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

king_neptune

Active Member
Originally Posted by Posiden
http:///forum/post/2947612
Are you going to build a scrubber?? If so you can really re think your sup/fug.
Also from what I understand skimmers don't remove N and P.
any suggestions? yes I'm doing the scrubber. Im sold on it.
 

posiden

Active Member
Originally Posted by King_Neptune
http:///forum/post/2947644
any suggestions? yes I'm doing the scrubber. Im sold on it.
I don't want to get off topic in here but you aren't going to need all the stuff you have in there if you are going to go full blown scrubber. It will save you a ton of cash as well. You have already installed the baffels so I wouldn't just tear them out. Just hide your equipment in there and thats it. Your scrubber will run across the top like SM or some others on here. Check out the scrubber site. Lots of info there. Maybe join.
 

king_neptune

Active Member
Originally Posted by Posiden
http:///forum/post/2947671
I don't want to get off topic in here but you aren't going to need all the stuff you have in there if you are going to go full blown scrubber. It will save you a ton of cash as well. You have already installed the baffels so I wouldn't just tear them out. Just hide your equipment in there and thats it. Your scrubber will run across the top like SM or some others on here. Check out the scrubber site. Lots of info there. Maybe join.
didnt know there was a dedicated scrubber site.
link please.
as for all that other stuff....im starting off with a scrubber and the skimmer section I made in the sump is just that...a section for the skimmer in the future...ill be doing it with a full blown scrubber...and then add slowly un till i feel i need a skimmer.
 

king_neptune

Active Member
Originally Posted by Drakken
http:///forum/post/2947694
Both sides or just one?
i got the room...so ill do an 18" wide scrubber. about 18" long.
both sides. Ill have bulb's in a box as close as i can get, probably 4x on one side one for each corner...and a florescent grow light on the opposite side, just to see which I like better.
 

posiden

Active Member
Originally Posted by King_Neptune
http:///forum/post/2947699
i got the room...so ill do an 18" wide scrubber. about 18" long.
both sides. Ill have bulb's in a box as close as i can get, probably 4x on one side one for each corner...and a florescent grow light on the opposite side, just to see which I like better.
He was asking sant monica about his cleaning.
The link or most of it is on the preivious page (13)
 

nitschke65

Member
Holy sweet pickle relish, Batman!
I can't help but wonder, beazalbob, if you're going to have some issues with the old "cooler water on hot bulb" scenerio. I'm assuming you'll be cutting a hole for a bulkhead in the bottom of the bucket; but, what happens if something gets clogges and the bucket starts to fill up?
 

posiden

Active Member
Now that..... is one bright bucket. How big a tank will it be filtering?
You might be able to install a secondary drain as an emergency over flow. That way you will have a chance at not short circuiting.
 

beazalbob69

Member
It looks a lot brighter in the picture. Its going on a 72 bow front. The 2nd drain is a good idea I will do that. The CFL bulbs really dont get that hot and the actual bulb is inside the casing of the spotlight so I think it should be ok and not explode :)
 

santamonica

Member
Drakken you want to do 1/2 each week, but still wash the whole thing in FW.
As for hot bulbs and cold water, our original 5g nano with 23W CFL sitting upside down on it will grow so much that the algae grows all the way up to the bulb, and the water then flows across the bulb. No problem yet.
 

diy

Member
Originally Posted by SantaMonica
http:///forum/post/2948347
Q: I have a fish-only tank with large fish, and I don't care about small food particles floating around in the water. Do I need a scrubber?
A: Maybe not. If you don't mind cleaning the nuisance algae off the glass (which is caused by Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate), then a skimmer may be fine. But if you are trying to eliminate nuisance algae, and glass cleaning, then you'll need a scrubber in addition to a skimmer.
Why would you need both? If you don't care about food floating around, you would want a scrubber over a skimmer right? because skimmers remover organic waste which is food, correct? wouldn't a scrubber be more preferable in a fish only tank?
I thought I was starting to get it but, this Q&A kind of confused me.
 

santamonica

Member
Because a predetor FO tank, say with 20 fish, each weighing 3 pounds (or maybe a koi pond), would have hundreds of mysis-sized leftovers setting on the bottom. That's a tremendous amount, and it would probably take a scrubber five times as powerful (large) to handle it. This could certainly be done, especially by placing a multi-screen setup into a 20g and lighting it from three sides, but a FO is supposed to be simple and fun. It's probably easier for most people to just use a regular sized scrubber along with a skimmer.
 

santamonica

Member
Results of the week:
Broder on the SARK site: "I have been running my tank with an algal filter for about 3 months now. I removed the skimmer on the 10th last month. My display has never looked better. The [nuisance] algae has almost totally dissapeared. My SPS colonies are thriving. Not only are they growing well, but the colouration has become vibrant due to 0 PO4 (Salifert test) and 0 nitrate. I've seen better colouration in systems that were using Zeovit, but I'm more than happy with the results the algal filter achieves."
Adee on the SARK site: "Ok so its been about 6 weeks since i fired this scrubber up. Did the 1st "harvest" on just the one side; i'll do the other side next weekend. My phosphate reading is a zero according the Elos color chart... and for the very first time the complete back glass pane has broken out with coraline algae. Its never done that before due to the back always being covered with the normal glass algae/diatoms. Since the latter no longer appears, the coraline is now growing. I'm sure in a few weeks I'll have a complete pink wallpaper at the back. The fact that the scrubber makes the ideal platform for all this gunk to grow OUTSIDE my display tank, was well worth the investment."
Bob the (reef) Builder on the SARK site: "Both my filters are going great guns. Probably the best is the sun [powered] one, it's big and now that its settled, grows algea like crazy. My phospates down to 0.00 - 0.01ppm on a Hanna meter. Never seen it this low before. My corals are starting to grow and colour up really well now."
RentalDeceptionist on the UR site: "Ooh the [nuisance] algae. Well, it has certainly receeded massively. It's not 100% gone but I feel I'm on top of it. The hair algae which virtually smothered every flat surface is now down to about 20% of its mass, and there is more rock than algae. I do believe decreasing the lighting has helped."
 

posiden

Active Member
Sly,
How much time goes in between your surges?
How many gallons per hour do you guess you are diverting into the surge bucket?
 

santamonica

Member
"Kcress" on the algae scrubber site has just finished his version of a G2 LED scrubber, for testing. A G2 is a self-contained scrubber, but the LEDs themselves are not the screen, like they are with a G3. Anyways, for testing purposes, he only has LED's on one side of the screen, and he only used low-power LEDs to avoid heat issues:





 

sly

Active Member
Originally Posted by Posiden
http:///forum/post/2950435
Sly,
How much time goes in between your surges?
How many gallons per hour do you guess you are diverting into the surge bucket?
It's a 1/2 gallon surge bucket. I just timed it dumping completely every 30 seconds. That ends up being 1 gallon per minute or 60 gallons per hour. In between surges there is no water running across the screen.
 

sean48183

Member
Here is my growth after 11 days. Lots of brown stuff and green hair algae. Looking good but I think it's time for a cleaning.
 
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