Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!

[brendan_toh]

Hi Santa,

I have also setup one scrubber after looking at your guide. It has been on for 4days or so and i started seeing light brown stuffs growing on it but not really much yet. Should I just clean it after 1 week or should I wait till the entire screen is filled up with light brown stuffs before I start cleaning it for the first time? Thanks for the help.

[sherman]

That is before cleaning, correct?

Right.Need cleaning every week

[peacemaker]

Anyone has before & after using the scrubber, pics of the display tank?

[SantaMonica]

Clean every 7 days.

[brendan_toh]

Clean every 7 days.

Okay, thanks

[Haymaker]

may i ask what would be the bare minimal amt of light to still be able to effectively maintain this system? it would be good as a rough guide.

[brendan_toh]

may i ask what would be the bare minimal amt of light to still be able to effectively maintain this system? it would be good as a rough guide.

U can read Santa's FAQ on the scrubber.

Scrubber FAQ: http://www.algaescrubber.net/forums/viewto...hp?f=9&t=68

[Haymaker]

U can read Santa's FAQ on the scrubber.

Scrubber FAQ: http://www.algaescrubber.net/forums/viewto...hp?f=9&t=68

thanks for the info

[SantaMonica]

Taken from "It's In The Water", by Ron Shimek

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-02/rs/feature/index.php

[Aquarists have] the feeling that organisms somehow "use up," "change," or "consume" many of these [trace] chemicals, and in doing so, forever remove the chemicals from the reef aquarium system. This assumption is not completely false, some chemicals are "used up" and removed from the system, but most are not. Organisms are dynamic entities, and while some chemicals are temporarily sequestered away, such chemicals generally remain available in the system due to metabolic turnover. The only real exceptions to this as far as organisms are concerned are those chemicals, such as calcium, which get incorporated into an insoluble matrix.

Several trace elements are found in elevated concentrations in aquarium water [Table 2; Figure 2]. Some of these metals have extremely high concentrations relative to NSW; tin has already been mentioned as having concentrations over 200,000 times above normal, but Thallium, Titanium, Aluminum, Zinc, Cobalt, Antimony, and Copper all have concentrations of over 95 times normal.

Several of the trace metals varied in concert, particularly Cobalt, Tin, Zinc, Titanium, Copper and Vanadium, and lower but still positive correlations with Nickel and Aluminum are found. All of these metals are found at concentrations far above those of natural sea water. Some of these concentrations are almost unbelievably high. Tin has an average concentration in our systems of over 200,000 times greater than in natural sea water.

Increases in many of these same metals are correlated with the age of the tank. One explanation for that pattern would be that they may build up with the passage of time.

The older tanks also have more ammonia, nitrate/nitrite, phosphorus, iodine and copper than younger tanks.

Many of the trace element concentrations are lower than they are in freshly made up artificial sea water. Whether this indicates organism use, or abiotic chemical reactions, is unclear. Even though these levels are lower than in "fresh" artificial sea water, they are still very much higher than in natural sea water, and may still indicate a cause for concern.

[scrubbers remove metals; skimmers do not]

[SantaMonica]

Update: Where to point bulb

Always try to point the bulb at the middle of the screen, not the top. You don't want too much algae growing at the top by the pipe, because it will grow into the slot and slow down the water. If you have no choice and you have to point the light at the slot, you can attach a thin plastic strip to the pipe, such that it blocks the light from hitting the slot.

[SantaMonica]

Update: Results of not cleaning

If you do not clean your screen in FW once a week (or at least put the whole screen in FW, and clean half of it), here is what happens:

1. Pods start growing and multipling in the bottom layers of the algae. They do this by eating more of the algae. They then get washed off into the water and get consumed.

2. The bottom layers of algae (attached to the screen) start getting shaded by the new algae that grows on top of it.

3. The bottom layers of algae (attached to the screen) start getting less flow, because they are being covered up by the new algae that grows on top of it.

4. The algae starts growing up into the slot in the pipe, causing less water to flow out.

5. The algae gets thicker and longer and heavier, and thus "lets go" from the screen easier.

The results of 1, 2, 3, and 4 above, is that the bottom layers (which you can't see because they are underneath) start dying and disolving back into the water. The result of #5 is that large pieces of algae on the top layers (that normally would be useful) also go into the water and die due to lack of light.

However, you don't see any of this. What you do see is that the growth seems to be great, but it gets to a certain point and stops. It seems to have "stopped growing". Also the nutrients start rising. So the tendancy of some folks is to leave it longer without cleaning it, so to give the algae "more time to grow". Big mistake.

What is happening is that the underlying layers are dying off so fast, that the algae is being removed from the bottom as fast as it is growing on the top. Kind of like building a second floor on top of a house, but then removing the first floor: You end up with a one-level house again. But then you take all the materials that you got from removing the first floor, and you use them to build a new second floor. But then you tear apart the first floor again, etc.

So what is happening is that the bottom layers (and the top layers that let go) are putting Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate back into the water, which gets used to grow new algae on the top layers again. So the scrubber can no longer filter your tank because it is so busy re-growing new layers to replace the old layers that died.

The easy solution to all of this is to just do your weekly cleaning in FW. And the solution to #5 (which really is the smallest problem) is to put a light-shield along the slot.

[loowk]

May I enquire what if I wash both sides and scrapping of most of the algea each time? I am using 2 x 65W CFL. Green algea grows near the bulbs at the centre but the rest are red slimy/ clumpy stuff. Please advice.

[SantaMonica]

Something is wrong. Make sure the bulbs are CFL, not incadescent. Post some pics.

[loowk]

Screen is 1.5 ft x 2 ft fed by aquabee 5000. Lit by 2 x 65W CFL 24x7.

Tank is 3x2x2 with a sump 4x2x2

LS:

1 x Blue Face Angel

1 x Fanfin Angel

1 x Midnight Angel

1 x Fisheri Angel

1 x Pygmy Yellow Tail Angel

1 x Moorish Idol

1 x Flame Hawkfish

1 x Arc Eye Hawkfish

1 x Cleaner Wrasse

1 x Solar Wrasse

1 x Six Line Wrasse

1 x Green Wrasse

1 x Lyetail Anthias

1 x Purple Queen Anthias

1 x Purple Tang

1 x Algae Benny

1 x Lyretail Dottyback

2 x Aust Black Ocellaris

3 x Blotchy Anthias

13 x Clams (2 x teardrop maxima, 5 x maxima, 4 x Crocea & 1 x Squamosa)

3 x Sea Urchins

6 x Snails

Feeding: 4 x Mysis & 2 x Brine Shrimp per day

[brojj]

Hi fellow reefers, would like to clarify one point. After washing the scrubber with tap water, is there a need to get rid of the chlorine that comes with the tap water by again soaking the scrubber in a pail of DI water or tap water treated with water conditioner or just straight away attach back to the tank? Thanks.

[dragon1188]

U can read Santa's FAQ on the scrubber.

Scrubber FAQ: http://www.algaescrubber.net/forums/viewto...hp?f=9&t=68

I am using 2 pieces of 8W Osram "twister" florescent light (see my earlier post) and I am getting lots of algae. Need to harvest twice a week. Cheers.

[dragon1188]

Screen is 1.5 ft x 2 ft fed by aquabee 5000. Lit by 2 x 65W CFL 24x7.

Tank is 3x2x2 with a sump 4x2x2

Hi Loowk,

Looking at your picture, the bulb is only shinning half (or less) of its light on the screen. The other half of the bulb is shinning away from the screen. Suggest you construct a reflector for the bulb so that all its light is focused onto the screen.

I used only 2 x 8W of bulb but I focused all its light onto my screen (see my earlier post and picture) and i got tremendous results.

Just my 6cents opinion. Rdgs

[dragon1188]

Glad to hear the the success! Here are some improvements that will make it work even better, if you like... increase the bulb wattage; put a timer on the bulbs to rest them 6 hours each night; make sure you remove the screen and clean in your sink with FW, every 7 days.

The reason you don't see copepods is because they are only babies... less than 7 days old. You can see them in the water in your display (as long as you don't have any foam/floss)... they looks like white dust.

Hi SantaMonica,

I tried your suggestion to put the bulbs on 6hours rest but the algae growth slowed down a lot. I reduce the rest time to 3 hours and don't notice any reduction in growth. So i am now sticking to 3hrs rest. Is this OK?

You were also quite right about not needing activated carbon. After my scrubber is matured, "yellowing of water" seems hardly noticeable. However i still use it once every 3months to keep water crystal clear (but bearing in mind that crystal clear water does not means good quality water!)

Thanks for the help.

Warm regards.

[brendan_toh]

I am using 2 pieces of 8W Osram "twister" florescent light (see my earlier post) and I am getting lots of algae. Need to harvest twice a week. Cheers.

Thats interesting, you are able to get successful rate on just 8W Osram FL. Seems like its a good news if its really working, lower watts means lower cost. heh

[SantaMonica]

Loowk: Your flow should be very good with that pump, but your problem is 24 hours of too much light (65W CFL has been reported to be too big a bulb). Do this:

Start by putting a timer on your lights, so they are off 6 hours per day. Never should the bulbs be on 24 hours. Next, either move those bulbs farther away (20cm from screen), OR, keep the bulbs near the screen, but use two smaller bulbs (33W CFL) on each side, so that the light is spread out across the screen more evenly and not concentrated in the middle.

Next: Get some CFL reflectors for all the bulbs, like these:

http://www.hydroleaf.com/categoryview.do?cat_id=107

You can use foil temporarily.

Cleaning: If this is the only filter in your system, clean one side at a time in the sink in FW. This will prevent nutrient spikes. You can clean the whole thing every time if you want, but you might get a nutirent spike for a day or so until it grows back. The trick to preven spikes is to cut the screen vertically, so you have two separate screens. That way you can remove and clean one at a time, and you will always have one doing the filtering.

Reeffish: No, you don't need to do anything special.

[brojj]

Loowk: Your flow should be very good with that pump, but your problem is 24 hours of too much light (65W CFL has been reported to be too big a bulb). Do this:

Start by putting a timer on your lights, so they are off 6 hours per day. Never should the bulbs be on 24 hours. Next, either move those bulbs farther away (20cm from screen), OR, keep the bulbs near the screen, but use two smaller bulbs (33W CFL) on each side, so that the light is spread out across the screen more evenly and not concentrated in the middle.

Next: Get some CFL reflectors for all the bulbs, like these:

http://www.hydroleaf.com/categoryview.do?cat_id=107

You can use foil temporarily.

Cleaning: If this is the only filter in your system, clean one side at a time in the sink in FW. This will prevent nutrient spikes. You can clean the whole thing every time if you want, but you might get a nutirent spike for a day or so until it grows back. The trick to preven spikes is to cut the screen vertically, so you have two separate screens. That way you can remove and clean one at a time, and you will always have one doing the filtering.

Reeffish: No, you don't need to do anything special.

[brojj]

Bro SM, thks for the reply.

[SantaMonica]

Successes Update:

Labperck on the AR site, translated from Spanish as best possible: "My system is 130 liters, DIY skimmer, 5 pounds of live rock, aragonite substrate 3-4 cm, 1 crossbow bursa fish, 2 percula clowns, and 2 feather dusters. Nitrate remained at 40 mg/l with changes in water of 20 percent a week. With changes in water 20 percent weekly, there was no noticeable improvements. Started with the vodka method, nitrates lowered to 30 mg/l, with no change of water for 2 months. The display was filled with filamentous algae and cyano. Then I found this scrubber and decided to try it. Installed lighting on both sides, and started turning off the skimmer at night. A week later, the nitrates are at zero, and the water is more crystalline. For now I'm very happy with this filter, thank you SantaMonica, JulioVideo, and all those who put their advice."

Emporador on the AR site, translated from Spanish as best possible: "Best of all is that today is the first time in my life watching the NO3 test Salifert no3 = 0 ... I can not really believe. Apart from all my efforts to maintain a good filter system, this really gives the expected results."

RiaanP on the MASA site: "Scrubber is now over 3 months old, Phosphates and Nitrates used to be sky high, but now I got no PO4 or NO3 problems."

MarkM3 on the RS site: "Just want to say thanks to Santa Monica. i begin my double-screen 2 month ago for 180 gal heavey load fish, and few soft, lps corals, and i always had 80-100 nitrates from havey stock fish. and now for the first time in 2 years my nitrates level are ((((10 ppm)))) which is amazing, corals are much happier, and pop there polyps more and more, hair algee on the display and rocks almost gone, still have a few red slim but less than before, much more cleanner display and caroline is growing too. its true, its active, its working the algee scrubberrrrrrrrr. go go go gooooo so thanks again."

SimonSKL on the MD site: "Just an update. I have started my ATS [2 months ago] but changed screen material about 5 weeks ago. Today, I am happy to say all cyano have disappeared from my tank and 95% of the hair algae are gone also. I have to add that I did change the water flow pattern by modifying two of my Maxijet 1200 with the Sure Flow adaptors. One pushes 2100gph and the other 1600gph, in a wavemaking mode. The screens that I now used are plastic canvas and doubled layers. I am still getting really dark brown algae growing on the screens and cleaning them about every 5-6 days. "

Glock339 on the UR site: "I [originally] set up my current nano to be Miracle Mud eco system. However I never actually got round to planting any algae in the MM, as I set up an algae scrubber and my params went perfect in a few weeks. so I' happy with things the way they are and probably shouldnt have bothered with the MM. Dunno if this helps but I'd defo recommend considering a scrubber to anyone wanting to ditch the skimmer and phos reactor."

MyFishEatYourFish on the MFK site: "update. nitrates undetectable with my test strips, so probably like 10 ppm, which is half of what i started with, so thats cool. i don't have a phosphate test but algae growth has slowed way way down already and my sand is actually white now, my fish are sooooooo active now its kinda nuts, even my flame angel and blue tang follow me waiting for food. i have nothing but the scrubber on there now and the tank is better than ever! all secondary filteration has been romoved for about a week and everything is continueing to improve. on my sheets brown started and soon turned dark brown with some green patches. i cleaned when the brown was too thick to see the sheet and noticed quite a bit of green underneath. coralline has noticanly increased its growthrate already and algae growth has almost stopped in the display, or my algae eaters eat it faster than it can grow. the rocks "leaked" [phosphate] for just a couple days and now are almost completely nuissance algae free and looking great. i am really impressed with the speed and effectiveness of this thing. i think using fabric really helped because how well the agae spores catch and hold on. in my opinion it is superior to any medium tried yet."

Dragon1188 on the SG site: "Just like to share that i just simply use a piece of plastic sheet (the white color one u can buy from Popular bookshop and quite rough) inclined at 30 degree to catch the return water to my sump. The piece of plastic is lighted by 2x8watt of Philips "tornado" energy saver bulb running 24x7 [should be 18 hours]. The piece of plastic is just 46cm long and 40cm wide. Total water flow over it is about 2000L/hr. My tank and sump volume is 400 L. After 1months, green (both hairy and fern like) and red algae (matt) growing like crazy [on the screen]. Can harvest 1 fistfull every 3 days. I had even removed my phosphate reactor and skimmer. Its been running 4months now and my phosphate is about 0.01ppm and nitrate is 0."

Da_Gopherboy on the 3R site: "I also battled nitrates for a while, my tank was FOLR for a while before I desided to add coral. Since I didn't intend to go in that direction originally nitrates were not my concern. So I was stuck trying to figure out how to drop the nitrates without contant water changes, or buying a denitrator (US Economy makes me poor). I made an ATS scrubber that was fed by my overflow right above my refugium. Nitrates made almost an 80% decrease within less than 2 months."

DangerDave on 3R: "I have been running the turf scrubber close to 4 months now. I haven't done a water change in about 2 months now. I just top the tank off. I do not have to clean the glass every couple hours or everyday. I clean the glass about once or twice a week (I have to clean/scrap the coraline off more than the algae). Coraline has taken off, corals are flourishing, mushrooms are splitting like crazy, everything is doing superb."

[SantaMonica]

Scrubber FAQ 3.5 is now posted:

http://www.algaescrubber.net/forums/viewto...hp?f=9&t=68

[SantaMonica]

Update: Best Ready-To-Use Light

Aside from a custom-made T5H0 light panel (lots of lumens, really near the screen), the best overall light you can buy is something like this outdoor landscaping light:

It's non-rusting, non-corrosive, weatherproof, thin, temperature resistant, compact flourescent, bolt-on, adjustable, and the bulbs are replaced easily:

RAB PLF39 39W CFL Landscape Flood 120V:

http://www.prolighting.com/rabpl39wcfll.html

Housing and Lens: Corrosion and vandal resistant polycarbonate lens and housing.

Lamp: (3) 13W twin tube fluorescent GX23 (Included).

Lens Gasket: High temperature tubular silicone.

Finish: Architectural bronze.

Reflector: Anodized aluminum.

Voltage: 120 volts AC.

Mounting: Adjustable swivel mounting arm with 1/2" thread.

Size: 7.25" (18cm) wide, 9" (23cm) high, 3.5" (9cm) deep

Cost: $67 USD

This one is 39 watts (three bulbs) which is perfect for most screens, but they make smaller 26 and 13 watt (nano) size ones also. These types of light are surely available at larger home improvement stores, I just could not find them. Here are some other types too:

http://lightsofamerica.com/Products/9265.aspx

http://www.allproducts.com/manufacture100/...ng/product3.jpg

http://www.ec-securehost.com/positiveenerg...TING.html#PE565