Algae Scrubber Basics

[srusso]

Originally Posted by acts4me

Wow it is loud I must have pretty powerful flow. It is filling up about two inches of water while it drains. Maybe I need to plumb in a valve to slow the flow?

How well does the water flow across the screen? It does look like a lot of flow...
My only comment at least initially would be you could be losing a lot of light pointing the lights through the plastic. Lets see how things go for the next few weeks.

[apt220]

nevermind

[g8gxp]

So i've got my vertical ats up and running, it seems to be starting up pretty well. However i've been doing a lot of reading and alot of stuff seems to indicate that the horizontal scrubber with a dump bucket is the ideal design for maximizing algal growth and nutrient uptake. Obviously since space is a constraint for 95% of us this is not doable, but if space was not a concern is this a superior design to the vertical constant water wall?

According to Adey's book, "Assuming adequate light, algal production is limited only by inadequate exchange of metabolites -- oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nutrients -- between the water and the cells of the attached algae. We have demonstrated a strong correlation between wave surge and improved metabolic interchange: when we occasionally stop the wave generators in our main reef tanks -- while maintaining a constant rate of circulation and level of light -- immediately there is a 50% reduction of oxygen production. The surge generated by the wave maker produces a back and forth motion within the tank, preventing the development of semi stagnant boundary layers that occur when a constant flow of liquid passes a fixed object. A steady current would tend to pin the filaments in an immobile position, and a surface layer of very slow moving water would develop."

This seems to explain why you need to scrape the screen every so often because the top layer smothers and kills the lower layers. I want to try and experiment with the horizontal/dump bucket in my sump. My question is should my screen be slightly submerged with the surge going over the top of the screen? or should my screen be above the waterline so that it is completely exposed to air during the dump/surge reset time?

[King_Richard]

Full tank shots, display tank and sump. I tried turning the actinics all the way down to 20% and cranking up the white, but the camera still saw through to the blue. I give up on trying to find a suitable shot for colors with that camera. The tank is a bit hazy looking due to feeding and stirring, I'm in the tank alot rite now dealing with the damaged corals that I knowingly bought. There's also a sick flame angel waiting to go in, currently has some sort of fin problem but we'll see how the weeks hospital tank has gone tomorrow, impulse buy and didn't catch it before we got her home. Other then that, current livestock is as follows:

Scooter Blenny
Mandarin
2 Cleaner Shrimp
Tree coral of some sort
Finger Leather
Chili
Lobo Brain
Favia Brain
Scoly
Orange mushrooms and ricordia

You'll notice in the sump that there's some cyano going down there, I noticed it when I installed the first scrubber last month. The cyano was barely there last week until I screwed up the other scrubber. Within the last two days the cyano has started covering more glass in the sump but I imagine when the new scrubber starts picking up I'll see the cyano recede as well. I'm not going to touch it for awhile and see how it goes on its own. I'll only remove what dies off and I would think that the scrubber will be able to starve it.

Sorry for the not so great pictures but the camera doesn't handle bright lighting, or actinic lighting very well.

[dogstar74]

Here's a link to my 10 gallon build.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1982295

Any thoughts on keeping down the salt creep would be greatly appreciated.

[TampaReefer79]

Ok, so I was in the middle of plumbing my tank and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this thread. Hopefully I can get some quick help so I can figure out how to start this.

My tank is 8'x4' and is about 500 gallons. It's not stocked yet, but if I can inorporate this in the plumbing from one of my 2" drains, I'd love it. I'm not going to go back in later and add an extra pump to the system for this, is what I mean. Now, off of my right hand side 2" drain, I can T off and have a ball valve control flow before it drops across a screen into the 6'x2' sump below. I have to admit I didn't read this WHOLE thread, first page or two though, and can't figure out how you figure out the flow going across the screen.

How big would you make my screen? Flow over it? Do I need more than 2 lights on each side of the screen? How do you all make the screen 'removeable' for cleaning?

Thanks!

Oh, and any other tips/advice would be awesome.

[TampaReefer79]

Also, is this a replacement to the skimmer? If so, it's not what I'm looking for. I'd use it in conjunction with my skimmer and refugium/benthic zones.

[SSpiro]

Some use it that way. I personally do not. Mine runs along with a skimmer, and a soon-to-exist fuge.

if you think about it, they each eliminate different product from the water.

Scrubbers remove Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate.

Skimmers remove organic compounds and nutrition before they break down to nitrates.

[srusso]

Originally Posted by dogstar74

Here's a link to my 10 gallon build.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1982295

Any thoughts on keeping down the salt creep would be greatly appreciated.

Dogstar, your algae scrubber thread is too good to possible do unnoticed. Sorry I have to post it here. Great work thank you!

Originally Posted by dogstar74

I plugged it in to see if it would get hot. Here's sorta how it works.

I didn't like all the light spillage, so I painted the outside black. After all, it will be a visable portion of the tank, since I don't have a sump.

It did get a little hot for my liking, so I cut vents into the top of the lid for good measure.

Right now I'm running a bucket test to see if it elevates the water temp, Leaks, Problems, Burns the house down? You know plugging a couple of sockets into a 120V lamp cord, and putting the hot fixtures into a 3 dollar pitcher and running salt water through it, probably won't get the UL listing in the near future.


And yes for those about to ask, I roughed up the screen with a hacksaw. It was furry when I was done with it.
Now here is a problem I didn't anticipate. The remora was loud as the injection jet pushed air into the water column. But this is a loud dribble sound. Imagine a guy first thing in the morning who leaves the door open while he's using the rest room. And as you can see from the pics, there are large bubbles comming up from the water as it enters the bucket.

So how do I minimize the sound, and the salt spray, without blocking the outflow? I can't afford to have any restriction because if a chunk of algae breaks off and heads down the shute, then I've got a problem. It needs to be able to handle all the flow from a MJ 1200. Which it is doing like a champ.

Thanks for looking,
Aaron

[dogstar74]

Thanks for the bump. Hope it drives more attention to the build thread.

[srusso]

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Ok, so I was in the middle of plumbing my tank and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw this thread. Hopefully I can get some quick help so I can figure out how to start this.

My tank is 8'x4' and is about 500 gallons. It's not stocked yet, but if I can inorporate this in the plumbing from one of my 2" drains, I'd love it. I'm not going to go back in later and add an extra pump to the system for this, is what I mean. Now, off of my right hand side 2" drain, I can T off and have a ball valve control flow before it drops across a screen into the 6'x2' sump below. I have to admit I didn't read this WHOLE thread, first page or two though, and can't figure out how you figure out the flow going across the screen.

How big would you make my screen? Flow over it? Do I need more than 2 lights on each side of the screen? How do you all make the screen 'removeable' for cleaning?

Thanks!

Oh, and any other tips/advice would be awesome.

Your build will take some consideration. It can truly be an epic scrubber in the end.

Your build would very greatly based on what space you have under your tank. Please post some pictures of the sump area you have to work with....

Without seeing it I am going to assume a few things:
You have more than one over flow. Two corners?
Your willing to spend some money on lighting for that scrubber.
You have the space needed for this build.

BUT IT CAN BE DONE!

I am drawing plans up now.

[fppf]

When I first say Dogstar's scrubber I thought, dam that thing is way to small.
Then I read it was for a 10 gallon nano, doh!

Nice build, I like the double chamber thing, way to think inside the box on that one.

[King_Richard]

After seeing the nifty box scrubber that dogstar74 made, it gave me an idea for a bigger scrubber that would use less bulbs as long as you have a high enough flow rate. I thought of it when I saw what TampaReefer79 would need to run an efficient scrubber. Now the T in the middle is there just to give a sense of where the return line would be going. Personally, I'd use a 4 way off of the return and plumb to each corner of the scrubber screens. I think it would work out pretty well, maybe someone who needs a bigger scrubber can expand on the concept. You could also fit this all in a box and make the box reflective on the inside to get the most out of the lights. Just some food for thought.

[Floyd R Turbo]

You mean something like this?

[Floyd R Turbo]

...or this...



For anyone out there interested in making one of these, I highly suggest that you take some time (and I do mean SOME time - when you have it) and read through this thread on Reef Sanctuary:

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...verything.html

And go through as much of the algae scrubber site as possible.

The RS thread took me about a week to go through, and I read just about all of it - no skimming (no pun intended). It really gave me a true appreciation for everything the advocates of this system had to do to really prove it's worthiness. As it was said earlier in this thread, a year ago you were an outcast if you thought an ATS was liked slice bread.

[srusso]

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Also, is this a replacement to the skimmer? If so, it's not what I'm looking for. I'd use it in conjunction with my skimmer and refugium/benthic zones.

You can use an algae scrubber with any of these things.

My idea is very similar to this setup without as many lights.

I am thinking three light ballasts, two screens of the same size in this diagram.

Screens could even be smaller if you wanted. In the diagram it shows 46" x 10" screens. Two screens that size will scrub a tank almost twice your size 920 gallons...

You maybe better with 36" bulbs rather than the 48" these show. Two screens at 36" x 10" with lights on both sides will scrub 720 gallons.

[jeremy-40]

Well as the title says, this is my first attempt after researching scrubbers for over a month. I am now 2 weeks into this!!! My tank is roughly 100 gallons. My scrubber is an in sump, single sided design and consist of two separate screens, each 9 1/2 X 10 1/2. My first week I was using 2 x 23w CFL (65K) bulbs and had lots of what looked like cyano growth, it also spread all over my sump. I replaced the bulbs to 2 x 40w CFL (27K) on the second week and all cyano has disappeared and the green growth really exploded!!!!!!

The first pic is day 1, installed and working!!!!
Two and Three are before week 1 cleaning, notice the cyano.
Pic four is before week 2 cleaning, really starting to green up!!!
The last is after week 2 cleaning and reinstalled.

Any advise would greatly be appreciated. This is my first time and I believe it is working pretty good this far, but I am always open to suggestions.

[dogstar74]

Do you think we have reached a point of diminished returns? I mean for a 500 gallon tank, you would need 1000 square inches of surface area. Or 500sq inches lit on both sides.

Do you realize how mad my wife would be if I slapped a 4' algae rug out onto the floor so I could scrape the algae off with a snow shovel? I mean we need to be realistic about this. And to say there would not be any smell associated with this would be folly as well. I'm not sure that an entire 6' x 2' sump should be used this way.

As for the design by King richard, you could also place a cruciate shaped screen between the four bulbs in the center to utilze the middle of the lamps as well.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

My tank is 8'x4' and is about 500 gallons.

Your screen would be 500 sq inches if lit on both sides

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Now, off of my right hand side 2" drain, I can T off and have a ball valve control flow before it drops across a screen into the 6'x2' sump below.

If you can get the flow from one side, that should work fine.

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

How big would you make my screen?

The width dimension will be dependent on the flow rate that you can provide it. I would highly suggest you build your scrubber to allow for the use of 48" T5HO lamps, so the screen would be about 40" long (the fixture is 48" lone, the lamps are a little shorter) and about 12" tall. You would probably want 1 lamp for each 3 inches of screen height, so you're looking at a 4 lamp fixture on each side. This box would require 40 x 35 = 1400 GPH of flow.

The other option would be to split this into effectively 2 separate boxes, each one capable of filtering about 250 gallons. So each one would run on 24" fixtures, and would have 20" x 12" screens, each with 2 4 lamp fixtures, one on each side, and each having 700 GPH of flow. This might be easier to incorporate, as removing one large 40" long screen would not be fun.

You could also skip the T5HOs and use CFLs. But you would need a lot of them. T5HO is way more efficient.

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Flow over it?

Slot tube.

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Do I need more than 2 lights on each side of the screen?

See above. It depends on your choice of box size.

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

How do you all make the screen 'removeable' for cleaning?

You make the slot tube so you can disconnect it and remove it and the screen. You secure the screen to the tube/slot with zip ties that can be removed to clean the screen.

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Thanks!

You're welcome

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Oh, and any other tips/advice would be awesome.

Plan it out. Draw it up. Scan & post for input. Post pics.

Originally Posted by TampaReefer79

Also, is this a replacement to the skimmer? If so, it's not what I'm looking for. I'd use it in conjunction with my skimmer and refugium/benthic zones.

We have made a conscious decision to keep ATS vs Skimmer out of this thread. It's a hot button topic. Search in internet. You'll find a firestorm!!

[srusso]

Originally Posted by dogstar74

Do you think we have reached a point of diminished returns? I mean for a 500 gallon tank, you would need 1000 square inches of surface area. Or 500sq inches lit on both sides.

Do you realize how mad my wife would be if I slapped a 4' algae rug out onto the floor so I could scrape the algae off with a snow shovel? I mean we need to be realistic about this. And to say there would not be any smell associated with this would be folly as well. I'm not sure that an entire 6' x 2' sump should be used this way.

As for the design by King richard, you could also place a cruciate shaped screen between the four bulbs in the center to utilze the middle of the lamps as well.

understandable... but you wouldn't really put them on the floor... They could be hosed off outside easily. Or in the sink like we do, screens could also be broken down into one foot screen each. I was saying your screens would be 3 ft long each. Broken down into one foot sections would make it very easy to clean system. Many benefits to having a scrubber that size. Don't give up hope yet. It can be built so its very manageable.
Please post pictures and dimensions available in your sump area. We are all very willing to help you with this build. I am telling once it complete, you will not regret it.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Originally Posted by dogstar74

Do you think we have reached a point of diminished returns? I mean for a 500 gallon tank, you would need 1000 square inches of surface area. Or 500sq inches lit on both sides.

Do you realize how mad my wife would be if I slapped a 4' algae rug out onto the floor so I could scrape the algae off with a snow shovel? I mean we need to be realistic about this. And to say there would not be any smell associated with this would be folly as well. I'm not sure that an entire 6' x 2' sump should be used this way.

As for the design by King richard, you could also place a cruciate shaped screen between the four bulbs in the center to utilze the middle of the lamps as well.

LOL!!

She would slap you silly until you let some of the algae dry up into compost and then put it on her flowerbed. Try it. You will be completely blown away.

The pics srusso posted are a good example though, my suggestion of separating it into 2 scrubber sections is better when joined with that design. If you tee off your 2" overflow and then tee that into 2 lines, and run 2 screens with lamps inbetween and fixtures on the outside, you could get away with less lamps. If you're looking to save lamps/energy, make it 3 screens and only 2 sets of lamps (8 lamps total) so it would go screen/lamp/screen/lamp/screen; one screen lit on both sides, and the 2 outside ones would be lit on only one side.

As for the smell, there would be no more smell to maintaining or cleaning the screen from a larger system as there would a smaller system. You would not have to remove all the screens at one time necessarily, you could make it sectional. Letting the screen sit in open air for a long period could create a smell.

[srusso]

The smell really isn't bad, let me add there is NO smell while the system is running.

When cleaning the screens you get a very light beach smell. If your like me... its actually enjoyable. My wife doesn't mind it either. Now using her measuring cups for posting harvest results... she is less than pleased.

[Floyd R Turbo]

The reason the smell is not bad (like you would think, if you haven't experienced it before) is because you're not dealing with stagnant, rotting matter like you are with a filter sock or skimmate. The material is alive and growing.

[srusso]

Originally Posted by dogstar74

...Do you realize how mad my wife would be if I slapped a 4' algae rug out onto the floor...

I must admit, I am still laughing at this!

[tabwyo]

Originally Posted by acts4me

How in the world do you find room for any size ATS. I cannot find a way to get this thing under my tank. I am going crazy.

I'm one of the lucky ones who's significant others have allowed them to have a "fish room".

My ATS is kicking serious booty. Needs cleaned every week and I dont have any algae growing in the display. Will post up a FTS when I get back from Vegas.