continued:
Bgmac on the scrubber site: "Upset with this Algae Scrubber: So far I have been running a DIY algae scrubber for a little over 3 weeks. When I started, my N was hovering around 15 to 20 and my P was around .25. You see, I have always done a 10 gallon water change every week for my 60 gal display and 20 gal sump. Now, with my algae scrubber, I stopped doing the weekly water changes, N so far has dropped bellow 2 ppm, and P is 0! I expect N to be 0 by the end of the week. I have also doubled the amount I feed the fish. Coraline calcium is starting to pop everywhere along with tube worms, sponges, hitch hiker soft coral, and countless other wild creatures. I am upset with this algae scrubber because I went for over 2 years constantly battling High N and making trips to the local salt water well, trucking buckets of water back and forth. Buying multiple skimmers and wasting hours of time and $ trying to dial them in with no real luck. You see, so far I am upset with this algae scrubber because I didn't set one up earlier. What was I thinking. After going through all of the ups and downs of this salt world hobby. I am truly amazed at how unbelievably great this simple and extremely cheap contraption is working! I am still going to do water changes in the future but think I will wait a few months and just top off with my RO/DI to give myself and my back a deserved break for a while. Thank you to all that posted on how to setup a scrubber. This has been one of the simplest things to do to my tank."
Holidayz on the scrubber site: "Tried the normal way like slimmer, bio-pellets, cheato, gfo, carbon, etc but still same, no purple and blue milli. Now I'm running scrubber alone, and even though my screen wasn't great, I found quite some benefits already. That's why I wanted to have a full green screen so situation probably even better. My blue milli is coming back, not full blue yet. Much more pods. I haven't feed my sun coral for 2 months now and still going good. Good growth on corals, more food from the screen? N always non detectable (salifet) and P ranging from 0 to 0.04 (Hana). Usually above 0 after I clean the screen or move rocks around, and drop back down to 0 after 2 -3 days."
lexxxx208 on the UR site: "I've had my scrubber up and running for 5 weeks now and I can safely say its the best thing since sliced bread lol the skimmer came of last week with no Ill affects and my gha in my dt has droped by half so if any one is in two minds to build and run a algae scrubber I'd say get it done you won't be disappointed"
BeanAnimal on the RC site: "I had a refugium on my system but was suffering very high nitrates and phosphates. Did the nitrate spike when it was removed? NO. I then put an ATS on my system (no other changes) and dropped my nitrate from deadly levels to ZERO and cut my phosphates significantly. Furhtermore, my PH is much more stable and my nuisance algae problem is starting to come under control. Water changes, a 6' tall skimmer and a refugium did not help."
Byron on the scrubber site: "I could not be happier with my ATS! Tank has no measurable N or P, I have been able to reduce LR in the tank, skimmer has gone, no more water changes etc. Feeding 7 - 10 cubes a day. I was cleaning half the screen once a week, but it is growing a lot better cleaning the whole screen every 14days. I have increased the ATS lights from 14 -18hrs per day."
Tomymar on the GK site: "I have a 140 gal, tank with 7 Ryukin. It's outdoors and even with a cover it had a major algae bloom. Could NOT see more than 3 inches. Built a waterfall Algae Scrubber and BOOM, no algae in the tank, I mean NONE. Water is crystal clear. AND, my bio filter was going OK but had Ammonia, like .5. Witht the Algae scrubber, Am 0, Ites 0, Ates 0. Right now I have an Up Flow Algae Scrubber (UAS) in my 30 gal. I used some Rubbermaid containers, a bubble wand, a very small air pump and there you go. This Algae Scrubber stuff works. My Ryukin are in totally clear water, I am amazed but it works."
Ansphire on the NR site: "Never made a waterchange, never ran skimmer, gfo, carbon. Saved a ton of money in salt, ro water, useless chemicals and equipment. Better yet, i spend 5 mins a week cleaning a screen. 10 yrs of reef keeping and my only regreat is not finding the algae scrubber sooner."
Tat2z_21 on the RF site: "The last [scrubber] I built worked almost to good. I noticed that the chaeto in my refugium started dwindling away. I thought if I let it go it would balance out but it out competed my chaeto. It also took out all of my nuisance algae in my tank."
Joshik on the SCR site: "i have one in my biocube 29 and i run an algae turf scrubber and it works great. i have 10 fish in my biocube and do not do water changes. i feed 2x day. i dose sea chem reef fusion to replenish elements. i have various softies, lps and sps that are doing great! i am an algae turf scrubber believer!"
Rexbrown on the SCR site: "The ATS that I have been running has worked out great for my 180 gallon. I have been skimmer free since setting it up. My Nitrates and Phosphates are always 0. It's been a copepod factory and my obese mandarins appreciate it. I harvest 2 to 2.5 cups of algae, every 7 to 10 days or so."
Cole on the CR site: "I have been running a scrubber for month now and it works really well. My phosphate and nitrate are at 0 consistently for the first time in 6 years. My fish and corals like the extra food they are getting as well.So easy to build and effective."
Edmontonnewbie on the CR site: "i doubled my feedings just to test it all out and found for the first time in 3 years i am running 0's in all my tests across the board, i brought a sample to the fish store and they got zeros too"
Pterfloth on the CR site; "I am very, very happy with the results. I have been at it for 3 months now and results continue to improve. Hair algae growth is significantly reduced and gradually receding. More importantly, my SPS growth has returned to former levels, colors are better and polyp extension is better. Colonies that had shown no growth for many months are now sprouting new tips everywhere and visible growth of SPS colonies is quite apparent. Areas damaged by hair algae or cyano encroachment are repairing. All cyano has disappeared. Maintenance is very simple, clean the mesh once every two weeks, and I don't have to dose anything. I took the bio-pellets out two weeks after starting the scrubber. I'm not trying to advocate algae scrubbers. I'm just trying to share what is working for me. I tried the zeo approach and the bio-pellet approach, with RowaPhos, and they did not work for me. Nutrient test results were low, but hair algae was rampant and SPS growth had ground to a halt. I have a lot of fish in my tank, probably too many, and they have grown a lot in the past three years. Loonie-sized fish three years ago are now 8-10" in size. My SPS growth is outstanding and almost every trace of the hair algae I battled for 18 months is gone. I tried this out of desperation and it is the only thing that has worked so far."
Iprayforwaves on the scrubber site: "I have a mini 1x6 horizontal scrubber on a 5 gallon nano lit with 2 red LEDs and the growth on that thing is bright green and thick. Before there was algae all over the glass and rocks. since I put in the scrubber the algae has disappeared."
Kbb0118 on the TCMAS site: "Performace is AWESOME on this design. No water changes. Baseline readings 10/1/2011: Nitrate (Red Sea Pro) 1 ppm, Phosphate (Hanna ULR Phosphorus test) 0.120 ppm. Installed ATS on 10/4/2011. 10/13/2011: Nitrate 0.80 ppm, Phosphate 0.058 ppm. 10/21/2011: Nitrate 0.75 ppm, Phosphate 0.034 ppm. 10/29/2011: Nitrate 0.70 ppm, Phosphate 0.018 ppm <<< YEAH!!! I tested it 3 times with the Ultra Low Range Phosphorus Hanna test to make sure. 11/14/2011: Nitrate 0.25 ppm (Red Sea Pro), Phosphate 0.003 ppm (Hanna Phosphorus ULR reading of 1 ppB phosphorus). The only filtration I have is liverock, sand and this algae turf scrubber. No skimmer, GFO, carbon, pellets, filter socks anymore. Nearly all my DT algae is GONE! All fish who are able to are spawning in this tank! Some of the snails too! That is a huge deal for me. I feed pellets 2x daily and 2 cubes of frozen once a day. I have not done a WC in 2 months. I am monitoring my flame angel to see if her HLLE improves.....that fish's disease prompted this whole ATS thing. Water clarity seems normal to me. I haven't run any carbon since I read it may cause HLLE, so that was a whlie back. The one piece of acro I have is doing really well! I don't have any more cyano, bryopsis, bubble or hair algae in my display tank anymore."
Waucedah_joe on the scrubber site: "I built another [LED scrubber] that was nearly identical but had 45W panels instead of the 50w panels on the original. Not a lot of research just bought the cheapest ones I could find. Anyway, I started the current scrubber up along with my upgrade from a 75g to a 140g display in June of 2010. Except for the initial spike upon start-up my nitrates are zero with the Salifert test, I don't test for phosphates. I've never done a proper water change. I do add fresh salt water to replace what I pull out when siphoning sediment out of the sump but that adds up to no more than 5 gallons every 2-3 months. I see from reading newer threads that this is all old school but I couldn't be happier with the results."
Billym24 on the RDO site: "I have had a reef tank for 5 years and was never able to get my nitrate to 0 until I built a algee truff scrubber, cost about $35 to build and takes about 4 weeks to get to 0 but now I test 0 all the time and ph is never a problem either."
Bgmac on the scrubber site: "Upset with this Algae Scrubber: So far I have been running a DIY algae scrubber for a little over 3 weeks. When I started, my N was hovering around 15 to 20 and my P was around .25. You see, I have always done a 10 gallon water change every week for my 60 gal display and 20 gal sump. Now, with my algae scrubber, I stopped doing the weekly water changes, N so far has dropped bellow 2 ppm, and P is 0! I expect N to be 0 by the end of the week. I have also doubled the amount I feed the fish. Coraline calcium is starting to pop everywhere along with tube worms, sponges, hitch hiker soft coral, and countless other wild creatures. I am upset with this algae scrubber because I went for over 2 years constantly battling High N and making trips to the local salt water well, trucking buckets of water back and forth. Buying multiple skimmers and wasting hours of time and $ trying to dial them in with no real luck. You see, so far I am upset with this algae scrubber because I didn't set one up earlier. What was I thinking. After going through all of the ups and downs of this salt world hobby. I am truly amazed at how unbelievably great this simple and extremely cheap contraption is working! I am still going to do water changes in the future but think I will wait a few months and just top off with my RO/DI to give myself and my back a deserved break for a while. Thank you to all that posted on how to setup a scrubber. This has been one of the simplest things to do to my tank."
Holidayz on the scrubber site: "Tried the normal way like slimmer, bio-pellets, cheato, gfo, carbon, etc but still same, no purple and blue milli. Now I'm running scrubber alone, and even though my screen wasn't great, I found quite some benefits already. That's why I wanted to have a full green screen so situation probably even better. My blue milli is coming back, not full blue yet. Much more pods. I haven't feed my sun coral for 2 months now and still going good. Good growth on corals, more food from the screen? N always non detectable (salifet) and P ranging from 0 to 0.04 (Hana). Usually above 0 after I clean the screen or move rocks around, and drop back down to 0 after 2 -3 days."
lexxxx208 on the UR site: "I've had my scrubber up and running for 5 weeks now and I can safely say its the best thing since sliced bread lol the skimmer came of last week with no Ill affects and my gha in my dt has droped by half so if any one is in two minds to build and run a algae scrubber I'd say get it done you won't be disappointed"
BeanAnimal on the RC site: "I had a refugium on my system but was suffering very high nitrates and phosphates. Did the nitrate spike when it was removed? NO. I then put an ATS on my system (no other changes) and dropped my nitrate from deadly levels to ZERO and cut my phosphates significantly. Furhtermore, my PH is much more stable and my nuisance algae problem is starting to come under control. Water changes, a 6' tall skimmer and a refugium did not help."
Byron on the scrubber site: "I could not be happier with my ATS! Tank has no measurable N or P, I have been able to reduce LR in the tank, skimmer has gone, no more water changes etc. Feeding 7 - 10 cubes a day. I was cleaning half the screen once a week, but it is growing a lot better cleaning the whole screen every 14days. I have increased the ATS lights from 14 -18hrs per day."
Tomymar on the GK site: "I have a 140 gal, tank with 7 Ryukin. It's outdoors and even with a cover it had a major algae bloom. Could NOT see more than 3 inches. Built a waterfall Algae Scrubber and BOOM, no algae in the tank, I mean NONE. Water is crystal clear. AND, my bio filter was going OK but had Ammonia, like .5. Witht the Algae scrubber, Am 0, Ites 0, Ates 0. Right now I have an Up Flow Algae Scrubber (UAS) in my 30 gal. I used some Rubbermaid containers, a bubble wand, a very small air pump and there you go. This Algae Scrubber stuff works. My Ryukin are in totally clear water, I am amazed but it works."
Ansphire on the NR site: "Never made a waterchange, never ran skimmer, gfo, carbon. Saved a ton of money in salt, ro water, useless chemicals and equipment. Better yet, i spend 5 mins a week cleaning a screen. 10 yrs of reef keeping and my only regreat is not finding the algae scrubber sooner."
Tat2z_21 on the RF site: "The last [scrubber] I built worked almost to good. I noticed that the chaeto in my refugium started dwindling away. I thought if I let it go it would balance out but it out competed my chaeto. It also took out all of my nuisance algae in my tank."
Joshik on the SCR site: "i have one in my biocube 29 and i run an algae turf scrubber and it works great. i have 10 fish in my biocube and do not do water changes. i feed 2x day. i dose sea chem reef fusion to replenish elements. i have various softies, lps and sps that are doing great! i am an algae turf scrubber believer!"
Rexbrown on the SCR site: "The ATS that I have been running has worked out great for my 180 gallon. I have been skimmer free since setting it up. My Nitrates and Phosphates are always 0. It's been a copepod factory and my obese mandarins appreciate it. I harvest 2 to 2.5 cups of algae, every 7 to 10 days or so."
Cole on the CR site: "I have been running a scrubber for month now and it works really well. My phosphate and nitrate are at 0 consistently for the first time in 6 years. My fish and corals like the extra food they are getting as well.So easy to build and effective."
Edmontonnewbie on the CR site: "i doubled my feedings just to test it all out and found for the first time in 3 years i am running 0's in all my tests across the board, i brought a sample to the fish store and they got zeros too"
Pterfloth on the CR site; "I am very, very happy with the results. I have been at it for 3 months now and results continue to improve. Hair algae growth is significantly reduced and gradually receding. More importantly, my SPS growth has returned to former levels, colors are better and polyp extension is better. Colonies that had shown no growth for many months are now sprouting new tips everywhere and visible growth of SPS colonies is quite apparent. Areas damaged by hair algae or cyano encroachment are repairing. All cyano has disappeared. Maintenance is very simple, clean the mesh once every two weeks, and I don't have to dose anything. I took the bio-pellets out two weeks after starting the scrubber. I'm not trying to advocate algae scrubbers. I'm just trying to share what is working for me. I tried the zeo approach and the bio-pellet approach, with RowaPhos, and they did not work for me. Nutrient test results were low, but hair algae was rampant and SPS growth had ground to a halt. I have a lot of fish in my tank, probably too many, and they have grown a lot in the past three years. Loonie-sized fish three years ago are now 8-10" in size. My SPS growth is outstanding and almost every trace of the hair algae I battled for 18 months is gone. I tried this out of desperation and it is the only thing that has worked so far."
Iprayforwaves on the scrubber site: "I have a mini 1x6 horizontal scrubber on a 5 gallon nano lit with 2 red LEDs and the growth on that thing is bright green and thick. Before there was algae all over the glass and rocks. since I put in the scrubber the algae has disappeared."
Kbb0118 on the TCMAS site: "Performace is AWESOME on this design. No water changes. Baseline readings 10/1/2011: Nitrate (Red Sea Pro) 1 ppm, Phosphate (Hanna ULR Phosphorus test) 0.120 ppm. Installed ATS on 10/4/2011. 10/13/2011: Nitrate 0.80 ppm, Phosphate 0.058 ppm. 10/21/2011: Nitrate 0.75 ppm, Phosphate 0.034 ppm. 10/29/2011: Nitrate 0.70 ppm, Phosphate 0.018 ppm <<< YEAH!!! I tested it 3 times with the Ultra Low Range Phosphorus Hanna test to make sure. 11/14/2011: Nitrate 0.25 ppm (Red Sea Pro), Phosphate 0.003 ppm (Hanna Phosphorus ULR reading of 1 ppB phosphorus). The only filtration I have is liverock, sand and this algae turf scrubber. No skimmer, GFO, carbon, pellets, filter socks anymore. Nearly all my DT algae is GONE! All fish who are able to are spawning in this tank! Some of the snails too! That is a huge deal for me. I feed pellets 2x daily and 2 cubes of frozen once a day. I have not done a WC in 2 months. I am monitoring my flame angel to see if her HLLE improves.....that fish's disease prompted this whole ATS thing. Water clarity seems normal to me. I haven't run any carbon since I read it may cause HLLE, so that was a whlie back. The one piece of acro I have is doing really well! I don't have any more cyano, bryopsis, bubble or hair algae in my display tank anymore."
Waucedah_joe on the scrubber site: "I built another [LED scrubber] that was nearly identical but had 45W panels instead of the 50w panels on the original. Not a lot of research just bought the cheapest ones I could find. Anyway, I started the current scrubber up along with my upgrade from a 75g to a 140g display in June of 2010. Except for the initial spike upon start-up my nitrates are zero with the Salifert test, I don't test for phosphates. I've never done a proper water change. I do add fresh salt water to replace what I pull out when siphoning sediment out of the sump but that adds up to no more than 5 gallons every 2-3 months. I see from reading newer threads that this is all old school but I couldn't be happier with the results."
Billym24 on the RDO site: "I have had a reef tank for 5 years and was never able to get my nitrate to 0 until I built a algee truff scrubber, cost about $35 to build and takes about 4 weeks to get to 0 but now I test 0 all the time and ph is never a problem either."
anyone thats thinking about building 1 all i can say is go for it THEY WORK!!! nuff said"
