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

[JamesHL88]

Im in the process of builbing an acrylic sump for my 55 gallon tank. I would like to incorporate an ats in it. Is this style more or less efficient than the traditional waterfall style? Because it would be a much cheaper and simple build than the waterfall contraptions.

[SantaMonica]

They are probably the same effectiveness. It's just a difference in how you build it.

[KerryL.]

I have both types and they export nutrients at the same level as far as I can tell.

[TeflonTomDosh]

Is it plastic? bleach it, scrub it, rinse it with RODI or whatever freshwater you use, then soak it in freshwater with something that eliminates chlorine & cloramine and stuff like that for a couple days, if you can still smell chlorine after that, soak some more. If it was rock I'd suggest baking it after soaking it for 24 hrs, but it looks like plastic.

 

^^ to that person btw.

Pay attention much? lol

 

Lowest cost way to eliminate green hair, bubble, turf and slime algae, algae, nitrate, phosphate = CUC from Reefcleaners.org

[Monsieur Kam]

I have all of those supplies laying around! Definitely making one for my 10 gallon nano. Will post pictures when I have it up and running. Thanks for the idea!

[Monsieur Kam]

Everybody loves growth pictures:

 

Day 1:

 

Day 2:

 

Day 3:

 

Day 4:

 

Day 5:

 

Day 6:

 

Day 7:

 

Day 8:

 

Day 9:

 

7 Days of growth after first cleaning:

 

Video of first cleaning after 9 days of growth from a new screen:

 

Video of 7 days of growth after the first cleaning:

 

 

Time to eat more TV dinners and save those trays

 

What light do you use?

[KerryL.]

Use one of those 11 watt CFL spot lights. Its the twisty type light with the spot light cover over it.

[Monsieur Kam]

How long do you leave the light on? Do you leave it on 24 hours or like 12-14 hours. Sorry if it was answered somewhere else I didn't see it. Thanks

[Tbone675]

i see your running it in fw. will i see growth like this in sw?

[SantaMonica]

18 hours ON, 6 hours OFF.

 

FW and SW are the same.

[SantaMonica]

A useful way to stop bubbles if your UAS is not in a box:

 

[Mitch619]

Honestly, I just see a bunch of followers on this thread. So what if some people want to experiment with other things? I wouldn't personally build one, but you all sound like a bunch of tools just going along with what other people say. Hell, before tiny giants thread, all of you would have told everyone that eBay LEDs won't even grow mushrooms.

[KerryL.]

Honestly, I just see a bunch of followers on this thread. So what if some people want to experiment with other things? I wouldn't personally build one, but you all sound like a bunch of tools just going along with what other people say. Hell, before tiny giants thread, all of you would have told everyone that eBay LEDs won't even grow mushrooms.

HUH, you dont go along with what others say or advertise?? So you dont run any skimmer, reactors, water change, special media like GFO, carbon, or use some other type of filtration. You have been tooled just as well, its just that your tooled box is bigger due to paid advertising that everyone is sucked into. I used all the traditional methods as well. I had thousands in all the equipment, sumps, and pumps. Did that for about 20 years and had pretty good luck with. I even tried a few different methods of keeping SW and had better luck with some then others. It just so happens that I have had the best success with this way of keeping SW tanks. You also do your own fallowing to Mitch, you just fallow along with the main stream ideas. Nothing wrong with that at all. Hell, I had been there for a long time as well. I am not saying the main stream way of keeping SW is wrong or bad. Its perfectly fine for most folks. I am the type of person that wants to feed the living day lights out of my tanks just like the ocean is full of food in the water column and not have to worry about algae, nitrates, and phosphates. So the end to these means for me was an algae scrubber.

Some fallow the main stream and some break away and try something different. Either way you are still being tooled Sir.

[Mitch619]

HUH, you dont go along with what others say or advertise?? So you dont run any skimmer, reactors, water change, special media like GFO, carbon, or use some other type of filtration. You have been tooled just as well, its just that your tooled box is bigger due to paid advertising that everyone is sucked into. I used all the traditional methods as well. I had thousands in all the equipment, sumps, and pumps. Did that for about 20 years and had pretty good luck with. I even tried a few different methods of keeping SW and had better luck with some then others. It just so happens that I have had the best success with this way of keeping SW tanks. You also do your own fallowing to Mitch, you just fallow along with the main stream ideas. Nothing wrong with that at all. Hell, I had been there for a long time as well. I am not saying the main stream way of keeping SW is wrong or bad. Its perfectly fine for most folks. I am the type of person that wants to feed the living day lights out of my tanks just like the ocean is full of food in the water column and not have to worry about algae, nitrates, and phosphates. So the end to these means for me was an algae scrubber.

Some fallow the main stream and some break away and try something different. Either way you are still being tooled Sir.

 

 

Maybe you read what I wrote wrong. I was defending you guys with the algae scrubbers...

[JamesHL88]

Face palm

[KerryL.]

Maybe you read what I wrote wrong. I was defending you guys with the algae scrubbers...

I did take the you all the other way!!!! My bad and my apology to you!!!!! I need two face palms! Thanks for the correction on my part. I guess I should have read it three times. Cheers and have a great and safe Holiday.

[KerryL.]

Anyone got any new build pics??

[SantaMonica]

Some success stories of people using waterfall algae scrubbers on different sites:

 

Aydee on the scrubber site: "I'm going to call this a success. My nitrates had been sitting steady at about 10 or so for over a year. For it to drop to undetectable in 2 weeks.. THAT is impressive. I have got my skimmer running still, but once my ATS is running, I'll turn off the skimmer (not remove.. Yet....) If situation remains excellent as the trend currently is, I'll remove the skimmer. However, I came into ATS thinking "It can't hurt, as I'll keep my skimmer running" and now I'm thinking "WOAH! They're right!".

Obviously, the proof will be in 2 years time, ATS sans skimmer.. But.. So far, the numbers are fantastic."

 

Robert_Patterso on the RC site: "Best thing I have ever put on any of my tanks in over 25 years of being in the hobby"

 

Pskelton on the RC site: "I personally have not done a water change in 6 months ever since I implemented my scrubber. long story short my tank was a mess, kid dumped container of food in tank. I got a snow flake eel that dug up my sand bed and I was running a very under powered cheep skimmer. This lead to my nitrates peeking at 160. I did water changes for a while but the nitrate just keep coming back up to 160. The water changes were getting expensive and I was about to give up when I tried the scrubber. Within a few weeks nitrate dropped to 60 and slowly came down from there. As of my test last week I am finally at 0 nitrate and I haven't done a water change in six months. The protean skimmer has been removed and my tank is healthier than ever. I am just waiting for the algae on my rocks to finish dieing off."

 

Murph on the scrubber site: "my ATS is coming along fine. I think I spent about 30 bucks making it. When I compare that to the thousand or more I have spent on skimmers over the past ten years or so that made little to no difference when it came to nuisance algae in the display I want to pull my hair out. My ATS has out done them all in a matter of a few months."

 

Spotter on the RC site: "Nitrate Day 1: 5ppm, Week 1: 0ppm, Week 2: 0ppm. P04 Day 1: .035,

Week 1: .015, Week 2: .0092 I am liking this very much."

 

JohnnyB_in_SD on the RC site: "I feed about 6-7 cubes a day on a 100gl tank, and 10-12 cubes two days a week when I do the nems & corals too. N&P have been undetectable since I started using ATS, which is a mickey mouse rubber maid tub version. Since I am always looking for the easiest way to do everything, I will continue cleaning the whole screen once a week. For me, it was a real struggle maintaining water quality with just a fuge: starving my fish, super skimming, massive weekly water changes - just to keep Nitrates near 20ppm and Phosphate under 1.0. That all went away with an ATS, the hobby is much more enjoyable and not a huge chore."

 

Thedude657 on the scrubber site: "So my screen finally filled out with greenish algae. Water quality is excellent and now I have all sorts of cool things growing on my live rock. Little white sponges are popping up everywhere, some stuff I have no clue what it is yet. Just wanted to say thanks to help me get started."

 

Chrisfraser05 on the RC site: "I just wanted to jump in and say after bumping into Santamonica on a forum a while back and also watching Lafishguys videos I started a marine tank [8 months ago]. Obviously I started my first tank with a DIY algae scrubber and have NEVER seen either nitrate or phosphate."

 

Redneckgearhead on the scrubber site: "Heres the pics of my HA problem. [algea all over]These where taken just before I added my scrubber. I had tried EVERYTHING nothing helped. I paid a small fortune for a skimmer that I was told would surely take care of the problem. The HA laughed and kept on growing. My lights where down to 3 hours a day, my fish where only fed a small amount every two to three days, I was doing 10 percent water changes twice a week. And keep in mind those picks are only about 3 days growth, I would remove about 80 percent of the HA during my water changes. These are pics I took today just before my weekly water change. [almost no algae] I am feeding daily, my fish are now fat and happy. My scrubber is working beautifully! I am so glad I found out about scrubbers. I am still using my skimmer, but I may take it off line as soon as all the HA is gone. From the looks of things that shouldn't be much longer."

 

Fragglerocks on the RC site: "Ive gotten rid of 95% of all "bad" algae in the DT and my P04 Level is 0.12 checked by Hanna meter. Nitrates - Zero. I feed the equivalent of 2 frozen cubes per day, along with pellets whenever I think about it. up to 2 times per day."

 

Scrubit on the scrubber site: "have been running a scrubber-only 90gal tank for over a year now with great success. [...] I was ready to buy a big ol skimmer for my new tank build when I came across some of the info SM had posted. That was all it took, and I've never looked back. NEVER had algae in DT, NEVER had readable nitrates/phos after cycle, and have probably changed out maybe 40gal of water since setup. Personally I find running a scrubber almost as fun as the tank itself!"

 

Psyops on the RC site: "I had a DSB and chaeto fuge. When I added a ATS, the chaeto disappeared. I don't know if the DSB is doing anything. I feed my fish and tank from 1-2 times daily depending on my schedule. The ATS is doing really well, especially when I added a Calcium reactor 3 months ago. I did not believe some of the stuff people were saying on how effective an ATS system could be, but they were mostly correct."

 

JohnnyBinSD on the RC site: "I finally got around to putting an ATS on my tank 3 weeks ago. Just harvested a pile of algae off it tonight. In those 3 weeks I have doubled the amount of daily food I put in the tank, run the skimmer 6 hours/day instead of 24/7, and removed the lighting from the chaeto in the old fuge. Nitrates & phosphates are undetectable, algae in the display tank is almost nonexistent, fish are fat & happy. An ATS is the cheapest & most effective thing I've ever done to improve water quality. I wish I had built one sooner."

 

Kcmopar on the MFT site: "Its been about 5 weeks (started the weekend before fathers day) or so and the green hair algae has stopped growing in my 40G. Yeah!!! Its all receding, maybe just a few percent left at the base of a couple rocks that my coral beauty snacks on. Just amazing. Started this 40G salt from Jump with an ATS. IT NEVER CYCLED!!! I have little pods, tiny feather dusters, and other critters thriving like crazy. Coraline already starting to spread across the tank. Nutrients are always zero to just barely detectable on both the 10g and 40g. Also a note on the 40G, I never had to do a water change yet!!! No test results ever got past barely detectable. I have been dabbling with an ATS on a 10 gallon Freshwater as well. Same results so far. I am building a bigger one for my 150G FW in a few weeks."

 

Reeftanker on the MFUK site: "i have cleaned it about 8/10 times now, about 50-90 grams of algae each time and i have just tsted my tank i have on my test kits; Phosphates = clear that means undetectable levels on my test kit, Nitrates = 1ppm maybe 2ppm, what more do i have to say im am chuffed to bits and over the moon"

 

Etan on the MFUK site: "Just to share some of my results with my scrubber. I set up my new tank at beginning of Jan(Rio 400). The only filtration I have on the tank is a scrubber and about 50kg of live rock. After the tank had cycled my nitrates peaked at about 25ppm about 2 weeks ago. There were only 2 clowns and 2 chromis in tank and small cuc. Just tested today after all stock and cuc from old tank have been in there for about 1 week and nitrate reading is only 2ppm and not much signs of algee in main tank or on glass. It seems to me the scrubber is doing its job."

 

Weatherby68ss on the scrubber site: "i have been into this hobby for 3 years now and was using a wet /dry filter for the first year and a half or so untill i found out about algae scrubbers. i have to admit i would not still have an aquarium if not for my ats. its simply to much time, work and $$$ using any other type of filtration. with the ats i can actually sit back and enjoy my tank and keep my fish fat and happy with out worrying about the next water change because i hav'nt done 1 in over a year! anyone thats thinking about building 1 all i can say is go for it THEY WORK!!! nuff said"

 

Mgraf on the RC site: "I have been running a scrubber for about 8 months now, at first I had a skimmer running, macro's, rock rubble, and deep sand bed. Same setup as you almost. I still have the deep sand bed but, eliminated the other stuff over time for the sake of simplicity. I clean the scrubbers algae once a week, do monthly water changes, feed often and alot, and my corals and fish have never been happier or fatter in the year and a half it has been set up. Many may disagree but, for me it is the easiest way to run a salt water reef."

 

Jukka on the RC site: "I used to have various carbon sources + ATB Supersize skimmer as filtration for my 400 gal reef. I never succeeded to outcompete nutrient problems with those, no matter how much carbon I added. I also tried the pellet version. Since building a large scrubber with lots of light, all problems are gone. But I didn't take the skimmer out of the system and didn't stop carbon dosing, and don't intend to. I just reduced carbon amount to about 1/10 of the original. I like the effects carbon does for fungi, and other stuff like that, growth. Though other reason for keeping skimmer online is the amount I paid for the supersize ATB."

[brandon429]

Still like your work man. I don't think the public is easily misled into posting thousands of positive results.

 

There is nothing preventing me from ceasing peroxide use on my very old reefbowl in favor of upflow ATS other than I don't want my vase to be the experiment. Wonder if there's a volume cutoff restriction where filter algae would be hard to contain in the intended areas.

 

 

a test bowl where all the airstone blast is ran through an upflow mesh of sorts that can be periodically cleaned would be a blast.

 

There is an inherent compatibility in the reefbowl design that is exclusively airstone driven and these upflow ATS setups. Having to do large weekly water changes and carefully time the feeding is a poor handicap I've never liked.

 

Reefbowl III might be a pretty sick hybrid free of all those constraints.

 

Several posts ago I asked hectic to post the method that will work for all tanks to prevent pest invasions.

Its very easy to criticize other approaches when someone is sitting on the perfect method and wont share it, or take on problem tank threads to test it in those who didn't start tanks using the mystery approach.

 

What works perfectly in a nano tank doesn't always upscale ideally, so methods like algal binding that can upscale, and have public feedback from tanks of varying volumes, bioload and design, seem pretty legit

 

 

Sm, yellow water has historically been associated with ATS and not changing water. How does the new crop of ATS address that...is it more frequent cleaning before the plants break down?

 

B

[SantaMonica]

Yellowing is always the dying of lower layers of algae from lack of light and flow. So more often cleaning will fix this. Stronger bubbles and stronger lights and rougher screen will also help. Back in the day they did not know to clean at all.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Both tanks that I run a scrubber on have very clear water. I can pull 5g into a white bucket and the bucket still looks white. I run an LED UAS on my personal tank and ran a large waterfall scrubber on a tank I maintain. The latter has had nothing but a scrubber on it (except for purigen for a while, and carbon after a 13 hr power outage) since October of 2010, and I recently switched the scrubber on that tank from an oversized T5HO unit to a smaller LED unit.

[brandon429]

Will someone post before pictures of a tank or rock with heavy red brush algae or bryopsis invasion before and after with ATS along with cure timelines, or link me to the thread

 

 

Specifically red brush algae or bry

[Monsieur Kam]

So should I run my skimmer with an UAS or not? Are there any pros/cons to running a skimmer and a scrubber?

[SantaMonica]

Here's one, 10 weeks...

 

Skimmers remove food particles that corals eat. So not really needed for reefs.

[brandon429]

nice pics for sure

 

in analyzing the change, we have seen many threads where aggressive phosphate binding (gfo) and skimming have been employed to reduce red brush gelidium etc to no avail, how is it postulated that ATS systems remove red brush by essentially binding the same nutrient issues?