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

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pelagic

Guest

instead of using a reflector for the bulb, try using that light. Its the same thing in hydroponics, every watt counts. I know I can make a better ATS desing, but right now I'm in a battle with the CPA exams. I did clean the left side today.
 
desert fishy

desert fishy

New Member
First, I want to say thank you Santa Monica and everyone who has posted and shared their experiences with scrubbers. I started my 75 reef 5 months ago (2nd venture w/ SW) and decided to start up with a scrubber and no skimmer due to this thread. All I have are powerheads, lights, scrubber and a heater. My water readings are perfect, corals are really flourishing, fish are happy and I spend 10 minutes a week cleaning the algae off the scrubber - although that is becoming a bigger and bigger job.
My only problem now is that copepods, feather dusters and some other small pink bug-like creature that lives on the glass are multiplying out of control. I have feather dusters everywhere! My only fish are a Yellow Tang, Cinnamon Clown, Spotted Goby and Engineer Goby. Any suggestions on some new livestock that will help contol these growths - especially these pink bugs on the glass. (sorry they're too small to even take a picture) They have a rounded head and split tail. Looked at many pictures, but can't find a match.
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
Nice problem to have. Get a small wrasse... like a six-line wrasse. One about an inch long. That's what they eat... small pods.
For the fan worms, if the wrasse does not do it, you might try a small copperband butterfly, but ask others first, since they will need feeding after the fan worms are gone, and they are difficult to feed.
You could just leave them alone, however; the fan worms do a lot of filtering, and the pods feed the corals at night.
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
Success Updates:
Coolhandgoose on the scrubber site: "Since I installed the new light two weeks ago my nitrates have gone from 20 to 0. The cyano in my display is now starting to disappear."
Desert_Fishy on the SWF site: "I started my 75g reef 5 months ago (2nd venture w/SW) and decided to start up with a scrubber and no skimmer due to this thread. All I have are powerheads, lights, scrubber and a heater. My water readings are perfect, corals are really flourishing, fish are happy and I spend 10 minutes a week cleaning the algae off the scrubber - although that is becoming a bigger and bigger job. My only problem now is that copepods, feather dusters and some other small pink bug-like creatures that live on the glass are multiplying out of control. I have feather dusters everywhere!"
Toddo on the MFK site: "This is my 125 freshwater tank with medium bio load. I have an XP3 with Biomax/mech pads, and this scrubber as the only filtration now. Its been 12 days with just the scrubber for nitrate control. Nitrates and ammonia are still at zero. No water changes. This is significant, as my well water is 35-40ppm Nitrates. It grows enough algae to need weekly cleaning now. I had a specific freshwater requirement for low to no nitrates, and I have met that, using my scrubber. It was properly designed and built using info provided, and is now functioning as expected."
DeathWish302 on the -- site: "The turf scrubber slowly drove out the cyano, and has been amazingly processing EVERYTHING I have thrown at the tank in regards to food."
AlgaeNator on the scrubber site: "I have been running a version of ATS for about 2 months, and have been skimmerless for 4 weeks now, and am very happy with the ATS concept and performance so for. I have been running my prototype Victory Scrump for about 3 weeks now, to prove the concept and it's working VERY well. My corals are healthier than EVER, Two of MY RIC's that were dying going clear, are now SPLITTING after removing the skimmer. Im amazed actually at how well my other softies are doing too. In my case, I might not be typical though, as I think i was OVERSKIMMING my tank with my larger skimmers i build and sell, removing the good stuff with the bad"
Manuelink on the scrubber site [from spanish]: "with algal over 4 months without water changes, no skimmer, no additives anything, just food and my corals growing like additives. the coralline algae and is infested by all sides, that speaks of good levels of alk and calcium. is a wonder this invention"
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by SantaMonica
http:///forum/post/3176355
Success Updates:
Desert_Fishy on the SWF site: "I started my 75g reef 5 months ago (2nd venture w/SW) and decided to start up with a scrubber and no skimmer due to this thread. All I have are powerheads, lights, scrubber and a heater. My water readings are perfect, corals are really flourishing, fish are happy and I spend 10 minutes a week cleaning the algae off the scrubber - although that is becoming a bigger and bigger job. My only problem now is that copepods, feather dusters and some other small pink bug-like creatures that live on the glass are multiplying out of control. I have feather dusters everywhere!"
"
the copepod bloom is a natural phase of a young tank. I would not advise putting a fish in to eat them they will drop down to a sustainable level after a while. a 5 month old tank can hardly be considered a sucess story for running any one form of filtration. give it a year and see if the results are the same.
Originally Posted by SantaMonica
http:///forum/post/3176355
Manuelink on the scrubber site [from spanish]: "with algal over 4 months without water changes, no skimmer, no additives anything, just food and my corals growing like additives. the coralline algae and is infested by all sides, that speaks of good levels of alk and calcium. is a wonder this invention"
this doesnt make any sense. so algae scrubbers replace diminished elements now? I think people are starting to attribute features to this device that just arent scientificly possible. he says the coraline growth "speaks of good levels" is he not actually testing them?
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
figured I would put up a picture of version 2.0 of my scrubber, this is closer to what the final design for my 125g will be. not exact but closer. I still have some mods in mind for the sump set up of my 125.

 
desert fishy

desert fishy

New Member
I appreciate the feedback Reefkprz, but I'm well convinced that this is the way to go. My experience, although short in time, has been so much better than my first run at SW. Nonetheless, I also understand your point - patience is king with this hobby.
SM - what do you supplement? With the reduction in water changes do you supplement more things than you would if you were doing large water changes regularly? I'm deciding on the best ca/alk system for me, but currently don't dose anything. Any feedback from anybody would be much appreciated. Thanks.
 
jshepherd

jshepherd

Member
Here is my go at it. I have been battling algae on the sand and rocks even though I cut way back on feeding and do 20% water changes with pure fresh ro/di
I need to find a better mounting system for the lights but the flow with no screen in is about 550gph and the screen is 13" wide.



 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
reefkprZ: you need to move that light to the middle of the screen, and, increase flow. What is the wattage? I can almost bet it's not enough. By keeping it where it is, you will just be clogging the water slots, and, the rest of the screen will not be getting enough light.
fishy: I really only do kalk in my distilled water top-off. And it's distilled only because I have not spent the money yet on an rodi, which is next. The kalk seems to get the stonies and coralline going, and certainly keeps the pH up. If you need higher pH, or more CA, just use more fans to evaporate more so you can top-off more. I stopped dosing iron and iodine because I could not tell any difference at all. I also sometimes dose strontium when I think about it; it's always almost zero when I measure it, but I never see a difference whether I dose it or not.
shephard: I like that build. If you have 500 gph on that screen, it will be good. Rough that screen up!
 
santamonica

santamonica

Member
The trick of skimmer popularity
In my reading of what is going on lately with the discussions of skimmer vs. skimmerless tanks, I'm seeing the same fallacy repeated over and over and over, usually by the most experienced reefers who have been around the longest: "Because everyone uses skimmers, a skimmer must be required or else they wouldn't use one." Or, "Every Tank-Of-The-Month has a skimmer, therefore a skimmer is required to give you the best chance of a TOTM."
It's all completely irrelevant. I can't believe how many people fall for this line of reasoning. This trick is taught in Debate class in high school; It's called "Appeal to Poplulariy", otherwise known at Argumentum ad populum...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
On a side note, realize that many people are paid to promote skimmers. Millions of dollars are put into the marketing and promotion of skimmers, and some of that money goes into the pockets of the people who are posting reasons to have skimmers. Also, there must be a hundred companies who make skimmers, and all of them have promotion budgets. The job of promotion is to "get the word out". How many Algae Scrubber companies have promotion budgets? Zero, because there are no companies. Scrubbers are DIY. This is why the "popular thinking" is to use a skimmer... because skimmers are all anyone reads about. Promotion is my day job, and this is exactly how it works.
 
jshepherd

jshepherd

Member
Originally Posted by SantaMonica
http:///forum/post/3180324
shephard: I like that build. If you have 500 gph on that screen, it will be good. Rough that screen up!
Thanks. The screen is rough with the holesaw on both sides of both sheets. I have about a cup of shavings and bloody fingers haha.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by SantaMonica
http:///forum/post/3180324
reefkprZ: you need to move that light to the middle of the screen, and, increase flow. What is the wattage? I can almost bet it's not enough. By keeping it where it is, you will just be clogging the water slots, and, the rest of the screen will not be getting enough light.
actually the water slot is shaded, so no algae grows there its under the pipe. and like I mentioned in my post this is just me playing around with set ups, NOT my final design. the wattage of the light is fine for what I am doing with it, just expirimenting. I'm not going for effective filtration just yet. I am just hashing out my design for my 125g's sump.
 
en_pissant

en_pissant

Member
Frequent listener, first time caller.
I've read this whole thread, and built my own scrubber. I pulled out my skimmer, and although parameters look good, I have a couple questions/comments...
1. This is my main question. I don't seem to get as much algae growth as some of the other people. I am cleaning it off every week. There's really not enough to "scrape" off as other people describe, I'm really just spraying it off with a hoze to a point where the algae is mostly gone. Should I have more growth?
2. I am running a 1200 gph pump out of my sump for my 55 gallon reef tank. The overflow goes over my screen. I only have two fish, and a cleaner shrimp in there, but a decent number of corals, and inverts. The corals have never done great, and I've had trouble in the past growing coralline algae.
3. My corals are looking a little better, and I'm getting some decent coralline algae growth. I think some of this might be attibutable to the fact that the skimmer is no longer pulling out all the food. The scrubber might also be drawing some phosphates, and other bad stuff out of my tap water.
4. Most of my hobby dollars go into my expensive boat, and the wife bellyaches if I put too much loot into reef keeping. Therefore, I love the idea of cheaper, better solutions like the scrubber. I should probably go to RODI water, but have resisted thus far. What are people's thoughts on that? Perhaps I'll sell my skimmer on craigslist, and use the money for a RODI unit.
Here's my scrubber setup...
 
desertdawg

desertdawg

Member
Originally Posted by en_pissant
http:///forum/post/3182611
1. I'm really just spraying it off with a hoze to a point where the algae is mostly gone.
Stop spraying/rinsing off your screen, and just scrape it, you want to keep it "seeded" with some growth. Using fresh water to rinse it would only be if you wanted to control pod population.
And I think you can let it go for more than one week if it's just lightly grown, let it get about 1/2 inch thick.
 
desertdawg

desertdawg

Member
Your overflow tube, Is that algea growing out of the top of it?
Do you have another light for your fuge/tank other than the two grow lights?
 
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