- Location
- Baiting Hollow Long Island NY
I received a PM from a member here wanting to know about my algae trough. For years my reef has been plagued by cycles of Hair algae lasting a few months and occuring every couple of years.
After I built and installed this algae trough 6 or 7 years ago It has never happened.
The trough is basically a 4X4" PVC fence post sold by Home Depot or a fence place. I sliced it in half longways with a circular saw which left me with a 2" deep trough or tray. I made an end cap on one side out of a piece of the PVC that I cut off and glued it on with GOOP glue.
On one long side of the trough I installed a long plastic angle that is used to protect corners of walls from damage. It is also sold in Home Depot or hardware stores and is very cheap and common. I think they are called Corner protectors. I screwed that on one long side of the trough on a slight angle. That corner protector sits on the back top edge of the tank and allows the trough to sit just above the water in the back of the tank. The side that gets fed by water is about 1/2" higher than the end that just about touches the water so that the water flows back to the tank.
The front part of the trough, in my tank at least is suspended from above but that may not be possable in many installations and a different way will have to be fabricated.
So the trough sits on the back edge of the tank, slightly on an angle.
The lights are a few inches above. The trough gets "waste" light that would just go to light the back of the tank.
In the trough is a plastic window screen that has cement infused on it. To do that, I just mix some cement and smear it on the screeen. After it cures in a day I do it again. You need to do that a few times to get some cement to stick. Algae loves cement. That should cure in water for a week or two.
I feed water to the trough brom my skimmer to the higher side. The water flows 5' to the other side of the trough over the screen and returns back to the water. The screen extends to the water a little to eliminats any splashing. Algae grows on the trough instead of the tank because there is better growing conditions there. It is right near the lights, the water is flowing fast and it is very shallow.
It uses no power because it "borrows" power from other things in the tank that are using power anyway.
If I need to clean off excess algae, I roll up the screen and remove it to brush off excess algae.
This is the trough looking from the higher side. That pipe is the feed.
Last edited:
