Algae Scrubber Disaster

[Jaws]

Everytime I clean my algae scrubber, it crashes my tank. WTF!!!!!! I always have to perform an immediate water change afterwards. I've lost an Achilles, two Bartlett anthias, and a sharknose goby already. I don't get it. It's growing algae like crazy. When I remove it, a small amount of the water thats absorbed into the algae gets squeezed out but if that's enough to crash a tank then these things are more dangerous than good.

[Proteus]

I wonder if you have high nutrients and cleaning the scrubber stops scrubbing temperarily. Forcing a spike in nitrates and phosphates. Hence a waterchange to stabilize

[MarkoD]

How do you clean the scrubber? Is it possible it comes into contact with a chemical or something that could be contaminating the tank

[KevinK]

how old is your scrubber ?

I build one last month with 8 red CREE led's, and are still waiting to have some form of algae forming on my mesh,

I do read somewhere that it is recomended to clean 50% and alternate this, in stead of cleaning the entire mesh at once

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by KevinK

how old is your scrubber ?

I build one last month with 8 red CREE led's, and are still waiting to have some form of algae forming on my mesh,

I do read somewhere that it is recomended to clean 50% and alternate this, in stead of cleaning the entire mesh at once

Might be waiting a while still with red light. 6500k would be optimal

[KevinK]

Originally Posted by Titus99

Might be waiting a while still with red light. 6500k would be optimal

we have to se how mine wil develope, as on reefsanctuary, thy talk about soly the red to be best

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

[Jaws]

Wouldn't I see the same effect when I turn the return pump off in order to do a water change? I have the return pump T'd so it feeds the scrubber as well as the main display. When I turn the return pump off to do a water change all the fish seem totally fine.

Sent from my Lumia 800 using Board Express

[MarkoD]

Is the height of the bubbles in your skimmer effected when you turn off the scrubber?

[Doug]

Back about 10yrs ago when I ran my turf scrubber, {oh ya we did that despite what, nevermind, }. Anyways, I always scraped my 240sq. in. screen in the fishroom sink. But at times I did have some get in the aquarium for various reasons and, the odd time, I fed some of the algae to my tangs. That would be the good looking pieces and not the slimy stuff.

Although I had some alk. problems back then with my 225g, I never had a problem with fish loss. I dont recall any large difference in my tanks after scraping the screen. Sometime when I slacked in upkeep it had a ton of algae on it and I would remove it right to the screen without problems.

Others I imagine remove a lot of algae from their refugiums without problems to. Just a weird thing to figure out.

[PoonTang]

I would bet its oxygen related. Ammonia just cant form that fast and high nitrates would affect your corals alot sooner than your fish.