Would you/Do you use an Algae Turf Scrubber?

[Phanman]

Originally Posted by ElGuappo

heres a question do you use metal screen? wouldnt it rust?

Dont think anyone uses metal screens. All plastic and some ppl use eggcrate

[cvermeulen]

Could get away with a 304 stainless steel screen maybe, but there's no reason to take the risk with metals. The plastic screen works very well.

[Marlin65]

304 will still rust you would have to use 316

[ElGuappo]

ya read it a little better and mostly seem to be a tank divider screen.

Going to try this i think when i set up my 25.

[Skimmerking]

Doug has one here he had it on his 170 cube a few years back. did a great job. I have been thinking about doing the ATs one for a while now. with my SPS tank... its suppose to take out Nitrates,Nitrites, Ammonia, Phoshates too... and feed your tank. So once Doug is done with his Nano SPS tank Im going to get him ove rhere to help me install one...

May be we can get DOug to chime in with his Opinion and comments about his ATS....

[argan]

Would you use a starter culture of algae or just allow what is already in your system to populate it?

[Delphinus]

Wow, some great reading. It's great to see this idea get some revival. I haven't really seen anyone do much with algal turf scrubbing in years. But the idea has merit. I like it.

cvermeulen, do I understand correctly that you are running one on your FW tank?

[cvermeulen]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

cvermeulen, do I understand correctly that you are running one on your FW tank?

Yes, I am. It's doing a pretty good job too. There are a few FW success stories on MonsterFishkeepers.com as well. one fellow successfully "ungrew" algae from his whole outdoor pond with a solar powered algae screen.

My only complaint is that I removed my mech. filter bags to make room for the scrubber in my sump, and the filter floss I replaced the bags with don't do nearly as good a job... this of course is easily remedied. It's only a problem in my tank because of it's messy inhabitants.

[fdiddy]

I thought this system was a thing of the 70s and had major problems with water discoloration?

[cvermeulen]

Originally Posted by fdiddy

I thought this system was a thing of the 70s and had major problems with water discoloration?

Well it's definitely not NEW technology. I haven't seen any report of water discoloration on either FW or SW applications. I'm not sure why they aren't more predominant in hobbyist aquaria. It's a similar idea to running an autotrophic denitrator with sulfur or alcohol as an energy source (as in some public aquaria). The only issue I can foresee (which is preventable !) is when you do not clean your scrubber for weeks and weeks, and the bottom layers die and begin to decay causing an ammonia spike. There are scrubber designs though that prevent this problem... and realistically can you say it's a system flaw that negiligence causes potential problems?