Help Please With Logic Resistant Algae - Page 2

Week five and I think there's real progress being made. There aren't any big clumps of algea weeds in there anymore. It's more thin growth. I've cut back on the feeding yet again (sorry guys, it's austerity don't ya know), just three pinches of flakes a day amd 4-6 little sinking pellets. The turf scrubber is really growing and the color is close to the color of the algae in the tank with a light green racing stripe down the middle. The algae I take out of the tank stays gone longer and the powerhead and drain filters are collecting half as much stuff. I changed out ten gallons this week. Five gallons for the detris in the sump and five cleanish gallonsin which to rinse to blue foam. I'd say I should've lost the bioballs weeks ago as I didn't see any water quality problems after they came out. (NO 0, CA 440, KH 161, PO 0, I 0.03, FE 0.05, K 392, NACL 29)

I found two other probable phosphate sticking points. There's a small powerhead in the back of the sump for circulation. Probably not necessary, but it never hurts. It had a foam filter on the intake that had never been addressed. That's in the trash. The other is the foam filter pads. I'd been rinsing them weekly, but I found if you get in there a scrub em, you'll get a lot more junk of of them.

Work is progressing on a larger built in cabinet in the basement for a larger scrubber and sump (with a DSB to process the waste leftover from the scrubber). The plumbing, electrical, and drywall work is done and I've started practicing my acrylic work. I'm thinking of trying using low wattage LED grow lights (the blue and red ones) for the scrubber, although I don't know if underwater plants use the same light specrtum as above water plants. Also, you think a 35-40 (hopefully) gph turnaround in a 20-25 gallon sump will be sufficient? Seems like plenty.

Thanks for all your help.

Will do.  I'll go back to the Emerald Entree, but rinsing it beforehand.  They did love that stuff.  I'm looking into the LED's because of my general tightfistedness.  I'm thinking in the long run they'll save on bulbs and electricity.  I'd keep digging around on it.

What's this, week six? I picked up just a trace of phosphorous (0.25), but otherwise the water quality is still excellent. That argonite sand really takes care of the calcium and alkalinity all by itself. The turf scrubber is growing nicely. Did another ten gallons of water change this week. And progress is still being made. It's three or four days in between cleaning the aquarium glass, and the algae in the tanks is struggling to regrow after I pluck it out. I'm seeing more chanels through the rock and bare rock. I don't know that the fish are eating all the rinsed frozen food. I've been giving them a cube a day in three feedings. Rinsing it takes the volume down, but I think I might take them down to a little less than that. I expect it won't be too many more weeks until the tank is back to algea free.

Everything's still going in the right direction, so I think this will be the end of this thread.  Thanks again for all your help.  One last question.  My new scrubber is about two weeks off and the area of canvas under the lights will be aroun 300-320 square inches.  I'll also put about 250 square inches of 4" deep sand bed into the new sump.  Do you think I could forego the protien skimmer?  I'm at that place in the build where I need to find a place for it or not.  Also, same question of the phosphate reactor.

Thanks again!

Okay, the skimmer will stay.  I'll look into the sand bed some more.  Here's the tank.  As you can see, there's still a little ways to go, but it's a huge improvement.