SantaMonica

I've now raised my liquid feeding to 12ml per day. N and P are both "clear". Matter of fact, instead of looking at the Salifert nitrate test from the top (which always looks clear now), I now look at it from the side, and compare it to an identical holder of just plain tank water. A few weeks ago it had a slight pink compared to the tank water (from the side), but today it was just as clear too. It does stay a bit "cloudy", because of the test chemicals, but the important part is that it is "clear" of any pink. Since 12ml is double the 6ml I was feeding before, many of the coral tentacles have come out, and remain out all day, much farther than they did before. If you are using the same pump as me, I've learned that if you are blending food yourself, the pieces don't get small enough for reliable pumping with this pump, because there is a tiny "particle filter" hidden inside the blue tubing device, designed to block large particles. What I did was pull the blue silicone off, and file off the plastic particle filter with a needle file; then put the silicon tubing back on. It worked much better. However I have since switched to the pre-made bottled oysters, and they are extremely finely blended, so there is never a clog.

Success Updates: Donny Mac on the MFT site: "i have built mine 1 year ago and it has made the maintenance of my tank so easy, the appearance of the glass and water is crystal clear. i keep coral and fish" PRC on the LR site: "I tested my nitrates tonight. they are officially at ZERO. Couple of small details. I installed this DIY unit on a tank that was cycling. I started out with 20ppm Nitrates. i'm not running anything on this 90g tank except the algae scrubber. So within a 1 1/2 months I have a nice stable system. It may have taken a little less time, if I would have initially had the flow where I needed it. The entire thing took me less than 1 hr to make and install in my sump. And it works great. I use 4 lights (2 on each side). I'm using the lights recommended at the beginning of this thread. All I can say is the thing works... My nephew is running a skimmer, a filter, and has 100lbs. of rock and can't get his nitrates under 15ppm.. I spent .39 on a screen and have 0 nitrates." Tristan on the LR site: "Im now convinced that the algae scrubber a more suitable than a skimmer. all the algae in my dt is gone!" waucedah_joe on the RS site: "This thing works. When my [CFL] scrubber-prototype crashed [due to broken pump] my nitrates got up to 25 ppm before I was able to get this [LED scrubber] online, and then in 3 weeks they were near non detect level with the Salifert test kit. Rather than just say it's working for me, here's the datum: Tank specs: 75g display w/ 40g sump. Heavily stocked. 1-3" blue tang, 1-3-1/2" powder brown tang, 2-Oscy clowns, 1-lawnmower blenny, 1-purple firefish, 1-manderin goby, 1-radiant wrass, 1-high fin goby, 3 BTA's, shrimp, crabs, 1-sand sifting star, 1-brittle star. 1/7 Return pump failed while out of town. Small CFL scrubber pretty much dead from drying up. Cleaned both sides and continued to use while working on new scrubber. 1/10 Nitrates 20 ppm. 20 gal water change 1/21 New scrubber on-line 1/24 Nitrates 25 ppm, old scrubber off-line. 20 gal water change. Last big water change. From here on out the only water change is 3-4 gallons every other week to replace water removed from vacumming detrius from return chamber of sump. 1/30 Nitrates 10 ppm 2/14 Nitrates 5 ppm 2/20 Nitrates 2.5 ppm 2/27 Nitrates <.2 ppm, Increased feeding 17% (from 5 cubes in two days to 6 cubes in two days. Mini icecube sized homemade frozen food. + small piece of nori every other day) 3/7 Nitrates 2.5ppm 3/14 Nitrates 2.5ppm 3/21 Nitrates 2.5ppm No sugar, no skimmer, no macro algae. This is my only filter." Rosenaa on the algae scrubber site: "Well its been a good while since I put up my ATS and I am very pleased! I had problems with red bubble algae and they are all gone now! Also coraline algae have sprung up everywhere and covering stone, glass and powerheads". Inkidu on the algae scrubber site: "As far as this working, after several weeks with only a power head running, which feeds the scrubber, and some air pumps, there is absolutely nothing that is filtering besides the ats, my tank of 5 (say 5") discus and some cardinal tetra. My fish seem content (in fact I brought them back from the brink of death), I feed pretty heavily, the pea green water disappeared, and I have no algae in my tank. Thanks for all the help guys, I am going to call this a success." Aeros on the algae scrubber site: "As a RO/DI is not within my budget at this time, I have been using tap water to top off and in my salt mix. [...] all my corals have doubled or tripled in size since December, and since adding my ATS all the hair algae has dissipated from the display (thanks mostly to the yellow tang) as well as the red cyano, and nitrates dropped from ~80 to ~10ppm. And pods galore!" All that being said, I will be investing in an RO/DI as soon as possible. For peace of mind mostly, and as part of an ATO set-up; manual topping off sucks." Pepetj on the FL site: "As I reached the 2 months mark [with the scrubber], this is what I have to share. I've been measuring for Nitrates and Phosphates (Nitrates with Seachem's Nitrite/Nitrate test kit as well as calibrated PinPoint Nitrate Monitor; Phosphates with API's Phosphate test as well as Hagen's). I can tell that in my setting, which is a Nano Reef, I have been obtaining almost negligible readings (meaning as close to steady zero as I've ever seen) for both phosphates and nitrates." Sillygoose on the RC site: "It's been two weeks since we scraped algae off of our new turf scrubber. As you can see in the pictures, growth has really taken off. Today, cleaning maybe 2/3 of the outer surfaces, we got 1 1/2 cups of algae off. The mat was 3/4-inch thick in places. The best part is that our NO3 is down from around 10 to below detect in 2 weeks without a water change. I can't tell if PO4 went down because I have a hard time with interpreting the test, but we are starting to see new coraline growth. It's very cool." Gowingsgo on the RC site: I have been running a ATS for about 8 months now but set mine up with a skimmer. I built my sump with 5 separate chambers. (1 intake from main tank) (2 ATS) (3 skimmer) (4 fuge with live rock and sand so if I need to I can also put stuff in my sump) (5 return to main tank) I set mine up to remove algae from my display tank (and that is exactly what it is doing). But I have noticed that my skim-mate is much darker [note: scrubbers should not affect skimmate] and that I do not have to clean it as much (about once every week not every other day). also my nitrates have never been undetectable (more like 5+ ppm) but they have been 0 for the last 6 months now. [...] With turf scrubber [i have to clean the glass] once every 4 days, sometimes longer, without the scrubber I have had to clean the glass every day. [...] I love my ATS and don't think I would run a tank without one." Lewk on the RC site: "I'm running a very simple scrubber on my 65 gallon. I've been using it since day one on the tank and my nitrates and phosphates have been at zero for several months now. I set everything up according to the algae scrubber site, and it's working great so far. I'm in the planning stages for a 135, and plan on using a scrubber there as well."

Once you start growing green, it takes about 4 to 8 weeks.

More smaller bulbs are better than one big one. T5's are the best since they are continuous from side to see. A 9 X 9 screen = 81 square inches needs 81 watts for high filtering, or 40 watts for medium filtering. So yours is still low, but it you can't do more, let's see how it goes. It might even be better to put all your bulbs on one side, to get it to the light level it needs to grow green.

You need stronger lighting, and more flow. Lighting first. And you need to clean every 7 days.

Here is the design for the nano scrubber box. This can be easily built by giving the plans to an acrylic shop. They can either build it for you, or, they can cut the pieces for you and you can silicone it together (use only aquarium-safe silicone)... full size: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/25.jpg

What to dose when you don't do waterchanges Many folks ask if anything needs to be dosed, if they stop doing water changes. If a reef tank, you'll certainly need to dose Calcium and Alkalinity. Then some Magnesium when needed. And maybe Strontium. The easiest way to dose Cal and Alk is by mixing some powdered lime with your topoff water. For details, search for "kalkwasser dripping". The powder is cheap from here: http://store.mrswagesstore.com/mrswagpiclim.html Everything else is supplied by the food you feed, and by the organics from the scrubber. This includes all the trace elements that you always hear about. Remember that in the ocean, 90% of all life (besides bacteria) is algae. Algae provides all the food for everything that lives in the ocean, by coverting the sun into organics. And included in these organics are the trace elements that your tank needs too. Cal and Alk, however, are inorganic, and are used up quickly by corals and coralline, so you need to dose them often or continuously. Mag is dosed when your test says to. And the same with Strontium.

What to dose when you don't do waterchanges Many folks ask if anything needs to be dosed, if they stop doing water changes. If a reef tank, you'll certainly need to dose Calcium and Alkalinity. Then some Magnesium when needed. And maybe Strontium. The easiest way to dose Cal and Alk is by mixing some powdered lime with your topoff water. For details, search for "kalkwasser dripping". The powder is cheap from here: http://store.mrswagesstore.com/mrswagpiclim.html Everything else is supplied by the food you feed, and by the organics from the scrubber. This includes all the trace elements that you always hear about. Remember that in the ocean, 90% of all life (besides bacteria) is algae. Algae provides all the food for everything that lives in the ocean, by coverting the sun into organics. And included in these organics are the trace elements that your tank needs too. Cal and Alk, however, are inorganic, and are used up quickly by corals and coralline, so you need to dose them often or continuously. Mag is dosed when your test says to. And the same with Strontium.

A great way to add a reflector to your DIY CFL bulbs: http://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/232568...cheap-easy.html

Time to clean...

Here is the initial design for a nano scrubber. Nanos have always been the hardest to DIY a scrubber for. This scrubber is designed to be mounted above the waterline of a nano, and then drain down into it, without needing a real sump below the tank. It will come with a pump that will go into the display (like a powerhead) or into the hidden "sump" section at the back of the tank. I'm building a test version of it now, and if it works out good I'll post the plans for others to build:

You did not have a scrubber. You had a waste of energy for 3 months. Also, flow is too low for a 12 inch wide screen. Should be 420 gph (1600 lph). And your picture did not show.

800 lph = 210 gph = enough for a 6 inch wide screen. So maybe your flow is not enough. But, the flow will fill-in as the algae grows, so you can wait to see if it is OK. Otherwise, you can shorten the width to 6 inches.

I like the flow on your new screen.

Videos: Front Side: Back Side: . . .

Santa Monica 100 growth pics for first 7 days: No seeding. Screen is one layer of roughed up playsic canvas, never used before:

I'm now draining 3200 liters/hour in a 1" Supply does not matter. Even 1/2" will work. Whatever fits the pump.

1" is ok for drain. Barb adapter plugs into hoses.

1.5" is plenty for 1400 liters per hour. Get a bulkhead like this... http://www.aquaticeco.com/customers/subcat.../1626/Bulkheads ... and connect it with a "barb adapter" like this... http://www.aquaticeco.com/customers/subcat...T-x-Barb/barb/4 ... which will connect to your hose. If the scrubber is above the tank, you use a separate pump, and it does not affect your overflow:

Time to clean

Sounds good although the pics did not show

Here are some videos of the scrubber running: Flow example, looking from the side with one of the lights removed: Flow example, looking from the top: Demonstration of noise: Demonstration of darkness:

Can you not see what I just posted?

As per the guideline above, 250 square inches (1563 square cm) = 10 X 25 etc. 125 watts minimum. 250 watts is high. That's why you go by watts, not size.

No it is not every minute. If you do it every minute, the fish will stay there and eat it all. And I'm only dosing 4 ml per DAY right now (0.5 ml every 3 hours). Yes you could get a pump that does 1.0 ml/hour minumum, but that would be 24 ml/day. That is a huge amount of Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate filtering that your filters must be able to handle. My scrubber can barely do it. Yes it's a nice feeding pattern. I paid $12 USD for the oyster feast, and it's been going non-stop for 6 weeks. I want to feed more, but I'm experimenting with the feeding/scrubbing ratios.