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DIY algae scrubber plans - how do they look?


ajmckay

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Jellyingabout

In theory yes, this is quite an interesting idea, the biggest issues would be getting enough fine bubbles to give you a good skim would limit light hitting the screen and prevent good growth and then there's the practicality of access for maintenance and cleaning as the scrubber screen would have to be in the skimmer body and you'd have to disassemble everything to clean the screen and constantly clean the skimmer body too.

Worth thinking about though.

 

if you take a normal upflow scrubberand put two baffles at the top just bellow the water surface such that the bubbles after flowing through the scrubber are then concentrated into a narrow passageway you avoid the light problem. The you need motion, by putting a collar on the baffle with a run from the air line you can spin the bubbles pretty fast to result in skim.

 

It won't give the same amount of skim as a dedicated skimmer but its plenty when your using the scrubber too

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Interesting modification for an upflow skimmer... Though I can't imagine it being as efficient as a dedicated skimmer because a power skimmer has a pump which forcefully injects micro bubbles into a mixing chamber.. I'm looking to see if there are any videos on this because I probably just don't understand how they would work, though the drawing helps a lot.

 

Overall I think I'm going to stick with the waterfall style - mostly because I think it would be quieter and easier to clean if I use the pivoting design that's been developing in this thread. Plus I like the faster water flow. I don't think there's that big of a cost difference between the two designs because by far the most expensive part is the lighting. A powerhead is probably going to cost similar to a quality air pump, and either can be made using a sheet of acrylic, though I have seen upflow designs made of slightly cheaper materials like food containers or foam lids - but really a sheet of acrylic only costs about $10 (where I live).

 

I've had both upflow and waterfall scrubbers and have personally found upflow to be easiest and cheapest but my tank was much smaller and my upflow algae scrubber screne was only 9"x6" perfect for a few large airstones.

 

If your heart is set on a waterfall scrubber then i'd definitely advise having the first 2 inches of mesh under the spray bar covered with opaque film to stop the spray bar from getting covered in algae. I didn't do this on my first one and it was a pure nightmare to clean it all off.

 

I'd also recommend a little blue, If found when i added blue i didn't get more growth but i got more good growth, more hair algae, with purely reds i was getting a lot of other slimes.

 

 

I do like the idea of adding blue, thanks for your comments on that jelly! Also I've seen some people shield the top of their screens - this is also a good idea. Not sure how I would do it yet, seems like others simply used duct tape, though I'm sure more durable solutions could be incorporated into the design.

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Depending how you assemble the unit, the top of the screen would be above the spill line of the light source.

 

My plans have the heat sinks on black acrylic 'light boxes' attaching them to the splash guards which form the bulk of the units structure which would limit the light spill up and down and leave only the middle of the screen bathed in light.

Also having actual spray bars a centimetre or so off the screen either side as opposed to the screen hanging from a slit in the water supply pipe should prevent the spray bars clogging as the screen doesn't touch the spray bar.

 

This is a link to a photo of my uplift scrubber in my fluval edge mini sump I built. Go to the FB page for more detail on how it worked.

https://www.facebook.com/321400347996727/photos/pcb.386151921521569/386149454855149/?type=1&theatre

 

You can make an uplift scrubber with just a light source at the side of your sump and a screen placed the other side, but like my mini sump scrubber the sump wall will green up and require regular cleaning and ideally you want some way to contain excess light from spilling around your screen and greening up everything in that sump chamber. You also only get one sided growth so it's only half as efficient as a waterfall system you can light both sides of.

Thinking on the skimmer scrubber combo, there's a video at the top of the FB page of the MK3 version of my mini sump running a fresh water test on the skimmer. The skimmer collection cup lifts completely out which would allow you to lift a screen out and reach in to clean the side of the unit. If it was set up with a black acrylic baffle holding the screen like my MK2 unit and a second air stone only supplying the screen to make sure it had good bubble coverage it might be practical. But the space limit on the mini sump is inhibiting. A DIY sump with a built in skimmer on a larger scale could be adapted to make the concept work.

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