Ill try to attatch some pics from my cell here in a min, it sits on top of the tank behind my lights, running along the back-middle. We had some plastic stuff, real thin, that we had laying around, i think its something you would find in the bathroom/shower section at lowes. i forgot what its called, but i believe its the stuff that you can line your shower with so water doesnt get in your walls. you can use anything though as long as it holds water. if you can find something in the same general shape, great! you could definitely make one out of glass or acrylic easily. we went with this stuff cause we already had it and we were broke at the time. we made a cut out of it, so that when you silicone the edges together, it makes a long rectangle shape. the cut out looks like the shape of an elongated cross. Then you fold up the edges to make a trough shape, silicone it together with regular tank silicone, let it dry and thats it. since the material we used is so thin and flexible, we cut out 2 pieces of plastic egg crate and siliconed them inside the trough so that it is split up into 1/3's, just to hold the shape. the egg crate also happened to keep the mesh in place. We cut a hole out on the left side of it for the water to drain into the tank. on the right side, i plumbed the return line coming from the sump into the tank, with a ball valve so we can control the flow going into the trough. you can see the water flowing back into the tank, ie, a few bubbles near the top where it flows back in.. but its not noticeable, you could build a lip or something so you wont see it, but it doesnt bother me personally. so basically, the water gets pumped from the sump, and gets split off into the tank and into the trough. the water that goes into the trough flows through the algae, then directly into the tank. i really liked the trough idea as soon as i saw it cause it doesnt take up valuable space and its dirt cheap, and nothing eats up nutrients like nuisance algae lol. ive always had algae probs in this tank, thankfully not anymore since i added this thing.
Originally, it was my version of an algae scubber, but without the buckets since i dont have room for buckets anywhere. I have sheets of plastic mesh stuffed in there in between the egg crate that holds its shape, and some algae (some hair algae and cyano, i wanna try to eliminate the cyano completely), that stuff clings to the mesh and i take it to the sink and wash most of it off every week or two and put it back in. but, i do have some chaeto that i wasnt doing anything with, some calurpa prolifera that was just sitting in my extra tank, and recently i found some other type of calerpa growing on a rock in another tank (grape i think), so i threw it in there as well. so i guess its like a fuge/scrubber now lol. i do see pods crawling around in there too. chaeto has never grown very well for me anyway, but calurpa does, i have already seen alot of growth in that stuff.
amazingly, there really only is a small amount of algae in the trough, its nothing like a huge fuge full of macro, but it still gets the job done. im happy as long as i dont have a ton of equipment and cords everywhere, and it does not cost me any money for media or anything else. The only thing i do with it is run a crappy walmart light on there to grow the algae, and i have it on a timer the same time as my tank lights. the lights stay on for about 12 hrs on the tank and the algae trough.
ive noticed after putting the corals in here, they have put on good growth, prob all the fish poo. anywho, just thought i would share, ive been extremely pleased with this thing!