When using your ATS, did you ever bottom out the NO3 and PO4 to dangerous levels? I've been using one and it did wonders for my PO4. Went from 0.16 to 0.01 in a month but I had to dose KNO3 since it would go to 0 in a day (from 3.5 ppm) but Im worried it'll strip the water too clean.
DIY Algae Turf Scrubber Discussion.
- Thread starter lshin037
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When using your ATS, did you ever bottom out the NO3 and PO4 to dangerous levels? I've been using one and it did wonders for my PO4. Went from 0.16 to 0.01 in a month but I had to dose KNO3 since it would go to 0 in a day (from 3.5 ppm) but Im worried it'll strip the water too clean.
The lights I used were 50w flood grow led from Amazon and had a smaller COB in the center. They were a little far from the sheet and I think my sheet was too big, I was using a full untrimmed sheet. I would sometimes get good growth and sometimes it'd get covered in cyano. Right before one of the lights went bad I had the kind of growth you'd expect from an ATS. At that time my NO3 bottomed out. I believe everything started working right because I finally got my feeding under control last fall and boom, everything fell in line. I still hadn't been using socks for over a year now. Throughout that time my NO3 never got above 8-10 but my PO4 got to .15-.2 and I lowered it with lanthanum chloride. Using NO3PO4X over the last 5 weeks at half the recommended rate I'm at NO3 5 PO4 .06 as of last night. I'm going to try and keep those near there while the new sheet gets started. Once I start seeing growth I'm going to start easing back on the NO3PO4X.
I upgraded the lights using the same housings. I had several conversations with Bud (Floyd R Turbo) and I think these lights will be a vast improvement. There's 35 leds in each, 29 660 red and 6 420 violet. I also shortened the sheet from 12x18 to 12x14 and the light frames the sheet perfectly, no shading on the sides of it like before. It's funny, I just spent more upgrading the leds than I spent building to whole ATS. I think it will be worth in in the end though. Once I get some good growth on the sheet so I can get some pics I'm going to do a full DIY right up on it.
With the higher PO4 numbers I was seeing some of my SPS browning entirely up, only a hand full of them though. Those are now getting their normal coloring back. My goal is by no means to do ULNS but I'm going to let them fall pretty low to see if it has any effect on the red turf algae I have all over the rocks. I'm already seeing some receding. If it works I'm going to keep things that low as long as the corals are ok and once the RTA is gone I'll get the NO3 back up to 3-5 and PO4 .02-.05 by dialing in the photo period on the scrubber. Which is something you can do to reduce it's effectiveness. Cut the period down some and you might not need to dose KON3, or at least not as much of it.
One last thing on ATS's in general. It really helped my PH and since it's been down it has dropped a full tenth plus. It was holding at 8.05-8.1 at night and climbing to 8.15-8.2 during the day. I've now been seeing 7.9-7.95 & 8.0-8.05. And that with running a co2 scrubber! I'm really looking forward to seeing some growth on the screen and seeing the ph start climbing.
I guess I still got a ways to go before the "set it and forget it" phase. My PO4 went down from 0.16 to 0.01 in a month. I stopped dosing KNO3 and see if it holds. I got these lights. I never got the lush green turf algae. It was always green with either brown/light brown slime (im guessing cyano). Maybe since my nutrients were already somewhat low. But it stayed off my DT and, most importantly, lowered my PO4.
That's the same slime I would get. It would vary from Reddish to brownish. It would always happen over the top of the good green GHA. Bud told me it was due to the wavelength of the lights I got, which were 630 red and 465 blue. And also the distance from the sheet.
This is what I got for the lights.
They went from this.
To this.
This is what I got for the lights.
They went from this.
To this.
That looks exactly like the lights that came with my 302aquatics scrubber but it was 30w and 2700k. Too bad its no longer available
Wow! That is actually a great idea!! Before I got my scrubber, I was going through so many potential DIY designs in my head and never thought of this. Its simple and parts easily acquired. Im guessing this is a spray bar design? With the two pipes on each side spraying onto both sides of the screen?
**I tried moving the above 6 posts to a new thread I created but it auto sorted the posts by date & time and moved those to the top. So we'll just use this for discussion and I'll put up a build thread for it soon.**
The initial design and finished scrubber cost me about $160ish with a DCP pump. The light retrofit cost an additional $250ish. This is a very large one mind you, it's probably 1/2 again bigger than the L8 that Turbo makes for $900. Mine can handle about 10-12 cubes a day. It would be pretty easy to scale down and have a much lower cost.
Yes, it's a spray bar design. @ricky5415 and I were talking about his scrubber and what he'd do different and we came up with this design together. The reason for the bars and not a slot pipe is the easy removal of the screen for cleaning. I'll go into more detail in the build thread.
The initial design and finished scrubber cost me about $160ish with a DCP pump. The light retrofit cost an additional $250ish. This is a very large one mind you, it's probably 1/2 again bigger than the L8 that Turbo makes for $900. Mine can handle about 10-12 cubes a day. It would be pretty easy to scale down and have a much lower cost.
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Very cool design! Now Im tempted to try it.
