turf scrubbers

[deejeff442]

dont have a hole saw but i have plenty of sawsall blades.i will scub it up in the morning.thanks .i figured the algae would grow between the holes in the screen ?
see never too old to learn.i like learning when its something i am interested in .try to get me to remember something i could care less about and forget it.like computers.i would rather smash it than learn how to fix it ;o)

 

[deejeff442]

oh yea i did notice my tank is 2 degrees higher with the scrubber.i had to unplug the heater .it was getting up to 83 degrees.

 

[jstdv8]

that's odd, you'd think it would be cooler due to the evaporation and all and the water flowing in open air.
Maybe that pump you're using is puting off alot of heat.

 

[deejeff442]

maybe but it will save me $3 a month )

 

[jstdv8]

indeed

 

[deejeff442]

well got the screen nice and rough.the sawsall blade worked great.now lets see what happens

 

[jstdv8]

any updates guys?

 

[al&burke]

Haven't checked my numbers but my screen is really green.

 

[deejeff442]

just took a peek at mine.it is getting pretty thick with algae today would be a week so i might scrape one side today.i just noticed one bulb isnt working.wtf?the side where the bulb is on has 4 times more growth.well have to go get another bulb or fixture today.that sucks

 

[jstdv8]

jeff,
I had alot of problems with the curly bulbs overheating on me when they had a refelctor around them.
I recently switched to the exterior lights (same light with curly bulb but its enclosed with its own reflector)
no more problems.

 

[jstdv8]

Make sure you guys are scraping one side every week no matter what.
and of course cleaning is always done OUTSIDE of the tank.
Be sure to rinse down the side you aren't scraping really well with tap water as well to kill off the pods on that side too.

 

[al&burke]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jstdv8 http:///forum/thread/382073/turf-scrubbers/260#post_3345373
Make sure you guys are scraping one side every week no matter what.
and of course cleaning is always done OUTSIDE of the tank.
Be sure to rinse down the side you aren't scraping really well with tap water as well to kill off the pods on that side too.
I haven't done mine yet, I was thinking there are no pods in FW - maybe I will do it tonight

 

[deejeff442]

yea the bulb blew.i had one of the lower watt ones here so i put it on for now.i will give it a few days and if another blows i will go with the bulbs you switched to.i havnt tested the water recently ,i need to .i have been more focused on my qt fish with lympho lately.

 

[gill again68]

Well I am due a cleaning but just wanted to report in that I have some great growth on my screen. I can tell that the glass in the DT needs less maintenance since I started the scrubber. I currently have a cyano breakout on the sand of my tank and its a PITA. Just wondering if you fellas, / gals if we have any doing this, see algae growth in you sumps from the screens? I have some, not alot of growth in the return section where the scrubber is. Doesn't seem to be moving into the DT but does give me some concern.

 

[jstdv8]

yeah I get some algae growing on the surface of the water on the glass in the sump.
I usually just scrape it off and suck it out when i do a water change. I don't think its hurting anything though. I've left mine in there without doing anything to it for a long time and there was no change.
Be carefull taking them out by hand though, they usually have bristleworms and amphipods in them. I had an amphipod crawl up my arm out of one once, freaked me out.

 

[jstdv8]

any updtates guys? Havnt heard anything a for a few weeks now, should have some pretty full screens at this point.

 

[al&burke]

Been busy with my HT - I will check mine tonight - need to clean it has a really good turf on it now,

 

[jstdv8]

make sure you are cleaning it every week with tap water or Ro water. don't want your water to turn yellow.
How are the goldies?

 

[santamonica]

Catching up from the start...

turf scrubbers
Might make note here that GHA is actually the preferred algae for high filtering; turf blocks too much light from getting the to roots.

I'm thinking about building a turf scrubber and was wondering if anyone had any screens to recommend, what size holes should be in it?
5 or 7 count plastic canvas, roughed up.

From what I read I was planning on going for a little more than 1 square inch per gallon. I have about 80gal and was planning on trying a 9in wide by 10in tall.
With more area, you need more lighting.

I'm thinking about making it have the light in the middle and 1 screen on each side.
These configurations are less effective than 1-screen 2-bulb version, even if the wattage is the same, because the one-sided versions do not get good lighting on the roots, and thus the algae die there faster.

I would like to keep the watts as low as I can seeing as it runs 18hrs a day.
Filtering is proportional to the wattage. So half the wattage is half the filtering. Also, higher wattage for less hours is better than less wattage for more hours, even though the same power is used. This is because algae grows fastest (and absorbs nutrients the quickest) with strong light.

If you're making out of plexi you could get the plexi with the mirrors built into one side
Having used mirror plexi, I found that the mirror peeled off after exposure to salt. Took about a year.

flood lights with the curly bulbs inside. These work really well because they have a reflector built into them and they are encased in glass so the spray can't get on the curly bulb itself.

Although floodlights are easier to clean than curly-Q spirals, floodlights concentrate the light too much in one spot. Spirals in big reflectors grow algae the best.
If I really like it and want more light power I might end up building a different one with leds on the out side, so that I can keep my watts down.

Unfortunately you can't save on wattage. Whether it's CFL, T5 or LED, you still need the same wattage. Less wattage is less filtering. And LED's are for experimenting only... not results (you won't get any results).
Is there +'s to having more than recommended? Meaning if I have 100 gal do I get twice the benefit of a 20 inch screen versus 10 inch or do the benefits of overdoing fall off at some point?

Larger area is of no use without more wattage. But if you do have more wattage, there is no limit to size; it's just a matter of how much filtering you want, based on how much feeding you will be doing.
i will only be lighting one side (i know it falls short of the sq inches i need) but it cant hurt.

One-sided is less powerful than two sided, even if the watts are the same, because of two-sided's ability to illuminate the roots twice as much (and the roots keep the algae attached).
Was thinking I could cut 1 sheet in 1/2. Then double them up.

If you mean double-layer like a pancake, don't. Single layers are much easier for the average person to use.
Has anyone found a thread where this method has been used long term? A lot of them I read people have started them, used them for less than a year and scrapped the idea.

Inland Aquatics has been 15 years. Search youtube for their 3 videos.
Can you get too much flow?

Only if the algae cannot hold on. Otherwise more is better.

Can't you just use a spray bar and glue the mesh to it? Does it really need a saw taken to a PVC pipe?
Gluing would make it one-sided. Plus, you want to be able to clean the pipe by itself in the sink.

i got mine all up and running. the only thing is i cant get my water to trickle evenly
It will even-out as the growth occurs.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to make the ones on the end bigger to get the same flow.
It will even-out as the growth occurs.

I've even read claims that you might be able to replace doing water changes to reduce trates and trites with it (ya right).
That's the main purpose of a scrubber... to remove nitrate and phosphate from the water. So if you are doing waterchanges to remove nitrate and phosphate, you no longer will need to do them.

a fuge does the same
A fuge does not filter as much nitrate and phosphate as a scruber.

What size do you cut the slot in the pipe if you are using the plastic knitting mesh.
1/8 inch.

my screen is 12x16 (almost 400 sq inches if i light both sides)
12 X 16 = 192 square inches, if you light both sides. If you light only one side, it's half of this (and even less than half as powerful).

Because LED's dont produce UV light, algae will grow extremly pooly under LED's

LED's don't grow well because of the difficulty of overlapping the reds and greens in a tight space.
1-2 phos? Thats a bunch, that screen should grow in quick

If the nitrate is low, then growth is limited by the nitrate, no matter how high the phosphate is. Matter of fact, I recent added mono-potassium phosphate to my reef as a test, and made the P = 1.0; since nitrate was already "zero", there was no nuisance algae growth from the added phosphate.
i cleaned it all off on day 4, pretty much all diatom's.

No... let's diatoms stay 7 days. The stuff to clean in 4 days is dark-black oil.
I'm not sure you will hav the benefit of the mass amount of copepods from the screen if the screen isnt touching the water on the bottom.

Yes it's the same
did you ever hear of enyone growing algae on a sheet of velcro - I have seen them of the net - sold in sheets

Several said they were going to try it; none reported back. Being opaque, and thus blocking light from going through, it would eliminate the advantage of two-sided screens.
if there were a way to make that tile rough enough. the reason ebing is that if its a cement type tile supposedly cement has alot of phospahte in it so it grows algae really well.

This phosphate would only add to the tank nutrients; it would not help filtering.
if yours is 2 sided you are only cleaning one side this week and once side next week.

No need to clean just one side unless you are getting big nutrient spikes between cleanings.
When I do my 65 gal reef upgrade to sump/fuge I am going to make a ATS scrubber for it. I am thinking above the DT tank.

Bubbles will be your main concern; try these...

 

[mproctor4]

Since we are resurrecting this thread I am hoping someone can give me some advice please. My ATS is 4 weeks old. I thought everything was going great until this week.
Nitrates have been as follows:
week 1: 20
week 2: 15
week 3: 10ish
week 4: >100

As far as I know nothing has changed. Bioload is the same, feedings are the same, Last water change was just after week 2 testing. Test strips appear to be okay because we have other tanks we test and they remain unchanged.
It is difficult to see much in these pictures because I have very limited space and it is hard to get close enough to get a good picture. In the last week I have developed a large red algae area where the light intensity is the greatest. While I'm typing I just remembered I decreased the flow a little bit, so there was one change, but it still appeared to have great flow. There is a knob on my pump to adjust the flow slightly. In the beginning I had it on the highest setting and there was massive flow--so much so that I had a lot of splashing and it sounded like a garden hose under the tank. Still seems like a massive change in nitrates for such a small change in flow.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I know 4 weeks is a bit soon to expect much results but I thought I was headed in the right direction until this week. On a side note I can see visible results. I had one side of my aquarium next to a wall that is difficult to reach that was covered in a dark, matted algae. The algae on the side wall is almost completely gone with no intervention on my part.