Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everything

[sean48183]

Alright I'm in. Little tank info
1 and 1/2 year old 150g on main floor with 90g sump(half of this is fuge) in basement
octo 300 recirc skimmer
Lots of greedy eating and pooping machine fish
about 10 patches of hardy a$$ corals
ph 8.3
temp 81
alk 3.3 meq/l
calcium 400ppm
Here's the kicker-nitrates 80 ppm ouch
This thread has really intrigued me. I have been growing hair algae as filtration since my old 55g tank. It was something similar to what you have here but it was horizontal. A maxijet 1200 fed a 15g drilled tank that gravity fed back to main tank. 2 intense 27watt 6500k compact fluerescent lights pounding it. Originally started with chaeto but hair algae soon consumed it. Was ticked off at first but realized that the hair algae in main tank was disappearing and nitrates and phosphates were non existent. So i just started growing the stuff like crazy and pulling it out every couple weeks.
On my 150g tank things have not gone so well. Fuge for growing hair algae was deep so I built a shelf with pvc and eggcrate. Well cleaning this thing has been a pain and it hasn't really helped my nitrates at all. So I saw this thread about building a vertical one and I thought this is it. Space where my sump is limited horizontally but not vertically. So I built this scrubber this week and have been trial and erroring it now for a week to get it jut right. Here it is

Used plastic carpet runner attached to a small pvc rod for easy removal and cleaning. Runner is about 30" tall and and 12" wide with 2 cf 23 watt 6500k bulbs. Water is pumped up by quiet one 3000 is running at around 400g/hr through this thing. Tell me what you think and any ideas for improvement. Will post results of nitrates every week or so.

 

[sean48183]

Oh yeah here is a pic of display tank.

 

[novahobbies]

Well, I've just finished building a new sump for my aunt's 90g tank, so I'm setting my sights on revamping the sump for my own 110g reef tank. I've been reading along here and there with this thread and others concerning the turf scrubber systems, and I'm thinking of incorporating it into the new sump.
First, some particulars.
I'm using a 29g tank for my sump, so it's 30x12x18 inches. I want to incorporate a good sized fuge because I have a mandarin to keep fat, and soon a sixline wrasse or similar pod-popper will be added. As it stands right now, my fuge takes up about 10 inches of length. I am limited to the size I can play around with in the stand.
So here's the setup I imagine: The first chamber will be, of course, the tank drain from the durso. I'll have this draining through a narrow strip that contains carbon. This chamber will be 6 inches long and 12 inches tall. I will incorporate a turf frame that's 23 inches tall, fed by a 500gph submersible pump (the screen will NOT be fed directly by the tank overflow). The turf sheet itself will only be about 12 inches long....but it will be 11 inches wide, so it'll span the width of the sump tank. The next chamber will be my fuge, using my existing chaeto mass and live sand. Like I said, the fuge is more for pod and (hopefully) live mysis growth than any nutrient export system. Last chamber is for the return pump back to Ye Olde display tank.
Finally, some questions! First, will a turf screen that's roughly 11x13 inches honestly be effective in a 110g system? I have 12 inches of water dept in the sump, so I'm bringing the turf screen as high as I can in the stand. I should be able to get about 12-13 inches of free screen, but no more than that. Also, I'm thinking of keeping the protein skimmer. I've read the debates between the uses of organic vs inorganic nitrogen compounds, but the reason I've toyed with the idea of keeping the skimmer has to do with some research that shows a turf scrubber occasionaly leaches back into the system, affecting coral growth. I'm thinking if I do this, I can probably run the skimmer just a couple days per week to do the trick. If I keep the skimmer in the sump, do you think I should keep it in the first compartment with the overflow and turf scrubber, or move it closer to the return pump?
Whew! What a letter! So, I guess it boils down to this: is this kind and size of turf scrubber really going to show my any results, or should I stick to more conventional physical and chemical filters to do the job?

 

[sean48183]

I am still using my skimmer for 2 reasons the first is I want to pull out as much crud before it breaks down as possible and 2nd is just in case someone dumps something in my tank(kids) or I stick my hands in with some kind of soap or grease or something. Skimmer is great for removing contaminants.

 

[santamonica]

Sean yours is the first of this variety I've seen (external 45 degree, using a floor protector). And the lighting is strong and near, very good. First improvement I could point out is the smooth screen surface. At least, you 'll want to really scrape/scratch/sand it so it feels like a cheese grater. Better, just lay a sheet of plastic canvas over it (then just lift canvas off to clean.) Best, lay a sheet of rug canvas over it, but you'll need to frame out the edges so it stays in place (and, you'll need to replace rug when it wears out.) Next point is a small one.. replace the bulbs with 2700K "plant grow" lights that look "pink". All-in-all a great job.

 

[santamonica]

Nova a 11 X 12 = 133 square inches is fine for a 110. You have to light it on both sides, closely, with a good floodlight or reflector setup like Sean did. The 500 pump is good, with a valve to adjust flow. About the skimmer: The net result of scrubber usage is that is does not hurt coral growth (mine's been growing 6 months, others 10 years). All algae and corals exude these substances you read about, but bacteria eats them (and bacteria is coral food). It's just like your fish: Fish give off ammonia, but bacteria eat it, and the result is nitrate; so the net result of "fish giving off ammonia" is that it does not hurt anything.

 

[santamonica]

Thought Of The Day:
A few folks have seen (or thought that they had seen) their skimmers "working less" or "producing less" after their scrubber started working. While this may have happened for other reasons, there is really no direct reason that a scrubber should cause a skimmer to produce less. This is because a skimmer and a scrubber remove different things: Scrubbers remove Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate, which are invisible, and which are the things that your test kits test for. Skimmers remove food (Organics). So having a scrubber remove the Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate really shouldn't cause a skimmer to remove any less food (unless you are feeding less). What MIGHT be happening, is that less Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate in the water means there is less food for bacteria (bacteria eat Organics AND Inorganics), and if there is less bacteria, then there is less to skim out.

 

[sean48183]

Hey Santa Monica where do you get rug canvas at? Does home depot carry it? This runner I have has some kind of rough surface lines in it. There about a 1" wide and about an inch apart. If some algae doesn't grow soon I will switch out for rug canvas. Has only been running at full potential for about 24 hours though.

 

[novahobbies]

OK, I'm on board. I'll be rebuilding the sump next month, so I'm starting to refine the designs now. I'll definitely put a turf scrubber in the first chamber. I'm going to keep my skimmer after all (it cost enough, after all...) so I'll just run it a couple days a week to start and see where we go from there. The screen will be lit from both sides with self-reflecting CCFL lights. As I start the build, I'll take pictres and post the work.
The only bummer I have about redoing the sump is the huge amount of life I have down there right now. I have literally thousands of pods on the glass walls of the sump tank....I know they'll grow back from the chaeto mass, but still.....

 

[reefdaddy1]

Sad shame really. But I think SM knows my feeling on this.

 

[sean48183]

Reefdaddy what do you mean?

 

[santamonica]

where do you get rug canvas at?
Can't post links here, but just search for "rug canvas". But will still take three days before you see anything at all.

 

[santamonica]

Update of the Day: New Research on Skimmers and Organics:
The whole point of scrubbers is that they remove Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate, which are the things your test kits measure, and which are also the things that cause nuisance algae to grow. The other good point about scrubbers is that they leave Organics (food) in the water for the corals and fish and bacteria to eat (the bacteria also then become coral food.) People who prefer skimmers, however, say that skimmers removes Organics (food) before they break down into Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate.
I say, why not just feed less, instead of feeding more and then removing it with a skimmer? Let's look at it from their viewpoint. Their viewpoint is "Feed more, and remove the excess Organics (food) with the skimmer." Well, the current January 2009 issue of Advanced Aquarist just published extensive research into how well different skimmers remove Organics. They refer to Organics as "TOC", which is the Total Organic Carbon; TOC is the the combination of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), and Particulate Organic Carbon (POC). Here is the article, and this is what it said:
http://www.***
"In addition to some dissolved organics, small particulates and microbes (bacterioplankton, phytoplankton) can be removed at the air/water interface of the [skimmer] bubble as well (Suzuki, 2008). The skimming process does not remove atoms/molecules that are strictly polar and readily dissolve in water, such as some organics, salts, inorganic phosphate, carbonate, etc.
"The skimmer pulls out all of the TOC that it is going to remove by the 50-minute mark. Beyond that time point, nothing much is happening, and the TOC level doesn't change much.
"Thus, all skimmers tested remove around 20 - 30% of the TOC in the aquarium water, and that's it; 70 - 80% of the measurable TOC is left behind unperturbed by the skimming process. It may be possible to develop a rationalization for this unexpected behavior by referring back to Fig. 1. Perhaps only 20 - 30% of the organic species in the aquarium water meet the hydrophobic requirements for bubble capture, whereas the remaining 70-80%, for whatever reason, don't."
So, the strength of skimmers (since they don't remove Inorganics) is supposed to be that they remove Organics before they break down. But this research shows (once again) that they don't even remove the Organics. Here is additional 2008 reasearch that shows the same:
http://www.***
http://www.***

 

[sean48183]

I don't know about that but I do know mine is pulling out some nasty junk and it is probably not stuff that anything in my tank will eat. I think it pulls out the crap somewhere between the full fecies stage and the nitrate stage but I am just speculating. And if you happen to accidentally put soapy hands in the water your skimmer will go nuts and remove it relativly quickyly where as it will never get removed without one. Maybe I am just paranoid I don't know.

 

[sly]

Originally Posted by reefdaddy1
http:///forum/post/2928432
Sad shame really. But I think SM knows my feeling on this.
It may be sad to you but I've had a reef tank for 8 years and have been on this forum for several years... With that said my nitrates have gone from 80 ppm down to 5 (checked yesterday with salifert)...
Perhaps your apprehension is that people will believe this is the end all to tank filtration and that it bypasses maintenance. Let me say it again which I have said several other times in this thread... This is NOT the perfect solution to maintaining a clean tank but it is another important part of the ocean simulation we are all running that are our fish tanks. I have a skimmer to simulate the ocean surf, I have a deep sand bed in my fuge to simulate the ocean floor. I have UV which simulates sunlight on a shallow reef and ozone which raises the ORP to match that of the ocean (350mv). I feel that the scrubber is another important part of the puzzle and I am glad I installed one. My mandarin likes it too because now he has more pods that he could ever dream of eating.
With all that said, I still have algae haze on my glass each day and that hasn't really changed but I have also noticed that my corraline is starting to grow again with the reduction in phosphate (currently at 2 ppm).

 

[santamonica]

mine is pulling out some nasty junk and it is probably not stuff that anything in my tank will eat.
Actually, it is exactly the stuff that would be eaten. It's exactly coral food, and it's also food for small fish and amphipods, which are then eaten by larger fish. I'll be posting more info on the food situation soon. You are correct about the soap thing, however.

 

[santamonica]

In my related research of reducing Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate, overfeeding was always an issue. Scrubbers help, by introducing live (instead of dead) copepods to the tank, but the rest of the feeding always causes excess food to get stuck in the rock and sand, and rot. The solution to this could be an Automatic Continuous Feeder. The writeup is here:
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=348459

 

[sly]

As a followup to the last post I made regarding my nitrates being stuck around 20ppm... I have changed one thing. I have turned off my skimmer and my ozone. I don't know if that positively affected it or not but now my nitrates are around 5ppm since that last post. I have done no water changes and haven't even gotten around to cleaning the sump like I said I would.
I turned it off because I had a problem with my skimmer wanting to overflow. I think am having a problem with the varying water height that the scrubber is causing in one chamber of my sump and so rather than fix it, I took the easy way out and just turned it off until I decided to get to it. I turned my ozone off as well because it needs the skimmer to operate. I normally keep my ORP around 350mv with the ozone. This is about where the ocean's ORP resides.
When I first started using the scrubber I started having more problems from my skimmer. I think this is because the pump that I use to feed the scrubber was varying the water height in that section of my sump and the varying water height was causing the skimmer to overflow because of the varying head pressure. I don't think that it was a problem with the scrubber directly because every time the skimmer would overflow it looked like it just wasn't pulling enough air at the time... Like the water level in the sump was too high and so the skimmer pump was pulling too much water.
I also noticed that before I started using the scrubber that it was very easy for me to keep my ORP at 350mv with the ozone. After using the scrubber for several months, though, the ozone had a more difficult time keeping the ORP high. It got to where the ozone generator almost had to run continuously to maintain ORP. I also noticed that when I cleaned the scrubber the ORP would drop dramatically and take a long time to come back up.
So anyway, I turned off the skimmer and the ozone a few weeks ago... I would still check the ORP of the tank just to see how things were going but I had no intention of turning the ozone back on until I got the problem with the skimmer fixed. When I turned everything off my ORP was about 300mv and the Nitrate was about 20ppm. The ORP dropped quickly to about 150mv when I stopped using ozone. I didn't notice any adverse effects on the tank though. All the coral and fish seemed to be doing fine and I didn't get any advance in algae growth on the front glass.
The ORP stayed around 150mv for several days... I didn't even bother cleaning out the scrubber. I just took a Q-tip to the drain hole of the scrubber to keep it clear of some amazing algae growth that I am getting in there right now. You think my previous pictures showed algae growth... I'll take a picture when I do clean it and show you what's been growing lately... Anyway, I noticed that after a few days of no skimmer and no ozone that the ORP started to creep up on its own. It got up to 200mv and then 250mv. It still drops at night when the lights are off but it seems to be getting higher in the daytime and is increasing in general... I don't know if/why the scrubber negatively affects the ORP but there is some disagreement over whether or not ORP is actually relevant in an aquarium anyway. Some people say that ORP is irrelevant...
A few days I did a water test just for kicks and it now seems like my nitrate has finally broken loose. It would NOT drop below 20ppm but after turning off my skimmer it has now dropped to 5ppm and is still falling. I don't know if the skimmer had anything to do with it or if it's just dumb luck timing... But with no skimmer running and no ozone, I haven't noticed ANY negative affect on the coral or tank in general but have seen a marked decrease in nitrate. The phosphate is still lingering around 2ppm though. It will be interesting to see how this thing turns out.
1-25-09 Parameters: Nitrate 5ppm, Phosphate 2ppm, Ammonia/Nitrite 0ppm, pH 8.3, Salinity 36ppt, temp 79
Tank Setup: lots of live rock, 324W T5 lighting, refugium on inverse timer with mangroves and chaetomorpha and a deep sand bed, wet/dry with rock rubble media, UV sterilizer flow controlled to 150gph, auto topoff RO/DI system 0ppm TDS, algae scrubber in a modified trash can with 2 100 watt equivalent CFL cool white bulbs and a custom designed surge device which surges the water once every 15 seconds followed by a period of dry...
Not currently in use are the skimmer and the 250mg/hr ozone generator...

 

[santamonica]

I knew it... chaeto. I had a suspicion, but did not ask. Now I know .
Trash the chaeto... it's collecting waste, and rotting.
Reason for Orp drop: You are not cleaning the screen often enough. When growth gets as thick is yours, the bottom layers die and return to the water, increasing N and P and Orp. You can't see it, because it's underneath. But it's happening. Hate to say it, but short of doubling your scrubber size, cleaning twice a week is going to be necessary.
Everyone else reports Orp increasing with scrubber use (higher O2). So remove the chaeto, double the cleanings, and your N and P will be at very low levels within a week.

 

[drakken]

My Wife and I just finished building our first scrubber (motivated by us reading this thread). It is an in-sump version. Question: We are not currently using a fan, how important is having one?
BTW, it's been running for about 15 minutes and no algae yet.