Algae Turf Scrubber

jj ocean · May 19, 2011

About a month ago I decided to fabricate an Algae Turf Scrubber after researching the application of ATS’s in many commercial facilities. The driver was that I prefer to feed my fish well and I had some hair algae building up in my DTs. It is pretty much an elaborate experiment for me, but worth it in the end if it improves my water quality. If this keeps me out of gfo or bio pellets – mission accomplished. I figured I’d post pics of my whole process in case anyone else was interested in ATS’s. 

The specs are 24”L x 11”W x 18”H with six 24w T5HO lights and 2 exhaust fans. I used ¼” black acrylic for the housing. The wet box's 23” x 16” screen is fed via ¾” pvc and has two 1” drains. Estimating flow into the wet box is around 600gph. You can see the pass through holes for the bulkheads cut in the bottom of the dry box. Below are some pics of the “dry box” … some when it was half built (better view of the interior) and the rest of the pics after it was completed. Pics of the “wet box” and total setup are further down.

A shot of the dry box half built - can get a good view of the inside before I completed the other side.

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End view of completed dry box - lights off

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End view lights on

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top view - lights on

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Overhead shot with the wet box sitting inside the dry box. You can see the two 1" bulk heads on the bottom. Spray bar & mesh are out of this shot.

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Here the spray bar and mesh are inserted. The top lid and closing latch are not installed.

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Here's a shot with it fully assembled as it runs (minus the union attached to the spray bar). I added a latch on the top in the middle that wasn't part of the original design. It was added to ensure the wet & dry box stay tightly together. A big goal of my design was to keep the light as contained as possible, so I can run this off photo-period from my DT (help keep Ph up at night). I have other tanks in my sump room with clown pairs and growing juveniles, so I don't want to light them up all night. ATS lights run 8pm - 2pm.

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Here's a shot with it installed above my sump running. As you can see it is tight, but works as designed (top of pic, just right of center). It is fed from one of my manifold valves off of my main hammerhead pump.

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Final shot of my mesh after 2 weeks. I did "seed" it with some algae that was growing in one of my tanks. Pretty much smeared it all over. No way to really tell if it accelerated the process since I don't have a "control" screen that I did not do this to, but logic leads me to believe it helped speed up the growth. I've got a ways to go before the algae gets to a mass that is affecting my water quality.

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I'll post pics of the mesh further down the road.

enderg60 · May 19, 2011

Im really starting to not like you man, all your stuff is done way to nice and its making my feel bad!

morganatlanta · May 19, 2011

Glad to see someone else in Atlanta joining the ATS club. I have a similar set up on my 125 gallon.

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dr_ fish · May 19, 2011

If you can get the algae to grow where you want it it wont grow in your tanks? Is that the idea behind this?

crewdawg1981 · May 19, 2011

Get it growing like crazy in the scrubber and its less likely to grow in your tank. A lot of people (myself included) have left sump lights on 24/7 for just this purpose. I'd rather it be in the sump that the DT.

morganatlanta · May 19, 2011

Yes, and it turns out growing algae is a very efficient mechanism to remove nutrients from the water. Growing it on a screen makes it easy to harvest the algae and therefore remove the nutrients from the system. Since the conditions on the screen are perfect in terms of light and flow, the algae growing there will outcompete the algae in the tank for nutrients causing the algae in the tank to fade out.

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jj ocean · May 19, 2011

Ender – well, I never posted how long it took me to build. I probably don’t really want to know myself. My problem is that I’m too SLOW! I do way too much drawing, figuring and measuring. Glad you like it - thanks. If the pics help somebody else reduce their time to make one, all the better.
 
Morgan – I’m getting into the ATS club on faith alone. All the info and approach seemed sound, so I invested in building one. Since you’ve been running one way longer than me, what have your results been like?
 
Dr. Fish – the other guys already answered the bulk of your question. The only other thing I’d elaborate on is that the ATS is designed to grow “turf” algae. Not sure of the exact species … there’s probably several in reality, but it is known to grow very quickly and is very efficient at consuming nutrients (phosphates, nitrates, etc.). Better than cheto, caulerpa, etc. It prefers to have water and air interaction vs. completely submerged. That’s what the ATS provides. Basically, it is setting up an environment that is different than your DT to grow an algae that will outcompete other algaes that are submerged in your DT. Ther turf algae doesn’t leave enough nutrients for the other “lesser” algaes. That’s the theory anyway.

morganatlanta · May 19, 2011

There have been some developments with ATS with designs like this recently. The best resource if you are interested in more info is algaescrubber.net. The guy who runs that site goes under the name "SantaMonica". It's great info, but he is very opinionated and puts some people off. Personally, I think the info he puts up is great, and it is nice to have a community of people using the ATS method. Many of the people are from outside the US.

The biggest change in the last year that I've seen, is that people have stopped trying to grow red turf algae. It turns out with this box style ATS, you can grow regular old green hair algae by the pound, and get better export than the slower growing red turf.

My results so far are very good. I had the 30 gallon running with an ATS from last July through December with no measurable nitrates. The ATS on the 30 gallon was just a screen hanging from a pipe with a clip on home depot light on it. It cost maybe $20 to make. It was fed from my return.

The scrubber on my 125 is an acrylic box similar to JJ's, but not nearly as nicely built. It has 6 T5HO lamps. The screen is 22"x9", lit with three lamps on either side. It is fed with my returns into both ends of the pipe that holds the screen, so it doesn't add an extra pump to the system. Flow is somewhere around 800 GPH, based on my main pump being a Mag12 with 4' of head up to the display.

I've only had the 125 up since January, but early results are good. My nitrates and phosphates measure at 0. I feed as much as I like. The SPS I've put in the tank have done well. By SantaMonica's numbers, I could feed up to 15 cubes of frozen food a day with my scrubber. I'm no where near that since I am still stocking up the tank. I clean the screen once every 7-10 days, and that's it. I have no skimmer, no GFO, etc. I did put some carbon in a BRS reactor to help clear up the water early on, but it's been a couple months and I haven't replaced it. I'm planning to just remove it.

If you are interested, definitely check out algaescrubber.net. There are lots of pictures of successful tanks and lots of pictures of DIY designs ranging from simple clip-light and bucket to elaborate ones like this.

phil47952 · May 19, 2011

Thanks Morgan and JJ great info.......

acroholic · May 19, 2011

I built and ran an algae scrubber for several months last year. They work, but I stopped mine because the water became tinged with color, even though I was regularly harvesting algae using GAC to remove the tinge. The water clarity level was not as good as I wanted. If you don't mind this then I think An ATS is a fine thing. My experience may have just been particular to my setup, so your mileage may vary.

My thread for reference. It has some pics of the setup I used.

acroholic · May 19, 2011

Amici;646534 wrote: I wonder if it would be possible to run the outflow of a ATS into a series of fine mesh filter socks to clean out any of the small particles and keep the water clearer?

Ozone might help as well.

morganatlanta · May 19, 2011

I haven't had that issue, but you could run the drains from the scrubber through a filter sock if you want. I have my scrubber on my main drain lines, so it wouldn't really be any different than how most people run filter socks.

It is critical that you take the screens out of the scrubber before cleaning them, or you'll get algae floating loose in your display. If you bust a bunch of algae cells, you'll tint the water a bit.

My normal cleaning process is to scrape the algae off the screen with a plastic scraper and then shoot it with a hose, which probably helps rinse off any loose material.

morganatlanta · May 19, 2011

It is my ONLY form of filtration aside from live rock and I have zero nitrates and phosphates, so it is definitely working for me so far. But, my tank is not that old (less than 6 months), and I upgraded from my 30 gallon before it got a chance to get very old either, so I wouldn't declare total success yet.

Over the next few months I'm planning to stock up on the fish and coral and ramp up the feeding, so we'll see how it works out in the long run.

smallblock · May 19, 2011

I think I have a type of algae that might be perfect for this!!!!!

Edit: lemme snap a pic right quick, I've been meaning to ask what the crap this is but I'm kinda ashamed about it. I got it because I didnt have the heart to kill a snail that had it on its shell. Now its growing pretty good and holds detrius like crazy. In fact when I got some red cyano from adding a few more rocks, the red cyano grew all over the turf and kinda choked it out.

Edit: here it is, its really coarse stuff and impossible to pull off the rock

Edit: it doesnt grow very long in length
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smallblock · May 19, 2011

If I forget that I've posted in this thread for a few days would someone please pm me with an ID of that algae.

jj ocean · May 19, 2011

You’ve definitely got a macro algae there. It would be cool if that grew in the ATS, but I can’t say I ever saw that type in any of the mesh pics with turf algae I looked at while doing research. You say it doesn’t grow very long … most of the turf algae continues to grow in length until harvested. It looks too structured to be hair algae too. The good news is that I know it isn’t bryopsis. I got a lot of different types of algae in my tank, but not that type.

smallblock · May 19, 2011

if you wanna try some I can send it to you. I just hope I can figure out what it is. Thanks man

jj ocean · May 19, 2011

Smallblock;647990 wrote: if you wanna try some I can send it to you. I just hope I can figure out what it is. Thanks man

Thanks ... I'll let somebody ID that bad boy first!

smallblock · May 19, 2011

JJ Ocean;647991 wrote: Thanks ... I'll let somebody ID that bad boy first!

LMAO good Idea

morganatlanta · May 19, 2011

I've got some of the same stuff growing on a hermit shell in my tank.

What you want for the ATS is something that grows fast so that you can pull out as many nutrients as possible. Regular old green hair algae is best. Red turf will grow on the screen eventually, but it is better to scrape it off and farm GHA instead.

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