the mistakes being made in the husbandry of said system

telling newcomers to the hobby that symptom fixing is preferable to cause fixing is irresponsible and plain ol' wrong

 

[clekchau]

thanks for looking out vitz, you really helped this great hobby of ours vastly with your input, perhaps we could banish all overzealous perpectuators of misinformation from reef central sooner next time

 

[mxett]

I cannot believe the negative rubbish that has been posted on this thread!

Surely readers who are smart enough to do their own research will make their own judgment on whether this technique is successful or not.

Surely readers who are smart enough to do their own experimention will make their own judgment on whether SM's claims have merit.

Why do the negative posters continue to insult everyones intelligence and tell us why SM is wrong, or why his claims are wrong, despite our own abiblit to make our mind up?

Why don't they try the technique themselves and let us know if it fails?

SM, for what its worth, thanks for giving us a different view from the mainstream "skimmer and LR" concept of today.

Your experiments and results have been fascinating, and have hardly hurt the hobby.

 

[Michael]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13325172#post13325172 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mxett
I cannot believe the negative rubbish that has been posted on this thread!

Surely readers who are smart enough to do their own research will make their own judgment on whether this technique is successful or not.

Surely readers who are smart enough to do their own experimention will make their own judgment on whether SM's claims have merit.

Why do the negative posters continue to insult everyones intelligence and tell us why SM is wrong, or why his claims are wrong, despite our own abiblit to make our mind up?

Why don't they try the technique themselves and let us know if it fails?

SM, for what its worth, thanks for giving us a different view from the mainstream "skimmer and LR" concept of today.

Your experiments and results have been fascinating, and have hardly hurt the hobby.

get your point, however when someone makes a claim about something, in this case a new type of filteration system which is better than a skimmer and a refugium, then debate is going to occur, i personally am open minded about sm claims and the more i read his thread the more i am coming around, however some guys on here have stated they have run a system like this before and would never go back to it, i think they need to be heard also, so eventually debate can get rowdy, when statements are made debate will always follow, its a shame that at times it can get heated, but thats debate, if it does get out of hand the mods will shut the thread down, but i still believe all sides need to be heard and this is the way it should always be, we can then make our own minds up, if this is concerning you then you can pm the moderator of this forum, or you can ignore this thread

 

[salty joe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13323622#post13323622 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vitz






having said all that-it seems like many are not filtering the 'disagreement' issue from the real 'noise', and are missing the one critical and far more central point....

by everyone's admission, algae is feeding on some of the wastes produced by the system-to what extent is irrelevant, unless the SOURCE and PRODUCTION of said wastes are dealt with

not adressing the source, and dealing only with the ysmptom, is a fool's errand, in the long term-and this goes for every field or endeavor of man

a patient has a growth on his arm-the doc says 'snip it weekly, and it won't grow further'

wouldn't you rather stop it from appearing altogether ?


If I get the gist of that, you are saying that because algae grows there is waste in the water which should be dealt with at the source. With that logic, skimmers are not a good idea because there is waste in the water which should be dealt with at the source. The source is fishfood. Waste has to be dealt with one way or another. Or am I missing something?

any algal 'scrubbing device' is simply relocating a problem indicator to a more localized are of a system for easier removal-it's really doing NOTHING to adress the mistakes being made in the husbandry of said system

Same could be said of a skimmer or any other export method.

telling newcomers to the hobby that symptom fixing is preferable to cause fixing is irresponsible and plain ol' wrong [/B]

 

[InlandAqua]

vitz.

of course the water turns yellow with alge filtration....thats why you should run carbon or run a protein skimmer.

I'm going to post some pics of a 125gal. reef with sps, lps, and softies that has been running for 15years with 2 water changes...the first after 12years.

I am not trying to prove anything here....just input since I have the experience running algae scrubbers on a 35,000gal facility and thought it would be informative since theres no one else on the planet with that exposure to ats.

 

[Michael]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13325684#post13325684 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by InlandAqua
vitz.

of course the water turns yellow with alge filtration....thats why you should run carbon or run a protein skimmer.

I'm going to post some pics of a 125gal. reef with sps, lps, and softies that has been running for 15years with 2 water changes...the first after 12years.

I am not trying to prove anything here....just input since I have the experience running algae scrubbers on a 35,000gal facility and thought it would be informative since theres no one else on the planet with that exposure to ats.

im confused now, i thought SM said you didnt need a skimmer

 

[tmz]

It might be nice if fish could live without food or producing waste through their excretions but they don't. So if you wan't a reef with cool fish in it,waste is inevitable and export needs to be managed.

Many corals produce waste from their mucous among other functions as well and many require or benefit from feeding.
The notion of not overfeeding is a fine one but even with dilligence in this aspect you still have to feed and as a consequence manage biofiltration. Suggesting that all nutrient management can be accomplished by not feeding,on the other hand, and is "fools errand" is temererarious and incorrect.
. The more efficient the biofiltration the larger the bioload you can sustain without the negative effects of high nutrients. I believe this is what the discussion is all about.If there is an efficient way to apply an algal scrubber to aquarium, I certainly don't see it as "foo's errand".

 

[InlandAqua]

sorry for the confusion.....

any algae filtration will "tint" the water yellow....but carbon will work as a clarifier....as will a skimmer.

I have tanks with ats only and some using both skimmer and ats...depending on fish load and size of tank.

 

[Tang Salad]

Thanks for your input InlandAqua. Great to have you join the thread.

For the purposes of evaluating SM's original claims, maybe you can tell us your experience with running an ATS as the only means of filtration on reef tanks. This would be limited to tanks without skimmers. Thanks!

 

[InlandAqua]

it may take me a day or two but will post some pics of the 125gal i mentioned a couple posts ago as well as the warehouse systems that are ats only.

 

[GAWnCA]

Just a quick question to the NAY-SAYERS, have any of you TRIED this method of filtration or are you just blasting a concept or the person?

 

[Tang Salad]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13325831#post13325831 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GAWnCA
Just a quick question to the NAY-SAYERS, have any of you TRIED this method of filtration or are you just blasting a concept or the person?

We don't need to have tried it to understand the science behind it. Just as I don't need to pour coal dust into my car's gas tank to know that my car won't run on coal.

That said, many of the naysayers have tried it. If you go back a few pages you'll see their opinions.