Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!

[apple123]

Yes see the FAQ below

Hey thanks!! still new ard this site and did not see the FAQ link.

[Eniram]

Apologies, I've typed too fast, just read that my earlier comments were not structured properly...quite confusing to read.

Re-phrase:

In the initial one week, the screen was mainly light brown algae, then thick brown algae and some parts were thick & slimy. Then nearer the end of 2nd week, after one freshwater spray, more and more green algae starts to appear on the screen. But l do have some nuisance algae still appearing on my main tank. During those two weeks or since end Dec 09 when my tank was set up, no skimmer was used, no FR, no water change, same feeding with pellets and frozen food, new fishes were added, just water top up using tapwater (tapwater has 2ppm NO3). NO3 then was slightly higher than 50ppm based on color (using salifert). Today, the reading was 25ppm!!

Hey there underwater great to see that your scrubber is showing results. So far i've been running mine for a month now and N03 still hanging around 100 but will keep running it till i see some drop in N03. Not giving up.

[SantaMonica]

Growth is the key. If it grows thick, nutrients have to come down.

[SantaMonica]

Finally here is a presentable acrylic scrubber box:

Video of box:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_FEncUGDY

Here is the diagram if you want to build it:

Full size: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/100.jpg

Specs:

o 25 inches long (63.5 cm)

o 7.25 inches wide (18.4 cm)

o 6.5 inches tall (16.5 cm) with cover, or 6.25 inches tall (15.9 cm) without cover.

o Much stronger filtering compared to CFL-powered screens of same area and wattage.

o Very strong stand-alone filtering for a 50 gallon high-load reef tank.

o Good stand-alone filtering for a 100 gallon medium-load reef tank.

o Supplementary filtering for a 180 gallon medium-load reef tank.

o 100 square inches (645 square cm) of growable two-sided screen area, not counting the part that goes into the pipe.

o This is a high-performance scrubber, packed into a small space (which is what I wanted for the limited space under my tank). There is no wasted light; 100 percent of the light hits the screen, and is only 1.5 inches from the screen.

o The light is the same distance from the screen, from one end of the screen to the other.

o It works equally well in Fresh or Salt (but not for planted-only tanks).

o The all-black acrylic blocks out almost all light from escaping.

o The lid stops any evaporation or cooling. If you do want evaporation and cooling, just leave the lid off. If you wants LOTS of evaporation and cooling, put a fan on it. It will light up the whole room, however.

o The recommended four bulbs (Current Nova Extreme model 1127) deliver about 100 watts (8000 lumens) of flourescent light. If less filtering (and less power consumption) is needed, bulbs can be removed to give you about 75, 50 or 25 watts of lighting. (You cannot reduce the flow, however)

o The unit is only 6.5 inches (16.5 cm) tall. Only a few more inches are needed above this to be able to lift out the pipe/screen.

o Has a water-tight drain which allows the unit to be placed on top of the tank, or even on a shelf, where it can drain back to the display.

o Requires 800 GPH (after head loss). Do not skimp on GPH, because the long pipe will not fill with enough water if you do. An Eheim 1260 pump works good if the scrubber is down in the sump area, but if you put the scrubber up high on a shelf above the tank, something bigger like an Eheim 1262 would be needed. I have and use both of these pumps. At the sump level, there is not much difference in flow between these two pumps, but when you have to pump up to a shelf above the display, the extra power of the 1262 (or similar) would be needed.

o The 22 inch (55.9 cm) wide screen allows much more water flow to be filtered for the same screen area; this gives more filtering per hour than a narrow screen of the same area.

o The long T5HO bulbs distribute the light evenly from one side of the screen to the other, and are only 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) from the screen. So there are no "burned" spots in the middle of the screen as there can be with CFL bulbs (because they put all the light into one spot).

o The box allows water to "pool" at the bottom when the algae gets thick. This creates algae that is floating in this turbulent pool, and lets the algae get more three dimensional, which lets water flow throughout the algae strands. This creates more filtering than just a flat sheet of algae.

o The top shelf keeps water from dripping on the lights when you take the screen out, and it also holds the lights in place.

o The bottom shelf keeps water from splashing up from the sump onto the lights, and also makes a wide base to keep the scrubber stable. The lights sit on this shelf.

o Replace the bulbs every 3 months. Most any K bulb below 6500 should work (including plant-grow bulbs), but F24T5HO/830 are suggested and are $7.99 from here:

http://www.bulbs.com/eSpec.aspx?ID=14267

o Clean your pump (run in pure vinager for a hour) every 3 months to make sure the flow stays high. If there is no longer a swirling "pool" on the bottom of the scrubber, then your pump needs cleaning.

[Eniram]

Growth is the key. If it grows thick, nutrients have to come down.

Hi SM may i ask if growth is the key then i shouldn't be cleaning my scrubber so often?

So far the growth on my scrubber is rather alright, there are green and brown and now i notice patches of red. Unless i change my bulb to a higher wattage and up the flow rate?

Oh solid design on the srubber box

[SantaMonica]

Growth, in 7 days, is key. Any more time and the bottom layers die.

Post pics of the red.

[Eniram]

Hi SM sorry about the delay in uploading pics of the red algae. I noticed that there are some patches of bald spots on the scrubber,i back tracked on the thread and believe it must be the pods that ate the algae thus creating patches of bald spots.

So pls advice, do i still clean the screen within 7 days? will this reduce the pods population? (have a mandarin in main tank)

Another thing that really bothers me is that you mentioned growth is the key, so far the algae is not growing as rapid as some of the earlier reefers post and i'm not getting where the top layer will out grow the bottom layer.

My scrubber is just covered with algae and its like nicely growing flat, no layer effect and NO3 is still at 100.

[SantaMonica]

Pics

[SantaMonica]

Ok here is a finished version:

Lid on:

Lid off:

[SantaMonica]

Video:

[peacemaker]

Neat DIY! Lets see it running.

[hotsoup]

very professional done. Great job

[SantaMonica]

Video soon.

[Eniram]

Pics

Hi SM here are the pics of what i mentioned earlier on my post

As you can see some small patches of bald spots

[SantaMonica]

pics of everthing else.

[SantaMonica]

Cleaning: Here is an updated cleaning video:

[sherman]

Very neat.Good concept.

[Eniram]

SM i know you ask me in the earlier post to post some pics about my scrubber here it is.

The funny thing after cleaning the scrubber green algae doesn't grow as fast as before and now its just light brown algae growth. Could it be the pods eating away the green ones?

[SantaMonica]

The funny thing after cleaning the scrubber green algae doesn't grow as fast as before and now its just light brown algae growth. Could it be the pods eating away the green ones?

Pods are only a problem after 7 days. If it's turning brown, it means the scrubber is not strong enough to keep up with how much you are feeding.

How large is your system? How much feeding?

What is in the sump?

Is this still true:

Lamp: 15W Warm White CFL (shine on the center of the screen)

Size: 7" x 12"

Run time: 16hrs on 08hrs off

[Eniram]

Pods are only a problem after 7 days. If it's turning brown, it means the scrubber is not strong enough to keep up with how much you are feeding.

How large is your system? How much feeding?

What is in the sump?

Is this still true:

Lamp: 15W Warm White CFL (shine on the center of the screen)

Size: 7" x 12"

Run time: 16hrs on 08hrs off

Yup specs still the same no change!

My system is a 100G reef tank the only thing in my sump is my skimmer that's about it.

I feed my fishes 2 times a day.

[SantaMonica]

Ok easy to see the problem. Your screen is too small. Your wattage is too little. Your run time is too short.

The recommendation is 1 square inch double sided per gallon. Yours is 144 inches, single sided. So add another bulb on the other side.

The recommendation is 0.5 watts per gallon (actual, not equivalent) minimum, and 1.0 watts per gallon for high performance. Yours is 0.15. So replace that bulb with at least a 33 watts (actual, not equivalent), and preferably a 45 watts. Then put the same on the other side. These are strong bulbs so they'll need to be about 6-7 inches from the screen.

The recommended run time is 18 hours ON, and 6 hours off. Change yours.

This fill fix it.

[snowy85]

is there any LFS that sells a pre made one?

[SantaMonica]

No

[Eniram]

Ok easy to see the problem. Your screen is too small. Your wattage is too little. Your run time is too short.

The recommendation is 1 square inch double sided per gallon. Yours is 144 inches, single sided. So add another bulb on the other side.

The recommendation is 0.5 watts per gallon (actual, not equivalent) minimum, and 1.0 watts per gallon for high performance. Yours is 0.15. So replace that bulb with at least a 33 watts (actual, not equivalent), and preferably a 45 watts. Then put the same on the other side. These are strong bulbs so they'll need to be about 6-7 inches from the screen.

The recommended run time is 18 hours ON, and 6 hours off. Change yours.

This fill fix it.

Thx will do!

[SantaMonica]

Successes:

LethargicCoder on the MOFIB site: "A little update to [the] post I made a year ago today. I had removed the skimmer from this [33 gal] tank when I added the scrubber, and I have only done 1 water change on the tank since then. I had said "starting nitrates...let's just say they're high", that meant off the chart even after diluting with RO water. Tonight I tested the water and it looks like it's under 5ppm. All that showed up on the screen for months was brown sludge. After 7-8 months, it finally started looking green but no significant growth, but algae did start showing up around my overflow and return pipe and sump. I assume nitrates were too high to grow algae before this point. Algae is now green and growing some volume, not rubbery, and more like typical hair algae. With some water changes and better bulbs, I'm sure I could have shortened this process but I really wanted to see what it would do with nothing but [screen] cleaning. I think with the results of this, I'll be going with an algae scrubber instead of a skimmer on the 135g tank that will hopefully replace this tank soon."

Kidult on the scrubber site: "There are brown dense algae growing on my algaescrubber. I scrape my scrubber one time a week. I suppose that i did something wrong, because it's running for more than 2 months and PO4 is 0,34mg/l (hanna). how many time it will take to go PO4 down from 0.36 to 0? [...] One scraping for 3 days. After last advice (1 scrape for 3 days) my tank achieved PO4 0.07 (hanna) from 0.36 about 4 weeks ago. [...] Po4 is 0.02 (hanna) No3 is 0 (salifert) Thank You All!"

Chrissu on the scrubber site: "the heart of my ATS is a 24"x24" screen that keeps the ammonia at 0, the nitriate at 0, and my nitrates hover between 0-25 depending on how much I feed my fish. They get to eat VERY well now that I have the ATS. I've been able to eliminate my macro algae, DSB, and protein skimmer from my sump without issue (makes maintenance a breeze now)."

Rosenaa on the scrubber site: "My tank looks great since I set up my ATS and the corals are feeding in the water colum many times. Readings are all zero and just a little algae on the stones (due to phospate leaking out I guess)"

Rainer_Feyer on the RC site: "the scrubber is blowing my mind! I have really no [nuisance] algae left - very little, and hope a little bit stays forever so I don't have to separately feed the snails. Water is clear, no yellowing at all. And, still am only doing 5gal water change every 3 weeks - that's it (75g tank w/ 20g fuge which is really the scrubber)"

Markjack on the UR site: "[scrubber is] best thing iv'e ever done for my tank. saves you a small fortune in phos and nitrate removers"

Pengelli on the UR site: "I have been running [a scrubber] for about a year. I think they are brilliant. I have brilliant parameters and not a glimpse of nuisance algae."

Gigaah on the LR site: "Day 6 - The green [scrubber] algae really just started filling in. I also got a bit of a nitrite/nitrate spike. I had to take my HOB filter off line to get this [scrubber] running. I suspected and was ready for that. Nitrite .50, Nitrate 40. Did 10 percen water change. Day 8 Nitrite = less than .25 (not quite zero tho), Nitrate= 30, I am happy to report that all algae from the sand and glass is GONE! some on the rocks yet but I understand the phosphate rock leech thing is probably the reason. Day 14 Ammonia = 0, Nitrite = 0, Nitrate = 20. Screens are filling in better but not even half full. Day 17

Ammonia = 0, Nitrite = 0, Nitrate = 10. End of week 4: Nitrates are ZERO and my tank is stocked pretty high and was stocked pretty fast."

Reeffish on the SG site: "After running this [scrubber] for nearly 10 months for my 3 foot [tank], i have not look back since. It has solve my high NO3 & PO4 problem. From [over] 100 to 3 mg/L (NO3), and [over] 3 to 0.03 mg/L (PO4), both using salifert test kit; live rocks [were] covered with red algae; [now] live rocks covered with purple coralline algae; tank [had] algaes growing everywhere, to [now] a spotless one, it is really amazing. Thanks for this wonderful info. A short info to others on my setup, dedicated aquabee 1000 to supply water to my vertical screen, 8" by 10" (a bit under size). Took me 1 hours to rough up both sides of the screen. Two 24W Philips Tornado, one on each side running 18hrs a day. Cool daylight. Clean the screen every 5 days. Took me 2 months to see NO3 & PO4 results dropping. No magic here, i follow Bro SM recommendations closely and of course, patience. Good luck to all who wants to give this alternative method a try."

Murrman1969 on the WTF site: "Here it goes. I started with nitrates in my 180 salt tank of over 240 ppm which is a dark orange colour indicator on my test kit. Here is a picture of what the colour was. The picture does it no justice it was actually almost burgundy. So I did some research and this is what I came up with for an in-sump design and one for an external container [scrubber] design. The nitrates in my tank now are non existent."

Russel_P on the TR site: "Well my scrubber has finally gotten NO3 levels to zero. The only complaint I have is cleaning it. The algae (more like moss) grows in a large thick sheet that all wants to come off at once when I clean it. I bet I could pull a pound of algae of of it in one cleaning. No yellowing of water, though I do run a small H&S skimmer. The display tank went from a forest of bryopsis to no visible algae. I am building more for every rack in my shop."

Scottt on the MB site: "I built one for my small clownfish hatchery after reading this thread. It keeps the nitrates down (between 0 and 15) without any water changes. I use a skimmer and a filter bag also, as it is a hatchery, with tonnns of food input. I don't have any pics of my current scrubber. Its just a piece of plexi-glass at a 15 degree angle, sanded and drilled. I keep it ~10" below a 150w HPS."

Desertdawg on the SWF site: "I get about a handful of algae off of it every week, so far the water levels are staying almost perfect with just this scrubber and no other filtration or a skimmer running!!!"

Bridgeport on the scrubber site: "I set up my first turf scrubber [6 months ago] after reading through this site. Its gone through many changes since then as I did not have the right flow, lighting, or screen roughness to start. I finally adjusted all those problems and now the screen is growing thick light green algae. I did this project as an experiment and set it up on a ten gallon saltwater tank. I was plagued with red hair algae outbreaks in the ten gallon, and my 55 gallon tank. My plan was to start the algae scrubber on the ten gallon and then switch it over to the 55 gallon. I decided against this and have built another scrubber for the 55 (not in operation yet). The screen on the ATS for my 10 gallon was rather overkill. It is 11in. wide by 8in. height. Although it took a while to get it going because the bio load was very low, it is now working very well. I always clean the screen every weekend. It only takes a couple of minutes and is very easy. My ten gallon tank is now algae free(phos. near 0) and doing very well. As a matter of fact, I have been taking live rock from my 55gal which is still plagued with Red Algae, and putting them in the ten gallon to clean them off. I have done this several times and it has worked well."

Nrosdal on the scrubber site: "i have had an ats going for about 4-5 months and am finally happy with my design and the results that it is giving me, so i figured that i would post a thread with pics from along the way. i would love to say that my tank clearing up is only due to the ats but there are other factors (vodka dosing/more water changes) that also did contribute. But i can definately say that the ats is the biggest contributing factor in my tanks successfully staying free from green and my N and P staying within a reasonable range. [...] i was getting a little better growth of algae and doing 1-2 water changes a week, also changed bulbs to 6500k from the standard ones and put the scrubber on its own timer so that i could have it on for 18hrs as opposed to 12. over the next few weeks i saw some serious improvements in growth on my ats and noticed that the algae in the display was not growing back after my snails/crabs cleaned it. fast forward to today and the tank has been clear of algae (except for on 1 coral that the snails dont like to touch) for about a month now and even has a slight purple hue to it as opposed to green. Corals are slowly popping back out of the rock... and i have my latest version of the scrubber up and running for a week now (same screen just new lighting/box setup)."

Wormside on the spanish AR site, Google translated from Spanish: "From the beginning I had problems with algae in [my] tank, [i bought] a better skimmer (ASM G2) as recommended, but [it] was not so drastic a change as when I put the scrubber. I was running both for a while, about 3 months, and the algae began to disappear; the fourth month I broke my pump sedra (the skimmer) and since then the tank is with pure scrubber. The change to the tank to operate only with the scrubber is impressive; zero abolutamente algae in the display anything! Another thing [] is that now only change the water every month, and now it takes 2 months without water change, and everything perfect. Add course trace elements, Strontium and Molybdenum, Iodine, every week or 15 days , BioDigest Bioptima and in principle every 15 days, but now, every month. I saved a good salt water changes, and unlike [with] the skimmer, I have no saltwater replace []. Also saves energy because the Sedra I used 35w or something and I also heat the water, [but without skimmer] when the quite, low temperature 1 or 2 degrees []. Well many things are good [] we brought the scrubber, is incredible as simple as effective."

Labperck on the Spanish AR site, translated: "my tank is 8 months without a skimmer and water changes only, with the algal and some charcoal, and going very well my PO4 levels 0 and no3 to 0"

Lugac on the spanish AR site, translated: "After 2 months of use to me is working great, nitrates had stalled at 15 mg/l and sometimes climbed to 25 mg/l, and install the [scrubber] after that I went down to 10 mg/L, after a 5 mg/L and Last weekend are at 2 mg/L, I'm on the verge of leaving them to zero. As for phosphates, had at 0.1 mg/l and install the [scrubber] as quickly dropped to .03 mg/L."

Antonioalvarez on the spanish AR site, translated: "After 15 years of struggling with high phosphates and nitrates in the clouds, alone in my aquarium fish, I read about the algae scrubber [] and I decided to build it following the instructions:

Oct 24 2009: Build Algal Scrubber; pipe 3/4 inch, screen 30x40cm, pump 840 Gal/H and a pair of 55-watt bulbs 6500K savers. Water values for the time:

NH4, NH3 = 0

NO2= 0

NO3= 20 mg/l

PO4= 0.1

Oct 26 2009: The first and second day started sprouting weeds.

Nov 1 2009: Significant growth was observed.

Nov 2 2009: First harvest only one side of the screen.

Nov 9 2009: We measured parameters:

NH4, NH3 = 0

dNO2= 0

NO3= 20 mg/l

PO4= 0.05

Half Phosphates, Nitrates remain.

Nov 25 2009: Measured parameters remain the same, is harvested the screen. Bio-Balls delete, delete, mechanical filters, remove sand substrate and 25% water change. Measured parameters:

NH4 NH3 = 0

NO2= 0

NO3= 10mg/l

PO4= 0.25

The measures gave results.

Dec 1 2009: I introduce to my tank live rock cured for 30 days previously. Measured parameters:

NH4= 0

NO2= 0

NO3= 7.5 mg/l

PO4= 0.25

Dec 9 2009: It is harvested and measured parameters:

NH4 NH3 = 0

NO2= 0

NO3= 0 mg/l

PO4= 0

PH= 8

Temp= 25-26

TOTAL HAPPINESS!!! and remains so values.