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

habsfan

habsfan

Member
Hey SantaMonica I built a scrubber and my light is pointed at the center of my screen. Nothing is growing directly in front of the light. It is growing all around screen except for a perfect circle in the center where my light points. It's a CFL 26 watt. Equivelent to 90 watts. It was about 2 inches from screen. I have recently moved it back to about 5 1/2 inches.
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
Then yes the bulb was too close. Tha't one problem with CFL's.... they concentrate the light in one spot. When you pull the light back to get less light in the spot, the surrounding areas don't get enough. Increased flow is another fix, but the screen needs to be very rough to hold on to the algae.
 
john rambo

john rambo

Member
Quick Update:
It's been over a month now and I still have not noticed any changes in my water quality. However my test kit only goes to 200 ppm for nitrates so the water could be improving. Also my screen growth was slow due to poor lighting, I added more lights and it seems to be helping some. Because of my design it's very tricky to place the lights close enough to the screen, especially with the amount of heat they are putting off.
I must have read over why it's important to rinse the screen with freshwater to remove pods, so today I rinsed the screen with freshwater and also gently rubbed/massaged one side of the screen.
I have a question about my growth on the screen, It seems like I'm starting to get some greenish algae that is thick and sticks out from the screen. I'm also getting some purple/red algae but it seems more smooth and slimey like the kind you find on live rock. Is there anything I should change up? I was afraid to scrape the bulky green algae off today because it seems like it may be thicker and sticking to the screen better and I'm not sure if thats the start of turf and it shouldn't be scraped off until more is established?
Thanks.

 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
Well without seeing your tanks/scrubber, I can still say that you need to completely clean off your screen every 3 days until there is no more black. Then clean every 5 days until it's mostly green. When mostly green, clean every 7.
Post pics of tank and scrubber and lighting. You have very high nutrients, so a strong scrubber is a must.
 
john rambo

john rambo

Member
Thanks for the reply. I actually posted on the previous page with information and several pictures, including one of the scrubber set-up. Currently I have 2 lights on each side of the screen, because of the tight set-up though they are farther from the screen than I would like. By black do you mean the dark purple algae covering some areas of the screen?
Any additional advice would be great. Let me know if you need more info. Thanks.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/vb/s...rything/page24
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
On your pics I still cannot see how the lighting is set up, or the bulbs you are using. I can tell by the growth that it's certainly not enough, however. Your 125 gal need 125 watts of light for high filtering, or 60 watts for medium filtering. And the bulbs need to be within 4" of the screen. I don't see why you can't just use a clip-on CFL near the screen. And there should be no heat if you are using CFL's. You should not use incandescents.
If needed, re-build it with the screen left to right instead of front to back. This will let you put the bulb near it in front and in back.
All the growth you have now needs to come off.
 
6stokes

6stokes

Member
This question may have been answered, but too many pages now...
I wondered if there's a problem with my screen getting a lot of macro algea instead of the micros? Could my water be too clean?
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
Flow looks good. However, you need to re-build, using plastic canvas; screen divider does not work.
Then, you need to get some light on it; whatever light you are using now is a non-light.
Quick guideline:
0.5 actual (not equivalent) fluorescent watts per gallon MINIMUM.
1.0 actual (not equivalent) fluorescent watts per gallon for HIGH filtering.
1.0 square inches of screen per gallon, with bulbs on BOTH sides. (10 x 10 = 100 square inches = 100 gal)
2.0 square inches of screen per gallon, if ONE sided.
18 hours of lights ON, and 6 hours of lights OFF, each day.
Flow is 24 hours, and is 35 gph per inch of width of screen, EVEN IF one sided.
Very rough screen made of roughed-up-like-a-cactus plastic canvas.
Clean algae off of screen every SEVEN (7) days NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK.
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
Success Updates:
Donny Mac on the MFT site: "i have built mine 1 year ago and it has made the maintenance of my tank so easy, the appearance of the glass and water is crystal clear. i keep coral and fish"
PRC on the LR site: "I tested my nitrates tonight. they are officially at ZERO. Couple of small details. I installed this DIY unit on a tank that was cycling. I started out with 20ppm Nitrates. i'm not running anything on this 90g tank except the algae scrubber. So within a 1 1/2 months I have a nice stable system. It may have taken a little less time, if I would have initially had the flow where I needed it. The entire thing took me less than 1 hr to make and install in my sump. And it works great. I use 4 lights (2 on each side). I'm using the lights recommended at the beginning of this thread. All I can say is the thing works... My nephew is running a skimmer, a filter, and has 100lbs. of rock and can't get his nitrates under 15ppm.. I spent .39 on a screen and have 0 nitrates."
Tristan on the LR site: "Im now convinced that the algae scrubber a more suitable than a skimmer. all the algae in my dt is gone!"
waucedah_joe on the RS site: "This thing works. When my [CFL] scrubber-prototype crashed [due to broken pump] my nitrates got up to 25 ppm before I was able to get this [LED scrubber] online, and then in 3 weeks they were near non detect level with the Salifert test kit. Rather than just say it's working for me, here's the datum:
Tank specs: 75g display w/ 40g sump. Heavily stocked. 1-3" blue tang, 1-3-1/2" powder brown tang, 2-Oscy clowns, 1-lawnmower blenny, 1-purple firefish, 1-manderin goby, 1-radiant wrass, 1-high fin goby, 3 BTA's, shrimp, crabs, 1-sand sifting star, 1-brittle star.
1/7 Return pump failed while out of town. Small CFL scrubber pretty much dead from drying up. Cleaned both sides and continued to use while working on new scrubber.
1/10 Nitrates 20 ppm. 20 gal water change
1/21 New scrubber on-line
1/24 Nitrates 25 ppm, old scrubber off-line. 20 gal water change. Last big water change. From here on out the only water change is 3-4 gallons every other week to replace water removed from vacumming detrius from return chamber of sump.
1/30 Nitrates 10 ppm
2/14 Nitrates 5 ppm
2/20 Nitrates 2.5 ppm
2/27 Nitrates <.2 ppm, Increased feeding 17% (from 5 cubes in two days to 6 cubes in two days. Mini icecube sized homemade frozen food. + small piece of nori every other day)
3/7 Nitrates 2.5ppm
3/14 Nitrates 2.5ppm
3/21 Nitrates 2.5ppm
No sugar, no skimmer, no macro algae. This is my only filter."
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
more...
Rosenaa on the algae scrubber site: "Well its been a good while since I put up my ATS and I am very pleased! I had problems with red bubble algae and they are all gone now! Also coraline algae have sprung up everywhere and covering stone, glass and powerheads".
Inkidu on the algae scrubber site: "As far as this working, after several weeks with only a power head running, which feeds the scrubber, and some air pumps, there is absolutely nothing that is filtering besides the ats, my tank of 5 (say 5") discus and some cardinal tetra. My fish seem content (in fact I brought them back from the brink of death), I feed pretty heavily, the pea green water disappeared, and I have no algae in my tank. Thanks for all the help guys, I am going to call this a success."
Aeros on the algae scrubber site: "As a RO/DI is not within my budget at this time, I have been using tap water to top off and in my salt mix. [...] all my corals have doubled or tripled in size since December, and since adding my ATS all the hair algae has dissipated from the display (thanks mostly to the yellow tang) as well as the red cyano, and nitrates dropped from ~80 to ~10ppm. And pods galore!" All that being said, I will be investing in an RO/DI as soon as possible. For peace of mind mostly, and as part of an ATO set-up; manual topping off sucks."
Pepetj on the FL site: "As I reached the 2 months mark [with the scrubber], this is what I have to share. I've been measuring for Nitrates and Phosphates (Nitrates with Seachem's Nitrite/Nitrate test kit as well as calibrated PinPoint Nitrate Monitor; Phosphates with API's Phosphate test as well as Hagen's). I can tell that in my setting, which is a Nano Reef, I have been obtaining almost negligible readings (meaning as close to steady zero as I've ever seen) for both phosphates and nitrates."
Sillygoose on the -- site: "It's been two weeks since we scraped algae off of our new turf scrubber. As you can see in the pictures, growth has really taken off. Today, cleaning maybe 2/3 of the outer surfaces, we got 1 1/2 cups of algae off. The mat was 3/4-inch thick in places. The best part is that our NO3 is down from around 10 to below detect in 2 weeks without a water change. I can't tell if PO4 went down because I have a hard time with interpreting the test, but we are starting to see new coraline growth. It's very cool."
Gowingsgo on the -- site: I have been running a ATS for about 8 months now but set mine up with a skimmer. I built my sump with 5 separate chambers. (1 intake from main tank) (2 ATS) (3 skimmer) (4 fuge with live rock and sand so if I need to I can also put stuff in my sump) (5 return to main tank) I set mine up to remove algae from my display tank (and that is exactly what it is doing). But I have noticed that my skim-mate is much darker [note: scrubbers should not affect skimmate] and that I do not have to clean it as much (about once every week not every other day). also my nitrates have never been undetectable (more like 5+ ppm) but they have been 0 for the last 6 months now. [...] With turf scrubber once every 4 days, sometimes longer, without the scrubber I have had to clean the glass every day. [...] I love my ATS and don't think I would run a tank without one."
Lewk on the -- site: "I'm running a very simple scrubber on my 65 gallon. I've been using it since day one on the tank and my nitrates and phosphates have been at zero for several months now. I set everything up according to the algae scrubber site, and it's working great so far. I'm in the planning stages for a 135, and plan on using a scrubber there as well."
 
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