Algae Turf Scrubber Build Thread

So I have talked my husband into helping me build an algae turf scrubber. YAY!! I've seen a lot of talk on here about how effective they are at keeping nitrates and phosphates down and keeping parameters stable, but it's difficult trying to figure out how to actually get or build these things. It looks like these are mostly done DIY....

But we are good at DIY, so that's OK.

Wikipedia helped show me how to make them Algae scrubber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

However, it is still slightly confusing, and I am wondering about the plumbing. We are thinking we might have to get a pump for this thing to run as it's own filter system, because we have already glued in the pipe and the flow to the refugium isn't set up to go at 350gph (we will need that because with our tank and sump we're at 100 gallons and recommended flow for ATS is 3.5 X total #gallons in system). We are going to install the ATS in our refugium, because that's the only place it will fit with our sump design. I am just wondering if there is anyone else out there who has a separate pump for the ATS, or does that sound practical?

And I'm also going to update with pics as we get this thing built.

 

Hello,

Lot's of ATS's are powered by their own pump and can be plumbed into a system 100 different ways. Your refugium and ATS will compete for nutrients as you know with your research. Feed your ATS with as dirty aquarium water as you can and let refugium become pod farm Diy will be fun for you both.....good stuff

 

Not sure if you found this thread or not, but it's got a pretty thorough description on DIY ATS construction. http://www.3reef.com/forums/i-made/algae-scrubber-basics-117137.html

Good luck!

 

Hey, thanks for the replies! That thread is also very helpful! We put in our turf scrubber yesterday, so here are some photos describing what we did.

First, my husband designed the ATS in CAD

We decided to put the ATS on its own pump (Mag 3) because we did not originally design our system around the concept of including an ATS (it was something of an afterthought)...



We decided to use flex hose instead of hard plumbing everything like in the CAD drawing. Flex hose is easier to adjust since we now have a ton of things going on in our little sump cabinet. At this point we realized the lights weren't quite right, so we had to figure out a way to get them closer to the ATS.


So we put a shower rod in our cabinet and put the lights on it.



We looked up at the DT and there were a ton of microbubbles, so we had to put a little piece of acrylic in to act as a baffle. It's keeping the bubbles out for now. At first we didn't have the right kind of lights, so I went and got some 100 watt 23 CFL lights from home depot today and put those on the in the ATS lamps (timer is set for them to run from 5pm until 11am). Hopefully we will start seeing some growth, but I don't have a whole lot of life in the tank yet. We have 3 astrea snails, 2 hermit crabs, and a coral banded shrimp. So far they are all doing really good. We have a 75 gallon tank with 30 gallon sump, so I based everything for the ATS on 100 gallons.

 

looks great!

 

I can't tell from the pic but is the screen dropping into the water? If it's in the water a couple of inches it will help reduce the bubbles and any noise you might have.

 

Thread is from 2012.

 

lol yes I noticed after I posted in it..........I had followed a link here from another thread.

 

Sounds awesome.
I just came across this article and I kind of like the approach.