Lowest cost and easiest way to eliminate green hair, bubble, turf and slime algae

Discussion in 'Algae' started by SantaMonica, May 6, 2012.

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  1. chum

    chum Coral Banded Shrimp

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    Location:
    west chester, pa
    my aquaripure nitrate filters keep clogging up no matter how much i tinker with them. i am getting to the point where i may change to a ats. seems like the way to go for my fish only system.
     
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  3. Servillius

    Servillius Montipora Digitata

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    Location:
    Houston, Texas.
    I've been using Santa Monica scrubbers for a few months. I've been reefing fairly successfully for a fair while now. Once these things kicked in, I've been giddy with excitement at how well they work and how easy they make keeping everything happy.

    Just for fun, some algae.

    image.jpeg
     
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  4. chum

    chum Coral Banded Shrimp

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    west chester, pa
    i have a 125 gallon fish only that gets feed 4 times a day. should i use one surf 4 or two surf 2 units ? it seems like with 2 units i could have continue filtration.
     
  5. SantaMonica

    SantaMonica Fire Shrimp

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    Location:
    Santa Monica, CA, USA
    Wow that's some filtration growing there.

    As for one or two filters, the answer is that it's always better to have two smaller instead of one bigger filter, so that one is still filtering after you clean the other(s).

    How big of a scrubber you need, depends on how much you feed; not gallons of water or how often you feed. Also, each 50 pounds of nuisance algae problem rock adds one cube a day to the feeding:

    Scrubbers are sized according to feeding. Nutrients "in" (feeding) must equal nutrients "out" (scrubber growth), no matter how many gallons or liters you have. So...

    An example VERTICAL upflow or waterfall screen size is 3 X 4 inches = 12 square inches of screen (7.5 X 10 cm = 75 sq cm) with a total of 12 real watts (not equivalent) of fluorescent light for 18 hours a day. If all 12 watts are on one side, it is a 1-sided screen. If 6 watts are on each side, it is a 2-sided screen, but the total is still 12 watts for 18 hours a day. This screen size and wattage should be able to handle the following amounts of daily feeding:

    1 frozen cube per day (2-sided screen), or
    1/2 frozen cube per day (1-sided screen), or
    10 pinches of flake food per day (2-sided screen), or
    5 pinches of flake food per day (1-sided screen), or
    10 square inches (60 sq cm) of nori per day (2-sided screen), or
    5 square inches (30 sq cm) of nori per day (1-sided screen), or
    0.1 dry ounce (2.8 grams) of pellet food per day (2-sided screen), or
    0.05 dry ounce (1.4 grams) of pellet food per day (1-sided screen)

    High-wattage technique: Double the wattage, and cut the hours in half (to 9 per day). This will get brown screens to grow green much faster. Thus the example above would be 12 watts on each side, for a total of 24 watts, but for only 9 hours per day. If growth starts to turn YELLOW, then increase the flow, or add iron, or reduce the number of hours. And since the bulbs are operating for 9 hours instead of 18, they will last 6 months instead of 3 months.

    HORIZONTAL screens: Multiply the screen size by 4, and the wattage by 1 1/2. Flow is 24 hours, and is at least 35 gph per inch of width of screen [60 lph per cm], EVEN IF one sided or horizontal.

    FLOATING SURFACE SCRUBBERS WITH RIBBONS: Screen size is the size of the box (Lenth X Width), and is 2-sided because the ribbons grow in 3D.

    LEDs: Use half the wattage as above. 660nm (red) is best. You can mix in a little 450nm (blue) if you want.

    Very rough screen made of roughed-up-like-a-cactus plastic canvas, unless floating surface, which would use gravel and strings instead.

    Clean algae:

    Every 7 to 21 days, or
    When it's black, or
    When it fills up, or
    When algae lets go, or
    When nutrients start to rise
     
  6. Todd_Sails

    Todd_Sails Giant Squid

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    Location:
    A Texan in S.E. Wisconsin
     
  7. Todd_Sails

    Todd_Sails Giant Squid

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    Location:
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    I thought I'd chime in and post my latest pic just before scraping with my plastic puddy knife

    [​IMG]

    This was today- about 2 weeks worth
    Mine is those needle point plastic sheets, 13.5 x 11.5 ? I think.
    I'm using 2 of them vertically, lit on both sides with 100W equivalent CFL house bulbs- 2700K, 20 hrs on,
    4 hrs off.

    My only regret, was not building this sooner/years ago!

    My water is clearer, algae essentilaly disappeared, no chemicals, GFO, chemipure, etc.

    Here's my ATS Build thread- DIY- no commercial plugs for me
    http://www.3reef.com/threads/todds-ats-build.158942/page-6#post-1598577
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2016
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  9. SantaMonica

    SantaMonica Fire Shrimp

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    Jun 15, 2008
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    Location:
    Santa Monica, CA, USA
  10. SantaMonica

    SantaMonica Fire Shrimp

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2008
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    312
    Location:
    Santa Monica, CA, USA
    Cleaning Off Slime On New Scrubbers

    When scrubbers are new, they will almost always first develop a slimey first layer of growth. This is because diatoms and dino's, which make up most of the slime, are the quickest to be able to "colonize" a new surface, sort of like weeds in a new garden.

    This slime layer will not get any thicker, however, because slime cannot attach well (it has no "roots") to the growth surfaces of the scrubber, and thus will get washed away when it gets thick, Also, it prevents green hair algae from attaching because of the slippery texture of the slime.

    So when your scrubber is new, be sure to take it to the sink and use a toothbrush to clean all the slime off of the growth surfaces so you can see all white surfaces again. You could clean it while still in your tank if you don't mind the slime particles floating around, but most people would probably do better to take it to the sink (or outside; slime makes great fertilizer). Slime, especially when dark or black, is also an indicator that you can use more watts or hours of light.

    Once you have cleaned off the slime for one or more growth periods, you should start seeing green hair algae take hold.

    [​IMG]
     
  11. SantaMonica

    SantaMonica Fire Shrimp

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    Location:
    Santa Monica, CA, USA
  12. SantaMonicaHelp

    SantaMonicaHelp Astrea Snail

    Joined:
    Dec 30, 2011
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    66
    Location:
    Santa Monica, CA, USA
    Here are some scrubber results I collected:

    "[Scrubber] is working incredible well. Went from constant algae outbreaks (3-4 per year), to no algae at all. 10 yr old 250 gal reef tank, started developing blooms at year 7. Nothing else worked, even breakdown and rebuilds." -- Joe Lopez

    "I recent removed bio-pellets, GFO, and trimmed off a lot of macro algae. Oh yeah, overfeeding now to try and bring up my phosphates. Since removing a bunch of nutrient exporting systems like bio-pellets, GFO, and a second algae scrubber, my [scrubber] has been growing nuts. It's been less then 7 days and I have to remove more. People are surprised when I open up the [scrubber] and show them what I pull out with one hand" -- ReeferEric on the R2R site. pics:

    [​IMG]



    "I pull a handful out every week" -- Choff on the R2R site.

    "Everything is working great, got two of them on my system" -- Kenneth Salomon

    Dan Budz:

    [​IMG]




    "The [scrubber] is working well" -- JT Powell

    "All I can say about the [scrubber] is WoW. It completely wiped out my severe case of Cyano Bacteria in 4 weeks, it is working like a champ. I was a little skeptical that it would work at first because it's very compact, but I am completely amazed on how great it's working." -- John Quezada

    "My [scrubber] is working great" -- Stefan Kolev

    "Happy to report that the [scrubber] is growing lots of hair algae" -- Kidtango on the R2R site

    "[Scrubber] is growing thick and fast" -- Carl Knowles

    "Boom... 7 days growth from my [scrubber]" -- rdevoe11, pic:

    [​IMG]



    Other pics:

    Matthew Coulthard:

    [​IMG]


    Nicolay Oganesian:

    [​IMG]


    Yuppy Suhandinata:

    [​IMG]

    - C. Smith