MY ALGAE SCRUBBER PROTOTYPE

[DFW]

Almost 5 months now, and no skimmer. In fact, no other devices of any kind, except the Aquaclear 70 that I run 2 cups of carbon in for about 12 hours per week, and this scrubber. I use the same carbon for a month. I use no filter socks anywhere either. Corals look to have very nice color, and to be growing. Water looks crystal clear, besides the many pods circulating through. I am cleaning 1 side of the screen every 7 to 10 days. I did change the bulbs after 4 months, too.

So far, I don't see any down side to this very simple system. Well, except that I am not learning a thing about all the latest products available for running a reef tank. And I don't get to tinker with all the latest gadgets that go with all of that. But, I think that I can live with that! Therefore I plan on continuing with the scrubber for now.

David

 

[Heath]

Thats great news. There have been several times where I have thought about implementing something like this. I need to actually get around to putting one of these in.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk 2

 

[DFW]

@Heathd wrote:

5 months is a fairly short amount of time for a test, so I cannot say if it will make the long haul, or not. But wouldn't it be a kick if this is really all that you need for nutrient export? I have been changing about 4 gallons of water per week for many months. That's it! That's about 3.33 % water change per week. We'll just keep watching and see how it goes!

David

 

[DFW]

Well, in a few days it will be 6 months running this algae scrubber, and no skimmer on my system. I am seeing nice color on the sps coral, and they are growing. I have started running carbon every day for 6 or 8 hours, mainly because I have thought that the 20 plus anemones in one tank might be having chemical warfare with the coral in the other tanks. The water has been clear without running carbon that often though. I think that everything likes having the carbon run more often. My zoanthids seem to be looking better lately, and the anemones, too. So far I see no down side to replacing the skimmer with the scrubber. And when I feed, I know that the food isn't being skimmed right back out, along with the pods. I scrape one side of the scrubber about every 10, or 12 days.


David

 

[joelq]

Very cool, and great job documenting your experience so far! I can very well see myself doing this, but how much of a pain is it to scrape the algae off the scrubber? Have you developed a method for doing so conveniently, like maybe by using a squeegee type of thing to scrape the scrubber in one motion?

 

[DFW]

I take the whole unit to the kitchen sink and scrape one side with a spatula. I spend about 2 minutes doing this scraping. There are a number of motions involved. I don't think a squeegee will do much toward removing the algae, but I will consider it. I wipe down the acrylic, put the screen back in, and take it back to the sump and hook it back up. This is about a 30 minute job about every 10 days. Thanks for asking!

David

 

[M@]

Glad to hear it's going well. I used to use the spray hose on the sink to clean mine. Did a good job cleaning and left enough to keep it growing. I think I'm going to try an upflow version on my 20L.

 

[DFW]

@M@! wrote:

I use the spray hose to rinse it off, but it is so well attached to the screen that I have to scrape it loose first.


David

 

[claynguyen1973]

David. I being meaning to come by your place to pickup a few things

 

[DFW]

@claynguyen1973 wrote:

I should be around the house tomorrow afternoon, and Sunday as well.

David

 

[limpert]

this is awesome

 

[DFW]

@limpert wrote:

I don't know that it is awesome, but I think it is working very nicely, thank you!

It has been over 6 months without a skimmer, and running this scrubber. I scrape one side about every 10 days. I run carbon during the day in an Aquaclear 70, and turn it off at night. I am not having to clean the glass but once a week. I clean it on Sunday, and on Saturday it is starting to show some algae. This is the least algae on the glass that I have seen in the 3 1/2 years this tank has been running. The corals, fish, and anemones all look pretty good to me, too, so, I think this is working!

I am thinking about drying the algae that I scrape from it in sheets to feed to the tangs, and rabbit fish. They are probably spoiled now from the garlic flavored, toasted nori they get now. Maybe I could sprinkle garlic on it, and toast it under the sun.

Thank you for the interest!


David

 

[M@]

You thread inspired me to setup an ATS on my 30G. Put this together last Sunday. I think its looking good so far.

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[DFW]

That reminds me of the first one that I made. As long as no water squirts out sideways somehow and goes outside of your sump onto the floor, you will be ok. It seemed very unlikely to me at the time that anything like that could happen, but, mine worked fine for months and then one night water slowly trickled out, and onto the floor.

I look forward to seeing your progress with this, and thank you for sharing!


David

 

[DFW]

It has been right at 2 1/2 years without a skimmer. I don't have very many fish, and no anemones are kept in this system any more. But there is more acropora coral. I am presently feeding 2 yellow tangs, and 2 clowns in this system, and adding a teaspoon of concentrated live phyto a couple times per week. I have had to treat the system for cyano a couple times a year with Chemiclean, but I think that is likely more a result of only changing 5 gallons of water each week than anything else. So the Chemiclean treatments prompt my big water changes for the year. I have not had any hair algae, although a little bryopsis has popped back up recently, so I am bringing magnesium levels up with Kent Tech M. I have been dosing Mag Flake twice a week. I have been cleaning the scrubber both sides about once every 3 weeks now, just rubbing fingers through it to get whatever will break free for removal, and rinsing in cold tap water. The bulbs do like to be changed every 3, or 4 months, which means I have quite a pile of curly bulbs stacking up. I have a sponge prefilter on the Mag 5 pump that likes to be cleaned every week. I still dose lime water every night, and add trace elements once per week. Three days after adding the trace elements, I run some carbon for 2, or 3 days. In the last 2 1/2 years I have removed a lot of live rock, a couple pieces at a time, replacing it with new dead rock - I have gone with a pegging system for my acros. This new dead rock did end up with some short, fuzzy algae for a time, but snails were employed to deal with this, and they did so nicely. There are some small "cryptic" areas in this system that may be contributing somewhat to the seeming health of this system. I was led to install a plenum under the deep sand bed when setting up this tank, and I wonder if that has also been a factor toward that end. Altogether, I am happy with how things are going. I wouldn't mind having a small skimmer somewhere in the system - I like gadgets! I don't think that i would run it all the time. I am leaning right now, though, toward adding a small space for growing chaeto in my frag tank. I can use the space in front of the wp-25 where the flow is just too much for any corals. But I may have to add a couple fish in order to keep the chaeto fed. I dont' need it for nutrient export, but just thinking it would add a place for pods to reproduce.

Thanks for looking!

 

[washingtond]

Thanks for the report and good to see it working and sharing the information with us. Do you have any tank pictures?

 

[DFW]

@washingtond wrote:

I will attempt to get some pictures later today. Thank you for your encouragement!

 

[DFW]

My tanks look better to me in person, by far, than what these pictures look like. I really don't like posting pictures that don't turn out good, but here they are. I have just placed the corals last week in the 29 gallon tank. I want to find one of the U shaped LocLine pipes that you hang over the side so that I can replace the 2 power heads with a pump in the overflow. They are cluttering the tank too much! But I have not been able to find one.

[attachment=1]full tank shot 8 7 14.JPG[/attachment]

[attachment=0]full tank shot 29 gallon 8 7 14.JPG[/attachment]

 

[bigk]

Coral look awsome and healthy thanks for sharing
Best regards
Chris

 

[washingtond]

Your aquarium is looking good and the corals are healthy.