My Algae Scrubber Experience

[pterfloth]

Originally Posted by globaldesigns

Very cool, and the million dollar question is: Is it helping your tank and nutrient levels?

That's the only question that really matters. I held off posting anything until I had been running for long enough to answer that question. There is no doubt in my mind that my SPS corals have improved tremendously since I added the algae scrubber. Colonies that had shown no growth for the previous year are now growing like mad. Bright new growth tips are popping up all over. My LPS remain unchanged. The only downside I've noticed is that my red milli has become paler in color, not sure why. My blue milli is unchanged in color and growing faster.

As for nutrient levels, I use a spectrophotometer from work to conduct my nitrate and phosphate tests. Nitrate and phosphate are pretty much undetectible now, although they were never very high. I don't put a lot of stock in test results. How the corals look, how much hair algae and cyano I have is more important to me.

I'm not trying to advocate algae scrubbers. I'm just trying to share what is working for me. I tried the zeo approach and the bio-pellet approach, with RowaPhos, and they did not work for me. Nutrient test results were low, but hair algae was rampant and SPS growth had ground to a halt. I have a lot of fish in my tank, probably too many, and they have grown a lot in the past three years. Loonie-sized fish three years ago are now 8-10" in size.

I tried this out of desperation and it is the only thing that has worked so far.