Algae scrubber

[GMGQ]

No "bioballs," Bio-pellets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjnFvIzGzxE

Originally Posted by Money pit

GMGQ, yes I've looked at bioballs, at the moment I'm using prodibio, its working OK with 15% water changes. About as well as my old tank with 50% water changes as far as keeping NO3 down. If I got my calculator out I believe 50% water changes were cheaper. Being a more natural remedy along with the low cost is what catches my interest in the algae scrubbers. Provided of course they work.

[Bill]

Money pit, yes I removed the screen when cleaning and still got the green cloudy water. It was a great experiment but I agree with GMGO, I started a sulfur denitrator and now have zero P&N. I heard good things about using BioPellets also. They both work by providing a food source and a surface area for the denitrifying bacteria that remove phosphate and nitrate.

[Money pit]

Originally Posted by GMGQ

No "bioballs," Bio-pellets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjnFvIzGzxE

OOPS ya thats what I meant sorry, what I was thinking and writing were 2 different things

[Money pit]

Bill what made you shut down your scrubber? Was it the green water, or because you couldn't get NO3 below5-10 ppm? Or was it just too much work?
Also did you see a large pod increase while it was in use?

[plutoniumJoe]

I ran ats for about 8 months last year on my 75gallon. I liked and it kept my nutrients down even with heavy feeding and heavy bio-load. When I switched to my 200g I always intended to include another ats but the real estate below ended up getting too crowded (poor planning).

I never had green or yellow water, always scrapped 50% a week. It also helped keep my tank cooler in the summer.

[Doug]

Scrubber technology has been around awhile. I will try find some more of my threads. I once posted several links to some great ones on RC. Of course thats old school and we did it all wrong, according to a certain person . .

http://96.31.86.198/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=7739

[Bblinks]

Hey guys. Jeff from Jl Aquatics made one for his 29 gallon biocube. He showed me some pictures and it does look very interesting. The way he did it looked super clean, he used a 5 gallon tank with 2 x 9w coralife mini fixture on either side of the tank. Mesh screen with a 1 inch PVC running across the top. He said it was extremely effective against diatom algae and his fish seems to be a lot happier. If anyone have any questions, he will be the guy to ask. IMO if you are running a smaller system then it might be worth your time to look into it but for larger systems like mine 200-500 gallon tank, I don't think it's worth the realestate and effort to set up some thing significant. I run biopellets on my system, although I still run rowaphos to zero out the left over phosphate I still think it is the easiest system to run on a large reef tank that has problems with phosphate or nitrate, Just my 2 pennies.

[viperfish]

I had one set up on my 110 a while back. It works well but you have to be dilligent about cleaning it or it will grow out of control in a hurry. The two major advantages of the algae scrubber is 1) it's natural, and 2) there's nothing better for growing pods which is great for people who keep Mandarins. I went with Boipellets after a while because I wanted zero maintenance, and I changed my sump so I just don't have the space for a scrubber any more.

[Bill]

Money Pit, I shut down the scrubber because:

1. Maintenance and cloudy / green water.
2. Amount of carbon I had to use to keep water clear. If I used ozone the nitrates would climb.
3. Every time I cleaned the screen, the whole house smelled like cucumbers.
4. Nitrates would not stay down.
5. Takes up some real estate. Need at least 1 sq inch of screen per gallon (both sides lit). I would recommend even more.

On the positive side,

1. Visible decrease in nuisance algae in the tank – I didn’t have to clean glass for 2-3 weeks.
2. Millions of pods everywhere - would be able to keep mandarin fish easy.
3. Zero phosphates and lower nitrates (but not zero)
4. Keeps tank cooler in summer, but more evaporation.
5. Cool to see all the different types of algae growing on the screen. I had red and green turf algae, hair algae, and some kind of fluorescent green feather stuff.

However, I switched to sulfur denitrator because no maintenance, brings nitrate and phosphate to zero, no smell once adjusted properly, can use ozone and less carbon and nitrates remain at zero, crystal clear water, less power consumption, small footprint.