Algae Scrubber Advanced

[wildman926]

Originally Posted by jalisco

I'll keep reading and I really appreciate the advice but that just abut cements it for me. My understanding is that one of the benefits of an ATS is the lack of necessity for water changes. I have a skimmer and will keep it for a while just in case but I really want to see what an ATS can do and understand what it's doing before I convolute things.
I would also like to see what a DSB in conjunction with an ATS does for an sps tank before I go to a skimmer.
There might be a hundred ways to skin a cat but I'll be damned if there isn't a million was to set up a reef tank.

I should have been more clear. The only time a skimmer removes "good" things from your tank, is when you skim "wet". That is what water changes are for. Otherwise, skim dry if you don't want to do water changes.

There are many examples of ATS/Skimmer or ATS only tanks. Many youtube videos actually displaying them. "I" choose to run both, for what "I" deem best. They remove different items from your tank, and compliment each other.

[Brummie]

Originally Posted by wildman926

I should have been more clear. The only time a skimmer removes "good" things from your tank, is when you skim "wet". That is what water changes are for. Otherwise, skim dry if you don't want to do water changes.



There are many examples of ATS/Skimmer or ATS only tanks. Many youtube videos actually displaying them. "I" choose to run both, for what "I" deem best. They remove different items from your tank, and compliment each other.

Quite a few of us found that skimmers don't work as well when there's a scrubber in the system, or at least the skimmate looks weak.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Originally Posted by jalisco

I think a protien skimmer is a home run on a FOWLR, but I just don't see it making sense with sps.

I disagree with this. Heavy softies and LPS, less need for a skimmer. SPS, evidence points to better results by using a skimmer + scrubber vs scrubber only.

Originally Posted by jalisco

An uninterrupted power supply with a SURF2 dropped into your DT or a battery powered airpump on a SURF2 during a power outage is the closest thing to a full on automatic backup generator you can find.

I don't agree with this either. During a short term outage, and by that I mean several days, an airstone on a batter backup pump in your tank to break surface tension and keep water in some level of motion would do better than a floating scrubber in an enclosure (which has a very low internal to external turnover rate). You should have enough LR in the tank to be able to handle a short term outage, a low turnover filter won't really make or break your tank in a few days. No matter what you do short of running a generator you would likely get a mini cycle. Longer term, that's a different story.

Originally Posted by jalisco

My understanding is that one of the benefits of an ATS is the lack of necessity for water changes.

For purposes of nutrient reduction, yes. Outside of that, the decision to or to not do PWCs is a topic of debate.

[jalisco]

Shot down on everything I thought I knew from weeks of reading. Confidence level to start my tank in the next few weeks just plummeted. In the long run that's probably a good thing.

[jalisco]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

I don't agree with this either. During a short term outage, and by that I mean several days, an airstone on a batter backup pump in your tank to break surface tension and keep water in some level of motion would do better than a floating scrubber in an enclosure (which has a very low internal to external turnover rate). You should have enough LR in the tank to be able to handle a short term outage, a low turnover filter won't really make or break your tank in a few days. No matter what you do short of running a generator you would likely get a mini cycle.

Even if the SURF2 was already established in your sump? DagNabit, if so I should have spent that money on a nice ato.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Well it's not going to hurt anything to have it there, but think about it. Your tank normally has 10-50x turnover rate within the tank (add up return pump & power heads for total flow rate). Now take this to zero. Everything that is established based on that flow rate suddenly has zero flow. The longer the tank goes w/o power, the longer and stronger your mini-cycle will be. Band-aid filtration (of any kind, including an airstone) will do nothing to prevent this. Your purpose during a power outage, without a generator, is to keep things alive.

So an established floating scrubber can help keep the water column from building up too many nutrients, but you would still need an airstone to break surface tension and keep the water aerated, as well as move a minimal amount of water. A floating scrubber is going to do none of these things for you.

[jalisco]

So would my initial plan to keep hydro sponge filters in the sump for emergency qt or ht and power outages have been the better route?

[Floyd R Turbo]

QT or non-treatment HT (isolation/recovery) then either would work fine.

For power outages, having a battery backup air pump & stone is the key. Filtration for maintaining water quality, IMO, is much lower on the totem pole, because as long as there is water motion (airstone) then BB on all surfaces will continue to run the nitrogen cycle, though maybe not as effectively. But for a short term (couple days) outage the colony will quickly bounce back once power is restored. Giving the tank a good stir every few hours helps of course.

But if you wanted to kill 2 birds with one stone, a sponge filter w/battery air pump moved to the DT during outage will do it because it pulls water though the sponge and bubbles hit the water surface.

The floating/enclosed scrubber will not perform both functions, because it does not break the surface tension of the water around it. Bubbles go up into it from underneath, and water is circulated in and out of it, through holes in the bottom (underwater). The top water of the tank would remain stagnant.

[SantaMonica]

There is no need to break surface tension. Unless you want more salt spray.

[Floyd R Turbo]

We are discussing a power outage scenario.

[jalisco]

If a skimmer is to be used in conjunction with an ATS would you plumb from DT overflow directly to ATS, let ATS fall to sump, sump pump to skimmer and skimmer to DT?

[Floyd R Turbo]

There's benefits to both ways. Each individual device does bit typically remove everything on one pass so order usually isn't that important, but on some cases it is. Putting a the skimmer output on the scrubber input provides the scrubber highly aerated water which can be good. Putting the scrubber first gives it first crack at the dirtiest water. For plumbing direct to overflow I usually recommend that you have a secondary water path in case something makes it down the overflow pipe

[Paul B]

You been reading PaulB's thread haven't you?

Like Duh, It's not like anyone else uses them so who else would he be reading?

Just read through several pages on RUGF, I would guess its very susceptible to channeling.

Dam! I wish I knew that in 1972 when I installed the thing on my still running reef.

[Floyd R Turbo]

If RC had a like button, Paul's posts would be the majority of my likes.

[Brummie]

A few more hypothesis;

A) horizontal white light scrubbers = pods



B) scrape it and get rid of snails, and it'll go green.
C) snails and no scraping = calcareous stuff

[northernreefe]

hey Floyd if I recall you have had a scrubber for a few years now. Any issues with the tanks?

thx for all the great reading.

[Floyd R Turbo]

On the tank in the dentist's office, not really. I slacked off on maintaining Cal and Alk and lost a big red cap, but other than that, coming up on 4 years with nothing but a scrubber.

My personal tank is doing very well also, at least 2 years on that one, nothing but a scrubber.

As a side note, I don't keep any "difficult" corals in any of these tanks though, mainly because I just don't have the time. One tank is overridden with fuzzy mushrooms, the other has tons of clove polyps but not to the point of choking everything else off.

[northernreefe]

Thx for the reply Floyd. I had a scrubber a few years back and it was fantastic, not even sure why I went back to skimmers. Looking at setting up a new system and I am sure it will be with a scrubber.

[Subsea]

Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo

This is exactly what I do. Rod's Food is great because it's a total tank food. My local club gets together every 6 months or so and makes about a 3 gallon batch of DIY food that contains various seafood, off-the-shelf fish food, and coral foods like Cyclopeeze, Reef Chili, etc. It's essentially a DIY version of Rod's.

I don't do any PWCs unless it's a last resort, like one of those 'gut' feelings, like I notice something odd and I default to doing a water change to see if it helps (which, so far, it has made no difference)

Floyd,
I have read the first two pages and last two pages of this thread. Interesting stuff. I have never used an ATS but am intrigued. As I focus on macro algae refugiums and macro lagoon tanks, I never had the need. It seems to me that micro algae would be more efficient at processing nutrients per unit mass then macro algae but I have no scientific data to support that.
In some of my small macro algae growout tanks with little bioload, I fertilize with a concentrate kelp plant food that shows
Nitrogen 13%
Potash. 60%
Calcium. 18%
Magnesium. 6%
Sulfur. 3.5%
Cooper. 0.2%
Iron. 0.8%
Manganese. 0.1%
Molybdenum. 0.01%
Sodium. 12%
Zinc. 0.2%

Alaska by Pennington available at Home Depot for $9/QT.

In my large macro growout system, I grow Gracilaria Parvispora (Red Ogo) for human consumption. I recently had it analyzed by an agriculture lab. I suspect that the ratio of chemicals are not fixed and would reflect changes of nutrients in the water. I will know more in upcoming months.

Nitrogen. 2.6%
Phosphate. 0.08%
Potassium. 13.54%
Calcium. .55%
Magnesium. 1.16%
Sulfur. 4.8%
Zinc. 139ppm
Iron. 107ppm
Copper. 7ppm

I am not sure if this information is relevant to micro algae.
Happy trails,
Patrick

[SantaMonica]

Micro is very good at abosorption, but it is a bit difficult to harvest.

[Brummie]

Trying low flow on my scrubber as I fear that it's importance may be overrated, particularly when the screen is fully submerged, like mine. There's all sorts of mechanisms which should ensure enough nutrients are available on submerged screens in my view. I guess we will see

http://youtu.be/1TVpGO0sZzY

Only had the scrubber pump turned off for a day or two so far but cleaning today and I'll take a series of pics over the next growth cycle.

[Brummie]

The fourth day and photosynthesis well underway;

http://youtu.be/VR-7udnY_qA

[Brummie]

I'm wondering if, back in 2008, folks interested in algae filtration were sent down the wrong path. Looks to me like the power consumed by pumps etc would be better spent on increased lighting. These are only initial growth results though, so make of it as you please.
I would particularly like SM to reply to this post, thanks;

http://youtu.be/ri6qH1kKSvI

[5thChorseman]

what are your nitrate and phosphate level with now?

[Floyd R Turbo]

Well I suppose some of this depends on the setup as well. I think the waterfall type scrubbers have shown that there is a relationship between too little flow and too much light, which results in bare spots or yellow growth. This is the case with LED and CFL.

Even the SURF scrubbers have this problem, when you have zero growth and lights on full for a long period, the result is zero growth.

The case of a submerged scrubber might differ from these, because of the difference in the mechanism that causes this zero-growth situation (photoinhibition)

So what you're saying B is that you are getting better growth without an agitator pump in this scrubber?

If so, then how would you say it performs on a filtration basis?