My Algae Scrubber Experiment

[spamreefnew]

have you looked at algae scrubers.net? dont rush it,,the levels WILL come down in time . all you have to do is feed the tank regular fish flakes and make sure your scrubber has enough flow and light. only clean half of the screen for the next few weeks and not with a razor blade,,just use your hands,,,and never HOT water ,,that will kill the algae causing it to fall off later and decay,raising nitrates.

[niqiri]

Thanks for the tips. This week I only washed with cold water. I guess what I'm not sure of is how thorough to be with the cleanings.

[niqiri]

Does anyone know how much my pH is supposed to go up with the scrubber? The highest it's been is 7.96 but I can't seem to get it to go up past 8. I guess when I put the skimmer online it may go up but I'd like to see a higher pH before then. Any tips?

[RocketSurgeon]

If ur ph is consistent , I wouldn't sweat it.

[niqiri]

Not really an update, but I'd wanted to post that as of now there is visibly algae on the rocks if you look closely. I have been leaving the lights on more lately, so I will cut down on that. Additionally, I had briefly experimented with light distances from the screen. One light was maybe 2 1/2 inches away and the other was 4 or 5. I wanted to see what would happen because before the last screen cleaning there were brown spots directly in front of the lights. The side with the light closer still is growing brown algae in the middle but the side with the light farther away looks like is hasn't grown much at all. Needless to say I moved the light closer to the screen again. Hopefully this weekend I can pick up better bulbs. I have a feeling that this screen may not be performing the best because of the current bulbs. Also, I was considering cleaning each half every five days and alternating to minimize nutrient spikes post-cleaning. Any opinions on this would be great.

[spamreefnew]

i have used several ats's now and i find that the bulb must be at-least 3" away from the screen but no more than 6" away. if it is to close it will photo-burn the algae causing browning. as far as bulbs go ANY 27000k-5000k spiral or flood CFL will work fine. but i have had the best luck with a 2700k 34watt spiral cfl mounted in a reflector sheild. as far as cleaning goes,,i think you are killing your algae off before it becomes established. i would skip the cleaning this week and only clean one side next week. remember that you are only cleaning it for 2 reasons,,,#1:is to thin the crop allowing light to reach the base of the algae plants so they dont break off and release n&p back into the system. and #2 is to thin the crop so it does not block the water from flowing to the algae below it,causing that algae to die and fall of the screen and release n&p back into the system.

you are a long way from having light or flow blocked by algae growth.

O and as a side note I have noticed that a capfull of kents iron goes a long way in establishing your first screen of nice green algae.

[niqiri]

What do you mean by "mounted in a reflector"? My current bulbs are CFL's with a reflector around the bulb. The reflector is built into the socket; the bulb is inaccessible. Additionally, there are very cheap reflectors around the socket of the clamp on fixture which reflect almost no light. I have noticed that my lights tend to accumulate salt creep so last week I wiped the outside with vinegar.

[niqiri]

Well I think I found the source of my pH problem. I tested the alkalinity for the first time today and got 5.0 dkh, which is pretty low. I took some baking soda and baked for roughly an hour, then mixed it with some RO/DI water. I baked it to avoid the pH-depressing effect that occurs if it is not. I then took my drip acclimator and started dripping it into my sump. Over the course of four hours or so, the pH came up from 7.92 to 8.17. I'm not sure if I did this too quickly or not but I stopped for the night and will resume it tomorrow. I'm aiming for roughly 8 or 9. I have heard others who used dead dry rock and experienced low alkalinity, so I'm assuming this is what's causing the problem. Additionally, calcium tested at 500 ppm using an Elos test kit. I was pleased to see this number right where I want it. On a similar note, someone in my area is selling a hammer coral and a lobophyllia. I have read that lobos are easy to take care of and I have a nice high rock formation to place it on to make sure it gets adequate light. If I can get the dkh up and my nitrates down I will probably make the purchase.
I am not satisfied with the growth that my bulbs are giving and it has been recommended to me that I use normal curly bulbs without reflectors and that I use the reflectors on the clamp on fixture. I'm hoping to get higher wattage bulbs and see better growth. Lastly, I can see green algae on the sand, but I have not reduced the photoperiod mainly because I want my shrimp to eat something besides the pellets. That's all for now. Any comments/suggestions/questions about the experiment are welcome. Thanks for reading.

[salty joe]

Don't rush anything but keep going.

[jdaniels175]

I think this will end up working for you. I started one up a few weeks ago, and i am already seeing less bubble algae, and less of the red turf I had in a few spots. Coincidence, maybe, but I think that at least in my tank the scrubber is working.

[stan zemanek]

Hello Nigirl! Not to hijack your thread but I started an algae scrubber myself about 2 weeks ago and my growth looks much like yours. Again I'm sorry I have no intentions on jacking your thread, just wanted to share some pics with my reefing homies
Its amazing what you can build with just some PVC pipe and a dremel


Here it is yesterday, day 20

[travis32]

I used plastic canvas from hobby stores to start my ATS. It's a very very simple design, simply put, I'm placing it vertically in my sump (with it roughed up) water flows through the screen and traps debree, and I have a CFL Lamp focussed on it now. I will actually move my 4 ft PC light over to the sump from my 55 and use the daylight bulbs as the light source for the ATS. It's 80% submerged. I don't have water cascading over it. That would probably be better, but I think this will work.

I am actually also running a skimmer. I've had a lot of phosphate issues and I have HA growing out of the sand, so, regardless of the skimmer, I think Algae will grow in on the ATS. In the other half of the sump after the ATS, I'll also have some chaeto growing. I'm hoping to get phosphates in check is my primary goal, plus any cyano feeding nutrients.

My skimmer is pulling out pure black stuff. So, I think I'm going to leave that going for a while, but, after a few weeks if the ATS really starts taking off and if I start seeing HA start to receed, I may pull the skimmer or put it on a timed schedule vs. running all the time.

[niqiri]

Thanks for the replies. I have started dripping the rest of the baked baking soda solution. Hopefully this will keep my pH higher and make my tank suitable for corals. I really think these lights need to be replaced because growth this week was next to nothing. I suppose lack of growth could also be attributed to lower nutrients, so let's hope for that one.
I appreciate the input from everyone. So far I haven't gotten as many responses as I would have expected but this thread has been going pretty slowly.
Stan zemanek- No worries about highjacking the thread. This is an experiment that I'm doing for the benefit of other people and if they don't give input then it's more like a build thread. I think it's crazy how similar out setups look. Same bulbs, same reflectors, and even the same zip ties! As for the bulbs, I have a feeling that we would have better growth if we had been using regular curly CFL's, and like I said before I will post updates once the new bulbs are in. I'm really hoping they make the algae bloom.
Travis32- I had an idea a while back similar to what you are doing: you would cover the walls of one section of your sump with roughed up plastic canvas and somehow connect it all so it made a sort of basket. You would put two or three strong CFL's above it to encourage algae growth and then when it was time for cleaning you would remove the basket and harvest the algae. The best part: no zip ties! Anyway I hope that your design works for. I believe that it will because I've seen algae scrubbers work using a lego plate as the canvas and a cheap used bulb for lighting. If that can work, so can yours!

[niqiri]

Just picked up two GE Daylight 26 watt CFL's at 6500 K for seven and a half bucks a piece. These are the right kelvin rating right?

[spamreefnew]

no you want 2700k or "warm white" bulbs and they are available in higher watts such as 43 watts. i have found them at target,joblot,and wallmart of all places lol and yes the cheap clamp on reflector lights like in the pic above have worked the best for growth on my scrubbers. i dont have the trouble with salt creep because my scrubber is inside an acrylic box. i will try to post a pic of my scrubber and its growth soon.

[travis32]

Thanks for the tip spamreef! I 'm going to check that out too.

[spamreefnew]

travis your ATS is under water? if so i think it will work a little but i have read something about how the algae gets nutrients like 200% faster in a hi flow cascade set up. it has something to do with surface tension or chemistry(i forget) but i do know it has nothing to do with the air. if you search around you will find what i am talking about. once you get a scrubber of the right size and its tweeked you might just go and sell your skimmer on ebay I wont ever run any kind of aquarium on any other type of filtration again ,,,it works that well! and you custom build it for cheap $

[niqiri]

Well I've got some unrelated-to-algae things to report. Firstly, I finished dripping my alk-raising solution and have gotten it up to 8.0 dkh. I'm very pleased with this change. pH has also risen, but I don't expect it to stay at 8.15 for very long because I think my house has a CO2 problem. I just hope it doesn't drop below 8.0. Thirdly, I'm happy to report that the copepods are alive and well. I just wasn't looking closely enough. They are on the glass, scuttling around. Lastly, I will return the bulbs tomorrow and get the 2700 K versions. I was actually happy to hear that they were the wrong ones because paying 7.50 for a bulb is not fun. That's all for tonight.

[niqiri]

UPDATE:
Today was the third screen cleaning of my ATS. I used room temperature tap water to wash away the scraped off algae. Additionally, I was not as thorough as before with the razor blade. It may be that I have been scraping too much off, so we'll see what happens with less severe cleanings. The most important thing was that I replaced my floodlight CFL's with GE 26 watt 2700 K CFL's. The only reflectors are those that came with the clamp on light and they are more dull grey than reflective. Still, I am very excited to see the results with the new bulbs. I now am positive about the spectrum, don't have to deal with salt creep blocking light penetration, and have higher wattage bulbs. I am guessing that the old bulbs are what have been reducing my screen's effectiveness. The old bulbs were also of an unknown age.
Nitrates came out in between 10 and 20 ppm. Just another reason to change out the bulbs. pH had dropped to 7.9 this morning so I opened a window and started aerating the water with my backup pump. It's now up to 8.0 and I hope to see it go higher by the end of the day.

[niqiri]

UPDATE:
Today was the third screen cleaning of my ATS. I used room temperature tap water to wash away the scraped off algae. Additionally, I was not as thorough as before with the razor blade. It may be that I have been scraping too much off, so we'll see what happens with less severe cleanings. The most important thing was that I replaced my floodlight CFL's with GE 26 watt 2700 K CFL's. The only reflectors are those that came with the clamp on light and they are more dull grey than reflective. Still, I am very excited to see the results with the new bulbs. I now am positive about the spectrum, don't have to deal with salt creep blocking light penetration, and have higher wattage bulbs. I am guessing that the old bulbs are what have been reducing my screen's effectiveness. The old bulbs were also of an unknown age.
Nitrates came out in between 10 and 20 ppm. Just another reason to change out the bulbs. pH had dropped to 7.9 this morning so I opened a window and started aerating the water with my backup pump. It's now up to 8.0 and I hope to see it go higher by the end of the day.

One question for the ATS gurus out there: how close should the 26 watt bulbs be to the screen? Right now I have on at 3.5 inches and the other at 2.5. Should they be at four inches at their closest?

[niqiri]

Having a little trouble with my tank. The display has a bunch of small white particles swirling around. At first I assumed they were air bubbles but I tried turning off my return and my powerheads to see if they would rise up and out of the water. It turned out that they sank, or at least remained suspended in the water. And if I look very closely at them they are definitely not clear like microbubbles are. Also, there are many baffles in the sump to prevent micro bubbles from entering the dt. I'm not sure what it could be. Maybe calcium precipitation? However, I finished dripping the baked baking soda days ago. I would think that any precipitation would have occurred then. I also made an effort to clean my sump the other day. The weird thing is that the silicone I used for my baffles has been "peeling" ever since salt water was added. Large flakes of it fall off and so the other day I did my best to get rid of them by using a fish net that is fairly finely woven. It could be that I stirred up too many flakes and they got sucked into the return where they were turned into little white particles. Who knows. In addition to all of that, in my sump it appears that there is some sort of beach-sand-looking crap on the bottoms of my chambers. Maybe old pellets? But there is a lot of the stuff. I don't know where or when it started but it's just another problem to deal with. I hate that I can't run a filter sock because my ATS is plumbed from the display. At this point I'm really tempted to run my skimmer because all the particulates in the water are not encouraging me to add anything else to the tank. However, I know this would ruin the experiment but at the same time the only thing that has been gleaned from my trial and error is that proper bulbs should be used and don't overclean the screen. At this point I'm unsure whether to continue keeping this thread going as not many seem interested and my tank is not being cooperative. Any input would be helpful. As always, thanks for reading.

[spamreefnew]

not sure what to tell you except that I AM interested in this thred! and thats its not the ATS's fault

[niqiri]

Of course I realize this is not due to the ATS. The bulbs were my fault, as was the overcleaning. I have nothing but confidence in the ATS, I just think maybe it would be more appropriate if I started posting on maintaining my tank with an ATS, like how much algae is in the display, copepod populations, water clarity, etc. Originally this experiment was meant to see how quickly an algae scrubber could become effective in a tank without any biological filtration, but the progress was so slow that nitrifying bacteria beat the ATS to the punch (once again, probably because of the bulbs). The only reason I want to setup the skimmer is to have its mechanical filtration, however little it may be, help with the current water problem. I have contemplated putting a filter sock in the display but I don't imagine it would catch all that much debris with the water going in all directions.

[niqiri]

Well the tank looked so bad today that I had to put the skimmer online. The display was so cloudy that I was worried about the health of my lone shrimp. There appeared to be a small amount of ammonia when I tested for it. No nitrites, nitrates at 10 ppm. My theory is that when I was keeping the lights on the algae growth took off in the display. Then as I started to decrease the photoperiod the algae died and formed the sand-like crap that I saw on the bottom of my sump. Yesterday the lights were off all day so that may be why the tank was so cloudy this morning. It's unfortunate that this is where the experiment ended up but I didn't want the tank to crash. As soon as the tank looks better I'll take the skimmer offline but I don't know how much value that will be of. Thanks for reading.

[Jstdv8]

I would have to partially disagree with the fellow who mentioned that the reason for cleaning was to prevent algae die off only from the algae itself.
Another main reason to clean the screen in freshwater is to kill all of the pods on the screen. as weird as this sounds, the pods will actually eat holes in your algae and cause it to fall off the screen thus yellowing the water. Ive seen this on a couple of occasions on my scrubber when I didn't clean it often enough.

Also be aware that scrubbers not only eat phos and trates but ammonia as well. Yours may not be grown in enough to casue much in the way of an ammonia drop if there were any though..

Are you sure that your shrimp died and it wasn't just a molt? I thoguth that several times myself only to find him back in there a week later :P