Algae scrubbers

[spit.fire]

So I've been thinking about adding an algae scrubber to my system as I have boatloads of room under my tank and I'm looking for some advice, I'm planning on running it off of the return on one of the smaller tanks on my system (tank contains 11 engineer gobies and 2 clams)

What angle should my "mat" be on?

Do I have to seed it with hair algae? (I don't have any in that system that I know of)

What kind of flow is recommended?

[KevinK]

I'm putting one togethrt as well,

I would almost say, all you need to know is here


http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/...er-basics.html

[Snaz]

I finished mine last week. I think best light angle would be direct head on to the mat from both side if possible. Yo do not have to seed it as your tank certainly contains a few cells of algae

Here is the utimate resource for ATS:
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/

I built an upflow version (UAS).

[tang daddy]

I made mine quite easily, I used mesh knitting mat from michaels, I believe it was .80 cents per mat and I used the finer squares and zap strapped two mats together to make a continuous wide mat.

I had a 10g with the bottom drilled so just added a bulkhead with a return hose into my sump, I took the supply from the chiller pump T'ed off with a shut off so I could control flow and got a 1/2" plumbing pipe threaded on one end and capped on the other, cut a slit all along the pipe the length of the tank and slotted the mesh in, then added zap straps to hold it up.

To cover the top so no evap is lost I used perforated sign board from any plastic store and cut it strategically so it fit the tank snug and boxed in the PVC holding it centered in the tank, mounted a retrofit 65w pc onto the side with reflector.

To seed it you just have to run tank water over the mesh and slowly it will build a film on it's own, I clean my mat every 3 weeks and roughly pull 2 liters of sludge and hair algae, once it takes off it doesn't stop.

If you have a larger system I would suggest building a larger version of what I built, like a 55g tank and that way you could use 1 48" t5ho, per side if you really wanted but 1 is also fine.... The larger the surface area the more it can pull out from your system, my mesh hangs straight down 12-6 vertical and the pc runs 24/7 I also use at 6700k plant bulb and the scrubber sits beside a sun rising lit window which really helps the algae synthesize.

If you want pics on my build send me your email as I was too lazy to upload the ATS tank I built but once you see it you will realize how simple it is.....

[mseepman]

Can you show us a few pics Snaz?

[monocus]

i use red and white or blue and white leds on my scrubbers.i find the red and white work the best for green algae-blue is more for brown algae

[emerald crab]

I use only 660nm leds and I'm happy with it.