Micro-Small Algae Remover System for Nano's: Free!

[supernip]

or... that entire logic is incorrect. and ass backwards.

 

1. pods are a good thing, free highly nutritious food for your inhabitants. killing them will cause their bodies to decay and release nutrients. Living pods will take nutrients out of your water column and into their body. Unless you're removing the entire system into a bucket and causing a mess, you're just dumping organics back into your tank aren't you?

 

2. you reach a point where too thick of a mat will be bad for growth as there is no room to grow. organisms will automatically cut back on feeding.

 

3. you risk killing your algae by dumping fw into it.

 

You must really like patting yourself on the back because the rest of the world is pretty much ######ting on your idea.

[ls7corvete]

No reason to S*** on the idea. It works. It has its limits like anything else.

[HecticDialectics]

No reason to S*** on the idea. It works.

 

That depends on your definition of "works" I guess

[lakshwadeep]

That depends on your definition of "works" I guess

 

Might as well make up your own "chemistry" while at it.

 

mea culpa on the inorganic phosphate

[supernip]

No reason to S*** on the idea. It works. It has its limits like anything else.

 

My mistake, I should say ###### on him. If he presented it as a limited method or a supplement method than fine, I have no qualms with that. Just don't make up some bs pseudo science to try to back it up. Half the things he says are wrong off the bat and if he actually handled his system as stated, he'd only be hurting the integrity of the design. Also he shouldnt try to put things in a guise of objective science if he's going to ignore all input and continue to spout things hasn't thoroughly researched. Anyone who reads through his claims should get an uneasy feeling of something being off.

 

It's unfortunate and particularly irks me because I've been a long time member to this forum and don't want to see people get suckered into some miracle method that hurts their reefing experience because some self righteous stranger on the internet kept repeating the same exact wrong thing over and over and over.

 

Santa monica's been banned on other forums for a reason. He's just lucky the mods here feel it better to have members keep him in check.

[SantaMonica]

Successes Update:

 

sean48183 on the SWF site: "Alright, just tested NO3 and ta da! 0 NO3! Awesome. Still have some hair algae in display, but appears to have slowed down. My scrubber is still getting mostly brown slime and some green. Don't really care. It is working. Have to clean every couple days because it is growing so fast. Anyone who is debating trying -- quit debating and just do it."

 

ScubaDrew on the RS site: "I built a small one using the basic plans posted in the first few pages. I used a dremmel to cut the slot in the PVC and used fishing line through the small holes in the plastic divider material to hold it up. My tank measured 0’s in all the algae related categories prior to building it, but my tank was still growing a lot of HA and some cyano. I’ve only got one florescent ‘flood’ style light on one side of the scrubber right now due to having placed it in an already crowded sump. I had a full coat of algae in about 10 days, and cleaned off about ¾ of what had accumulated at that time. Now I need to clean off a large, heavy, handful every week! With continued cleaning in my DT, I’ve really made progress in getting the DT algae free. Thanks for the info, I think the ATS will be a part of my system for a long time to come."

 

RiaanP on MASA site: "Scrubber running now for four weeks. NO3 0mg/l (first time EVER). PO4 between .025 and 0.5 mg/l. 4 weeks ago NO3 was over 100 mg/l and PO4 was over 2 mg/l. So a scrubber really works."

[midna]

It seems that the scrubber is beneficial. But I think that once a skimmer is tuned in, there is much less work required in the skimmer. Take cup out, dump, replace. Once and a while give the neck a decent scrubbing. The turf scrubber requires weekly maintenance, more so than a fuge (which is also very little). That is the main drawback imo, but I'm just lazy.

[medachef]

but how do you know you are growing "turf algae" and not just GHA or BHA... doesn't it have to be introduced into the water column?? For Example, bubble algae. If you never had it with lets say diy rock, synthetic SW and nothing else, you'll never get it until you introduce it in the system. So when you say that you can magically grow turf algae on a screen just by lighting it with a shallow stream of water is kinda hard to believe. I'm sure there is some where to buy a turf algae starter, just like the phyto starters and cheato. but then it wouldn't be as free as you say. ANd growing Hair algae out is kind of a strange way to lower your nitrates and phosphates (isn't this more like masking the problem). but if i'm wrong just tell me... i'm just going by personal opinion and a little experience.

 

hell if i could magically grow turf algae with a flood light, i think i'm gonna try and grow some phyto with some SW and some old CF bulbs i have.

[SantaMonica]

once a skimmer is tuned in, there is much less work required in the skimmer

 

Maybe, but I don't think most people are looking at the maintenence as a prime factor between skimmers and scrubbers. The main difference is that they do completely different things: Skimmers remove food (protein) particles, and scrubbers remove nitrate and phosphate. Everyone has to remove nitrate and phosphate, but only some people need to remove food.

 

but how do you know you are growing "turf algae"

 

True turf algae is not needed. Whatever grows on the screen (green, brown, black, turf) removes nitrate and phosphate from the water. No seeding is needed. All algae types are currently in your water. The ones that grow, however, are the ones that thrive in the conditions that you have now.

[SantaMonica]

Part 2 of 7:

 

Taken from "From the Food of Reefs to the Food of Corals" by Eric Borneman

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-08/eb/index.php

 

"Nitrogen levels in [natural] coral reef waters are typically extraordinarily low, with most being found as ammonia. This is in contrast to aquaria, where the dominant nitrogen species is usually nitrate. Nitrogen is the be-all end-all for zooxanthellae growth and reproduction [zooxanthellae is what photosynthesizes light into food for corals]. By limiting nitrogen in the form of excretion products, the [coral] polyps keep the zooxanthellae in the numbers and density that maximize photosynthetic efficiency for its own use. Using several released compounds, most of which are still unidentified, the [coral] polyp stimulates the zooxanthellae to release virtually all of the products of its photosynthesis, and these are then used by the polyp for its own needs. If nitrogen was made readily available to the zooxanthellae (for example, if high levels were present in the water and this dissolved nitrogen diffused into the coral tissue), it could then be accessed by the algae without limitation by the polyp, and zooxanthellae could begin to grow and reproduce like a phytoplankton culture. In this case, the symbiosis becomes less advantageous to the coral, and it will expel some of the symbionts to try and re-establish maximal benefit from its algal partners. As a practical note, when very high densities of zooxanthellae exist in coral tissue [because of to much nitrogen], the resultant coloration of the coral is usually a rich or dark brown color.

 

"Coral mucus, in turn, and as was shown in the previous article, is itself a food source to the reef.

 

[skimmer remove mucus, but do not remove nitrogen]

[HecticDialectics]

skimmers technically stop nitrates from being able to accumulate in the first place...

 

 

this "algae scrubber" or whatever we're calling it removes nitrates after they have already formed...

[SantaMonica]

You are correct. Skimmers are called "protein" skimmers for a reason... they remove protein (food) before the food can decompose into N and P, and also before the food can be eaten by corals and small fish.

 

Like you said, scrubbers don't remove protein (food). Scrubbers keep the food in the water until it is eaten by corals or small fish (which will eventually produce N and P), or until it decomposes (which also will produce N and P). The scrubber then removes the N an P.

[Mr. Fosi]

Once again, you are misdefining things.

 

Small fish don't eat the dissolved protein that skimmers are designed to remove and corals don't either. They will eat particulates. Not all proteins are "food" unless you mean carbon for the microbial communities in the tank.

[SantaMonica]

Yes I am including microbes as cosumers, since they feed corals directly. And I was not referring to dissolved; I was referring to particulates. Skimmers do not remove (much) dissolved:

 

New 2009 research on skimmer removal of dissolved organics:

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/1/aafeature2

 

"In addition to some dissolved organics, small particulates and microbes (bacterioplankton, phytoplankton) can be removed at the air/water interface of the [skimmer] bubble as well (Suzuki, 2008). The skimming process does not remove atoms/molecules that are strictly polar and readily dissolve in water, such as some organics, salts, inorganic phosphate, carbonate, etc.

 

"The skimmer pulls out all of the TOC that it is going to remove by the 50-minute mark. Beyond that time point, nothing much is happening and the TOC level doesn't change much.

 

"Thus, all skimmers tested remove around 20 - 30% of the TOC in the aquarium water, and that's it; 70 - 80% of the measurable TOC is left behind unperturbed by the skimming process. It may be possible to develop a rationalization for this unexpected behavior by referring back to Fig. 1. Perhaps only 20 - 30% of the organic species in the aquarium water meet the hydrophobic requirements for bubble capture, whereas the remaining 70-80%, for whatever reason, don't."

 

Along with...

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/9/aafeature2

 

 

"Greater than 97% of the organic matter in the oceans is in the form of DOC"

 

"The majority of the DOC in the oceans is consumed over a time span on the order of hours-to-weeks."

 

"The generally accepted value of deep ocean TOC (DOC in this instance) ranges from 0.45 - 0.60 ppm, a number that appears to be insensitive to collection location. On reefs, however, the DOC (and TOC) value is considerably higher. Even with this point noted, the values of DOC on reefs from the South Pacific to Japan to the Caribbean to the Red Sea are remarkably consistent in their range: 0.7 - 1.6 ppm"

 

"Bacteria are a critical component in the food web of the reef, as they occupy the role of 'middle man' in the transfer of energy from the source (sunlight) to the consumers on the reef"

 

"Where does the DOC go ... studies suggest that it is rapidly consumed by bacteria that live in and on the coral itself and not by bacteria present in the water column. Shutting down these endogenous bacteria by antibiotic treatment abolished DOC uptake."

 

"In total, these data unequivocally demonstrate that the [skimmer] is not required to deplete the aquarium water of TOC. Apparently, naturally biological processes are sufficient in and of themselves to return the post-feeding TOC levels to their pre-feeding values after about 4 hrs or so ... Clearly the skimmer is doing something, given the copious residue accumulated in the collection cup at the end of the week. Perhaps, however, the residue removed by the skimmer is only a rather small, even inconsequential, portion of the entire TOC load that develops in the aquarium water over the course of a week."

[SantaMonica]

Question:

 

Anyone know where to buy marine self-priming pumps? Several people are trying to build the top-of-nano scrubber I posted, but in order to put the pump in the scrubber (and thus not in the display), the pump needs to be able to pull water up and out of the display. So far, the only thing found is the Eclipse nano hoods with small pumps built in, and a few other HOB filters with small self-priming pumps built in. But these are built-in and molded to the other parts. What is really needed is a self-contained pump that is separate from the other parts, and which of course is aquarium safe, and in the 70 to 150 gph range (266 to 570 lph).

[SantaMonica]

Update: Nutrients vs. Nutrition

 

It's important to understand the difference between these two words. "Nutrients" generally means Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate, which are the things that you measure with your test kits, and which are also the things that nuisance algae feed on. "Nutrition", however, generally means food for corals and fish. Natural reefs in the ocean are high in "nutrition" (lots of food particles floating around), but low in "nutrients" (nitrate and phosphate). Aquariums that have skimmers, or other mechanical filters like foam or floss, are low in nutrition because the food is filtered out, but they are high in nutrients because the Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate is not filtered. Aquariums that have only scrubbers are high in nutrition but low in nutrients. Aquariums with both skimmers and scrubbers are low in both nutrition and nutrients.

[SantaMonica]

Update: Other ways to reduce nutrients

 

If you are using a scrubber on a nano without a sump, here are some other permanent ways to reduce nutrients (aside from feeding less), starting with the easiest first:

 

o Remove floss/foam/socks (they trap food and cause it to rot).

 

o Remove bio balls (or similar media) slowly (they create excess nitrate, and trap food).

 

o Use kalkwasser (lime water) in your top-off (the higher pH causes phosphate to precipitate).

 

o Reduce sand in your display to 1/4 inch (6mm), or increase it to 4 inches (10cm).

[SantaMonica]

Update: Screen roughness

 

If your screen is only growing little spots of algae here and there, it means the screen is not rough enough. What is happening is that algae is trying to attach and grow all over the screen, but the water washes the algae away. Only a few areas have enough roughness for the algae to hang on in the water flow. So, you need to remove the screen and really really really sand/scrape/rough it up. If it's a clear screen (i.e., acrylic), you should not be able to see through it. If it's a plastic canvas screen, it should feel prickly. For highest results (and highest maintenance)... rug canvas works the best, but it only lasts so long before it comes apart. Then you have to make a new one. Whatever you use, make it as rough as possible.

[SantaMonica]

Successes Update:

 

Macman on the RF site: "To show how affective these scrubbers are I have carried out a little experiment. As you may know I have been running a small 180 litre tank fully stocked with corals and fish, running an external filter and an internal filter. My nitrates have always been between 7 and 12, but I recently had a death of one of my fish and corals which put the nitrate through the roof (and I mean through the roof!) Between 80 and 100 VERY SERIOUS. I decided with my new 7 week old 400 litre tank (which only runs a scrubber) and has nitrates at <1 to carry out a few water exchanges [between the new and old tanks]. I exchanged approximately 80-100 litres in about 5 days, and saw my nitrates go from <1 to nearer 50 in the new tank (A little worrying, but to be expected when considering the concentration of nitrates in the smaller tank). That [nitrate] test was carried out on 12th March. I carried out the same [nitrate] test last night, 25th March, on the scrubber tank and my nitrates are 25. Like I said before this tank has only a scrubber within its system, and live rock. The only thing I did notice [on the new tank] before the water exchange was that I was getting to a period where I was getting a nice light green algae build up on the scrubber, and once I had done the water exchange the algae went back to a dirty black/brown on the scrubber. Only this morning have I started to see a little green again, so it has set me back a few weeks. This system does work and this proofs it. I must admit I was a little concerned when my water went near to 50, but the scrubber came good for me."

 

Melonbob on the LR site: "Well, just figured I'd update my success story. February 2nd I set up my algae scrubber, and clean one side every friday. I've gone from at least 30-40 nitrates down to less than 5 as of todays test! And lets just say I'm very lazy with water changes.......lol! I'm jazzed!"

 

Creetin on the SRC site: "day 60 update...! i prolly will stop counting the days but so far i have to say 2 months into the scrubber thingy and i am totally sold on it! its amazing such a great kick algae ###### idea has remained eluded from most of us...so SM, allow me to say that you are truly my idol!!! This has got to be one of the single most important 'discoveries' being revealed...."

[SantaMonica]

Excerpt from "Waste Extraction, the Invertibrate Way" by Ron Shimek

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-08/rs/index.php

 

"The animal poops it out, and from then on the scavengers/detritivores get rid of it." This is, of course, a very concise way of thinking about the elimination of uneaten food from the digestive tract. Unfortunately, it has nothing at all to do with what biologists consider to be waste. Not to put too fine a point on it, but fecal matter is nothing more than uneaten, partially digested and processed food.

 

"Actual waste materials are something else altogether. Strictly speaking, to a biologist, only a couple types of materials are truly waste materials. These are the byproducts of cellular respiration and protein metabolism, which in most animals, are carbon dioxide and ammonia, respectively.

 

[scrubbers remove ammonia and carbon dioxide; skimmers do not]

[Mr. Fosi]

[scrubbers remove ammonia and carbon dioxide; skimmers do not]

 

While microalgae may remove ammonia, there isn't much in the typical cycled aquarium because the nitrifying bacteria that are present are much more efficient at assimilating and oxidizing it. Your argument for the removal of nitrate was more effective. Of course, nitrate is removed by bacteria as well.

 

Carbon dioxide is easily driven out of solution by skimmers so in a sense, they do remove it. Additionally, you don't need an microalgae algae scrubber or a skimmer to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in an aquarium. CO2 will naturally and effectively be assimilated during lights on and can be removed during lights off using macroalages.

[SantaMonica]

Update: Displays with lots of Hair Algae

 

It's happened several times now: Someone wants to add a scrubber to their system because they have a display with very thick hair algae on the rocks. They already measure zero nitrate and phosphate, and when they add their scrubber, the scrubber has a very slow start and does not seem to grow much.

 

Of course what is happening is that the hair algae in the display is ALREADY a scrubber, attached to the rocks! It has had plenty of time (months? years?) to establish itself, and most important, it has a gigantic area to attach itself to. So how do you beat it with your newly-built DIY scrubber? You do it with the power of light.

 

All algae operate on the of photosynthesis of light. The stronger the light, the more the algae will pull nitrate and phosphate out of the water, and it will pull it away from any other algae that has less light. This is important to understand: If two areas of a tank are identical, except one has stronger light than the other, the area with the stronger light will grow more algae, and, the area with less light will grow less (or none at all). This is why the top of your rocks grow more algae (it has more light) than the sides do (has less light).

 

So if you already have lots of hair algae in your display, you have to build your scrubber with even more powerful lighting than you normally would, so that the photosynthesis in your scrubber will overpower the photosynthesis of the algae in your display (then, after all the algae is gone in your display, you can reduce the wattage if you want). The bulb wattage to do this is about one CFL watt for every square inch (6.25 square cm) of screen area. Example:

 

Say your screen size is 10" X 10" = 100 square inches; if you did NOT already have a lot of algae in your display, a 23W CFL floodlight on each side of this size screen would be sufficient to keep all nuisance algae away. This would be 2 X 23W = 46 total CFL watts, for 100 square inches of screen. This is about a half watt per square inch. But to beat a large amount of established hair algae in the display, go for maximum power: 1 watt per square inch. This is about twice as much. So, using two of these same bulbs on each side (4 total bulbs) would give you about 92 total watts for 100 square inches, or, almost 1 watt per square inch. This would do it!

 

Note about wattage: We are talking here about real CFL watts, not "equivalent" watts. If the bulb says "23W = 120W", or "23W equivalent to 120W", we are talking about the 23. And if you are using T5HO, such as a 24 inch 24W bulb, you just use the wattage it says.

 

Another trick: Add a lawnmower blenny to the display. He will eat the "scrubber" in the display, so that the scrubber you build gets off to a faster start.

[SantaMonica]

Update: Yellow rubber algae

 

Many people, including me, get large parts of the screen that turn into a thick yellow growth that feels rubbery. This is caused by flow that was cut off, by algae growing up into the slot. As the slot gets cut off and the flow reduces, the algae that was growing on the screen in that flow now has no flow. And the yellow rubbery algae is what results. It does not appear to hurt anything, but it surely is not effective at filtering, since there is no water flowing over it for it to filter. One solution is to make cross-cuts in the slot. Another is to put a light-shield over the slot. Another is to point the bulbs further down the screen to they don't shine as much on the slot.

[SantaMonica]

Excerpt from "Feeding The Reef Aquarium", by Ron Shimek

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-02/rs/feature/index.php

 

"It will become apparent that many of the problems we have with reef aquaria, such as excess nutrients, excessive growth of undesirable algae, and the inability to keep some animals alive and healthy is simply due to the feeding of inappropriate foods, compounded by feeding in the wrong manner.

 

"Bacteria, in fact, are an important food for most benthic or bottom-dwelling marine animals. This is because bacteria have higher nitrogen to carbon ratios in their cells than do either typical animals, plants or algae. As a consequence, many marine animals are specialized to eat bacteria, either directly out of the water column or indirectly as a frosting on sediment or detritus particles.

 

"One quite good study discussing zooplankton availability and concurrent feeding by planktivorous reef fishes has been published (Hamner, et al., 1988) [...] These researchers examined a reef [and found that] during a 12 hour period [in a section of reef only 3 feet wide, there were] 1,098,000 potential food items, about 70 percent of which are copepods and larvacean tunicates.

 

"A large amount of the zooplankton food that would have impinged upon the reef does make it to the reef, albeit modified into the form of fish feces. This [waste] is rapidly ingested by corals and other benthic animals.

 

"Also, what is apparent is that the fish eat ALL the plankton approaching the reef. NONE of it will reach the reef during the day when the fish are feeding.

 

"All of these fishes [listed in this article] eat large amounts of crustacean prey, particularly copepods.

 

"From this study, it is apparent that these fish are feeding continuously throughout the daylight hours. They are eating small items, but on the average they eat an item of food every three minutes, all day, during a twelve hour day. During that period they eat an average of two grams of food per day. [...] On the average, if you wish your fish to have the same mass of food that they are likely to eat in nature, presuming the data of Hamner et al., 1988, is applicable to other fishes, you should feed each fish in your aquarium that is the average size of a damsel fish, the equivalent of about 70% of a cube of this food per day. Large fishes would get proportionally more.

 

"During the day on a natural reef, it appears that virtually no moderately large zooplankter would reach the coral on the reef's face [because they are eaten by the fish]. Nonetheless, this area would be bathed in a diffuse rain of particulate organic material derived from fish feces [waste], dissolved material and microzooplankton.

 

"All aquarists may significantly control the amount of particulate food in their aquarium. This food will mimic either the zooplankton or the particulate organic material components of coral reef feeding dynamics. For the animals in a system to be healthy, those animals must be fed foods that more-or-less duplicate the qualities of their natural foods, and they must be fed in a more-or-less normal matter. Reef aquarium foods and feeding regimes tend to fail rather spectacularly on both accounts.

 

"The standard reef aquarium is probably fed once about once a day (Shimek, 2002), and the average daily feeding ration weighs 15.39 ± 15.90 grams, or roughly a half of an ounce, wet weight, of food. On a natural reef, this would be enough to provide roughly eight damsel fish with their normal daily allotment of food. Unfortunately, this amount of food all occurs effectively at once (or over a very short period) in an aquarium, whereas on a natural reef it would occur over a 12 hour period. Additionally, aquarium food is a relatively high-protein material. When most reef fish\es encounter planktonic patches of food, they eat voraciously, and material gets passed through their guts in a rapid manner resulting in incomplete digestion. This is precisely what happens to many fish in an aquarium when it is fed. If you watch some of your plankton feeding fishes, such as clown fish or damsels, you will see that shortly after the initiation of feeding they start defecating food at an increased rate. In effect, they are pumping food through their guts. The faster the passage of the food through the gut, the less the fish get from it. Perhaps in nature this doesn't matter, as the food is always coming at them. In the aquarium, this effect could be quite deleterious.

 

"In aquaria, fish that naturally feed consistently on small particulate material throughout the day are being forced to exist on bulk feedings once a day or with less frequency. Under such conditions, the animal is going through continuous cycles of near starvation followed by satiation followed by near starvation. This cyclic feeding simply must have a deleterious effect on the fish. Under such situations one could expect lower than normal growth rates, higher stress, increased susceptibility to disease and possibly problems with nitrogen metabolism.

 

"The amount of food impacting on the [natural] reef over the course of a day is substantial. Over a section of a natural reef about three feet on side, flows a continuous flood of water carrying with it about 2,000,000 food items with an aggregate weight of about two pounds in a 24 hour period. These tiny food items would be like a rain of diffuse nutrition on the reef and reef animals, particularly the fish.

 

"It is apparent that coral reef planktivorous fishes, and this is most of those kept in aquaria, would benefit from changes to the normal aquarium feeding regimen. They should be fed by some sort of continuous feeding apparatus. The food dispensed by such an apparatus should be particulate in nature, and very small. The largest sizes should probably be on the size of a brine shrimp or smaller. Such food need not be specifically formulated to be highly nutritious: Rather it should be of low to moderate nutritional value. If aquarium fish are able to eat more continuously and slowly, they will get much more nutrition out of each food item than they do now. Feeding a low quality food should result in significantly less nutrient accumulation than is now commonly seen in tanks.

 

"In effect, we need to turn our feeding regime on its head. Rather than feeding a small amount of highly nutritious food once a day, we should be feeding a large amount of low nutrient value food frequently. Such a feeding regime as this should reduce significantly the amount of pollution effects in reef aquaria. Additionally, there would not be a daily pulse of nutrients to temporarily overwhelm the biological filter. In turn, there would less potential growth of problem algae and the development of a more balanced and easily controlled assemblage of animals within the tank.

 

[skimmers remove plankton, particulates, and copepods]

 

[scrubbers add copepods, and don't remove plankton or particulates]

[HecticDialectics]

The extent to which you quote things, and then proceed to bastardize what the quote says is astounding. It is intellectually dishonest to quote something and then follow it up with two or three sentences entirely unrelated and unsupported by the quoted text.

 

 

For example, in your last post, Shimek says we should feed more frequently, but in smaller quantities to mimic a natural reef. You then spout out two sentences of garbage about what skimmers do versus what an algae scrubber does... It literally has NOTHING to do with the subject of the article, and it has NOTHING to do with a single thing discussed in the article.

 

 

??

 

I'm just so curious why you dishonestly compare skimmers and scrubbers and dishonestly promote algae scrubbers? I don't see you trying to sell anything on your site? It just baffles me...