Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!

[SantaMonica]

Very neat build.. I especially like the adjustability of the lights. The dual screens, with two layers of material each, will work great. Here are my ideas for the next round of adjustments:

1. Most important, like you said, get another bulb in there. If you are feeling good, get two more. 10,000 lumens would be an ultimate goal for those screens. 5000 minimum.

2. Get all the flow on the lit sides, like you said. And if your pump can take it: Drill twice as many holes, so the flow will double again. You can't be fooled by how the screen is "covered" in water. If you double the flow, the screen will still look "covered", but the thickness of the water will be twice, and it will be a big improvement, ESPECIALLY when clumps of algae start blocking flow... you need much more flow in order to get over those clumps without getting blocked.

3. Your tank is starting out with it's own "built in" scrubber (the algae in the display). These situations are the hardest to get started, because the algae in the display has a huge surface area to compete with your little scrubber. So to beat it, your light-power (photosynthesis) in your scrubber must be much stronger that what the algae in the tank is getting from the display lights. This means you might need extra lighting for 3 or 4 months... while beating the display algea... but then you can go back to just 2 (or 3) bulbs of the power you are using.

Overall, very good! Keep with the updates, and clean one screen every 7 days.

 

[Weylin]

My filter has hair algae growing on it. Is this normal ? And will it take care of the nitrates and phospates ? I can see a lot of dust specs growing on it, which are copepods..

 

[Weylin]

Pics

 

[Grog]

Awesome thread Santa Monica for helping monster keepers reduce the impact of heavy bioloads;I've been tooling with plant and algae filtration for years mainly as a result of a book thats been my main aquatic resource called 'Dynamic Aquaria, Building Living Ecosystems' by Walter H. Adey and Karen Loveland. It goes into great detail on how to model most aquatic communities, both fresh and salt, taking an ecological approach and accounting for all the components that make up a system. Algae turf scrubbing is explained in good detail with lots of info on nutrient cycling. I imagine it's been a main resource for zoo caretakers and biologists and anyone trying to model something on a LARGE scale...

 

[chrislxf]

brilliant

 

[SantaMonica]

Yep the Dynamic Aquaria is well know by many scrubber users. Adey's designs, however, were not practical because dumping-bucket designs are too hard to build, and, the screen were not removable (so you had to clean them in-place), which cause yellowing in the water. That's when I thought, there must be an easier way to make water go across a screen.

Weylin I don't think you have green hair algae yet... you have dar, brown slime, which must be cleaned right away... don't wait a week. Dark growth blocks the light, and kills the underlying layers very quick. It's caused by high levels of nutrients. So clean it as soon as there is a layer of dark stuff. After your nutrients come down, the growth will turn green.

 

[SantaMonica]

Update: Empty Spots On Screen

Some people have small spots on the screen, about 1" (25mm) wide, that have no algae; these spots are scattered across the screen (not just near the bulb). These spots are where algae actually WAS growing, but the algae could not hold on, so it let go and went into the water. The reasons the algae could not hold on are:

1. The screen is too smooth (most common problem). No matter what material you use, you should use rough sandpaper to really mess up the surface. If the material is clear (like acrylic; not recommended), you should not be able to see through it at all. If the material is not clear, you should not be able to see a reflection, at all. If the material is a solid sheet, holes should be drilled every 1/4" (6mm)... instead of every inch like many people have tried. With solid sheets, instead of drilling holes, it's better to lay a layer of rug canvas, plasic canvas, shade cloth, or perforated drawer liner, across the surface. You would sand this also.

2. The screen is too thin. Screens should be about 1/4" (6mm) thick. This is thicker than most materials, so you should use two or three pancaked layers of material. This gives the "roots" of the algae more to grab onto.

3. The lights are not being turned off each night (18 hours ON, 6 hours OFF). So the algae grows, but then gets weak because it cannot rest. So it lets go.

4. The flow is too low (the opposite of what you would think). Higher flow delivers more nutrients to the algae (so it can grow strong), and also gives the algae more protection from the light (since the thickness of the water on the screen is more.)

5. The bulbs are actually TOO near, or TOO strong (this is very rare, however). It seems that bulbs that are 60 watt CFL (actual, not equivalent), AND which are 2 inches (5cm) from the screen or less, start to do this. If your flow is strong, then try decreasing the light by either (1) reducing the ON hours, (2) moving the light out to 4", or (3) getting smaller bulbs. But only try one technique at a time.

 

[MyFishEatYourFish]

i have many algae eaters in my display including snails, blue legs, a lawnmower blenny, and sea hair, so i'm hoping as they eat it away it will just come back slower and slower. i have also reduced the time the display light is on to 8 hours, so that should help as well.
i will keep the updates comin. thanks for the comments.

 

[MyFishEatYourFish]

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! i have notice what i think is the rocks leaking nutrients back into the water too.
quick ? my friend and i just set up a new SW 6 weeks or so ago and hes been feeding the bare tank to get some stuff growing. he has tons of green algae that at first look like hair algae but when you look closer it has structure. is this turf algae?
i wish i got to this thread before it started to die

 

[SantaMonica]

Good to hear about the great results on your first tank! On your second tank, if you can scrape it off, it's not turf.