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Innovative Marine Aquariums

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


SantaMonica

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Brandon, you make some good points. Actually, the way these are marketed has actually stopped me from getting one. I felt it was a scam the way everything was a canned response and/or something that was so over the top, the claims felt fake. I looked at one for my biocube and decided not to make the purchase and then have off and on considered them again, but it is always the way that these posts seem to be generating from spam-like discussions that has made me really second-guess purchasing one.

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ReeferReefer

Yeah I mean I am sold on algae filtration and would consider building an up flow scrubber if I didn't already have a well established refugium

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chipmunkofdoom2

I definitely agree with some of the more recent comments on the sales pitch here, but I can understand why SM chooses to market in this way.

 

If you think about it, scrubbers are in a tough spot in the hobby. Aside from SantaMonica, there really aren't any major manufacturers of scrubbers out there.. basically your only option is DIY. There have been lots of stories out there of scrubbers not working, but it's impossible to tell if that's because they don't work on principle, or because the person just did a poor and inefficient DIY. Additionally, at least in the hobby, the idea of turf scrubbers is relatively new. So in addition to trying to convince people to buy his product, SantaMonica also has to convince people that turf scrubbers do actually work. It feels like a daytime TV commercial because it is... they do outrageous things on those commercials and grossly oversell because they not only have to sell you the product, they have to convince you the product works as well. To top all this off, we already have many methods of nutrient export that are not without their foibles, but have documented success. That's not to say that scrubbers don't work (I believe they do), but when confronted with this type of sales pitch, I think a lot of people would prefer to stick with what they know.

 

I was actually considering getting a scrubber from SantaMonica, either the drop in or HOG variety. I don't have a sump, however, and without a good place to put it, I'm going to hold off on getting one. Like I said, I believe that scrubbers work and that they're an effective filtration method. I'm not sure how I would market this better... but I can understand the difficult place that scrubbers in general and SantaMonica are in.

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  • 1 month later...
SantaMonica

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.

 

SlimePics.jpg

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 months later...

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:

 

UasReeferEricOnR2R-1.jpg

 

 

 

"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:

 

UasDanBudz-1.jpg

 

 

 

 

"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:

 

UasRdevoe11onR2R-1.jpg

 

 

 

Other pics:

 

Matthew Coulthard:

 

UasMatthewCoulthard-1.jpg

 

 

Nicolay Oganesian:

 

UasNicolayOganesian-1.jpg

 

 

Yuppy Suhandinata:

 

UasYuppySuhandinata-1.jpg

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