Algae Scrubber

[ReefFan]

I made an algae scrubber out of a typical styrofoam livestock shipment box. I have panels of eggcrate in there for surface area that algae can grow on with a 24 inch T5 light above it. I have a small pump in my display tank, pumping water up to it and its overflowing back into my tank.

Its been up and running for about 2 weeks now and its become a green swampy environment. I was wondering if this was a good thing. I have noticed coraline algae starting to encrust all over the place in my DT, so that obviously good. The way I understood it, micro algae, as long as its not in your DT, could only be a good thing as its using up the nutrients and eliminating nitrates and phosphates. Is there any reason why this may cause problems for my reef?

 

[Anonymous]

The consensus I think is that algae scrubbers are not the silver bullet some might imagine. If it was Santa Monica that got you started on this idea (it's possible, he flooded a number of boards with his ideas at one stage), then this should give you an idea of what people thought of them on RDO.

http://www.reefs.org/forums/topic123420.html

 

[ReefFan]

Yea, that is the post that first got me interested. But I looked in there today and its not lookin right. Like I said its swampy, green bubbles on the surface. But upon closer look I see that cyano bacteria is everywhere. Its almost more abundant than the micro algae. The cyano has almost completely enveloped the macro I put in there. I'm thinkin i'm just going to take everything out of there and start from scratch or 86 the whole thing. If i could take the panels out and scrub off the algae and cyano, maybe that would be good. I dont know. Maybe the flow into the box is too slow and the stagnation is causing the cyano to grow. It seems that the bloom of coralline in the display tank has halted and my phosphate level may have gone up a bit. Its at .15-.20.

Grr, I thought I had this tank headed in the right direction. Not so sure anymore. Any advice?

 

[Anonymous]

Could you give us a few of the main details for the tank? If you're using an algae scrubber to keep down the nutrients, there might be a simpler way to do it. Tell us about your set up, test results, tank inhabitants, feeding regime etc.

 

[ReefFan]

Could you give us a few of the main details for the tank? If you're using an algae scrubber to keep down the nutrients, there might be a simpler way to do it. Tell us about your set up, test results, tank inhabitants, feeding regime etc.

Actrually things have improved pretty dramatically since the first harvest. I cleaned out 95% of the algae in there and since my nitrates have dropped to dam close to zero for the first time in 15 years. I tested it 3 times and each time the color shade was lighter than the lightest color shown... 1.0 ppm. New pink and maroon is showing up on rock and even my return pipe has pink on it. Pretty surprising considering a month ago almost 3 out of the 4 glass walls were completely enclosed with solid green. Now they are more transparent and clear than green. Also the mandarin fish i bought last week is coming out to hunt the pods that are on the rock. The scrubber is also colonizing a food source for him. So i'm gonna keep this simple, $30 contraption with a light on top it for at least for another harvest.

Tank set up : 75 gallon display tank with 2/3's of live rock volume typical of a 75 gallon tank, I plan to add a final 40 pounds or so. I have a 55 gallon sump and a drip plate with prefilter, carbon/media feeding a trickle chamber with bio balls. Under the bio chamber sits my skimmer pump. Skimmer is a Berlin triple pass XL which stands next to bio chamber. Downstream in the 2nd half of sump sits a box with 3-4 inches of live sand. Eventually I plan to make this large sump space into a display refugium, with snad loving creatures, sea horses maybe and macro algae. My return pump is a Mag 9 submersible.

Tank inhabitants: aside from various lifeforms that came on rock..
1) Large Sailfin Tang (loves grazing on algae)
2) Clarks Clownfish with Host Purple Tip Anenome (they love the thing)
1) Mandarin fish
1) Large feather duster
1) Medium rock covered in blue green mushroom colony
15) small hermits
2) large snails
5) Medium snails
2) Larger blue leg hermits
1) Sea Hare
2) Brown and tan serpent star type guys that came with rock

Thats it so far, going to be adding in more inverts soon as tank is stabilizing.


Feeding Habits:

Morning cube of spirulina brine, frozen cyclops and 5ml of phytoplankton that i squirt from syringe in various places.


Additives:

2 part Alk and Liquid Calcium as needed to keep level 400-420.
Weekly dose of Purple Up.
BiWeekly dose of Reef Trace Elements.
Weekly 10-15 gallon water changes with RO water and either Reef Crystals or Red Sea RO/Reef formula Salt.
Bi Weekly/Monthly Algae Panel Harvest.


Thats pretty much my whole system in a nutshell

 

[bfessler]

JaysReef,

Just wondering how the Algae Scrubber is working out. I am thinking about building one for my tank. From your post it sounds like you have several eggcrate panels in it and slow flow through it. The design I am looking at runns a fast stream of water over a screen suspended above the tank section. This should keep cyano from forming and quickly return the pods and stuff back to the display.

I am interested if you kept your scrubber running and how you like it.

Burt