I have run a .5 drop Santa Monica scrubber in a 20gallon and a 75gallon. I have seen growth in both. 75 more so because I feed the tank more. I also run phosguard and carbon in the sump so I don’t know if that would affect performance. But to get them both started I had to put a piece of seaweed in there to get things growing. After that growth wasn’t perfect. Not like you see in the movies with them pulling chunks off every week. It looks more like the seaweed salad next to the ahi poke tuna at Bristol farms. I’m not sure if an algae scrubber is truly worth it when running carbon and phosguard. My 20gal had chaeto when I added the scrubber. Chaeto died shortly after I got things growing on the scrubber. I didn’t get much growth. I also ran a protein skimmer in both tanks. Same skimmer actually. I actually enjoyed having chaeto in the sump. Fun to watch and just adds a new element to the Hobby. But then you get those loose bits of Cheato that enter the DT and suddenly it’s sticking to power heads and now the clear little flecks are all over. When I upgraded from 20 to 75... I went barebottom in DT and one chamber in sump has sand for my snails. Big chamber. My watchman and pistol live down there too and they are, IMO, the best pair in the hobby, maybe next to some clowns. I’m waiting for an appointment. Time to go in! Best of luck.
What do you expect out of an algae scrubber and what difference has it made?
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I built a custom ATS in the rear middle compartment of my biocube 32, been running for a week, seeded with GHA. Also have chaeto, have a 10"x10" led grow light on the middle compartment. Water clarity is getting better corals look happier. But I do believe the screen is not large enough. So planning to incorporate a 10g sump and increase the screen size with and possibly a folcrum style scrubber with the convenience to add mechanical filtration if needed in the future. I decided to go this route cause in the earlier part of 2000 my wife and I went to a saltwater shop in Indiana that had been running for 8 or 9 yrs on a ATS and their tanks were crystal clear and thriving.
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Was it one of our units you were using? What were the issues you had with your unit?
SkiCatTX
Sustainable Reefkeeping
Never used one, but have considered it a number of times. I think I would prefer the larger variety and quantity of life that can be maintained in a sump refugium though, dispite the larger area generally needed.
JOKER
2500 Club Member
I run an algae scrubber to control N03, P04. I adjust the scrubber time according to my tanks algae growth. I do daily AWC of 2 gallons on a 200 total volume system. No other water changes required, and SPS dominant tank. I will always run an ATS on any system I set up. Tanks will grow algae (FACT) so why not control where it grows from the start before it takes over rocks and coral?
ca1ore
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Been running variations on the ATS since I first read Walter Adey's Balanced Ecosystems book in the mid 1990's. They are an effective way, though not the only way, of removing the end products of nutrient oxidation. Properly sized and maintained, the ATS will significantly reduce nitrates and phosphates. Not a band-aid for poor husbandry practices or crazy overstocking levels though.
I’m currently building a DIY version. Main reason is that I want a natural way to grow the algae outside my tank to prevent them from growing in the tank (they would still grow but if you battle it, they will stop and the scrubber will win at the end). It’s also way better than any other method, even macro algae. Why? It grows not 1 type of algae which only uses a specific amount of something. It grows whatever to use up exactly the thing you have in your tank that needs to go out. For example if dosing a high amount of trace elements or amino acids or whatever, it will grow algae that uses exactly that. Which is something different than gfo, carbon, macro algae etc. It would also be possible that it grows algae which consumes ammonia which almost nothing else can consume till it turns into No3.
Why DIY? If there is anothing that is simple to build, than it is a waterfall algae scrubber. Cost a few $ instead of a few 100. You can build a version that is easy to hang inside the sump, takes almost no place and it just works. Also easily to scale. If it pulls out too much and tank is stable, lower the amount of light or cut a piece out of the mesh...
So if you compare any method that exists to pull out nutrients and try to prevent growing anything in your display, it’s an algae scrubber. I would even say it’s better than a skimmer.
There is also no shame in using multiple methods at a very small rate. Especially if there is almost no cost to add this method.
Why DIY? If there is anothing that is simple to build, than it is a waterfall algae scrubber. Cost a few $ instead of a few 100. You can build a version that is easy to hang inside the sump, takes almost no place and it just works. Also easily to scale. If it pulls out too much and tank is stable, lower the amount of light or cut a piece out of the mesh...
So if you compare any method that exists to pull out nutrients and try to prevent growing anything in your display, it’s an algae scrubber. I would even say it’s better than a skimmer.
There is also no shame in using multiple methods at a very small rate. Especially if there is almost no cost to add this method.
MnFish1
10K Club member
No it wasnt one of yours - it just did not take care of nutrients as I would have liked. + it was cumbersome in the sump.
Ricky_Reef
Diamond Goby Lover/Hater
I have been using a CW-100 from ClearWater Scrubbers for around 5 months now. 1st point I'd like to make right off the bat is Josh, the owner has been absolutely great with customer support and he backs his product up 100%! Since running mine I have had zero problems to speak of outside of the fact "It grows algae too fast!" Lol... I clean my screen every 14 days or sooner and its consistency packed with algae. My Nitrates sit around 3 and Phosphates fluctuate between 0.04 to 0.08. I still use a protien skimmer so I would imagine that's helping those numbers. I never really see pods in the scrubber any bigger than specs running around but the sump compartment the scrubber drains into has around 50 ceramic media balls and they are loaded with pods! My mandarin is always fat and happy. I keep my scrubber lights on 24/7 and so far this thing has been great.... P.S., I highly recommend buying the light covers!
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Don't give up on them just yet... Lol. We make sure every customer that reaches out to us gets theirs working correctly.
Don't mind at all.
I bought the plastic mesh that is always used on aliexpress (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000034030779.html) for about 2$. PVC blue pipe with grey connectors (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33020792389.html) etc for the waterfall itself. As a mount, I use the plexi 1 probe mounts on aliexpress (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000094603167.html) which I will use to mount the PVC pipe against so I can hang it on the side of my sump. On the outside I will hang a grow light. In my case 12V strips because I could use my Apex controller to dim these strips. But you could use the 110V growlights too although they get hot. Tunze pump and that's about it.
Feet4Fish
Valuable Member
I also have been running scrubbers since Adey’s book and a LFS over here in Terra Haute, Indiana (Morgan Lidster) schooled me on the science. Initially ran dump bucket styles now use waterfalls!
Why will someone need algae scrubber? You guys been here in this hobby of salt water and corals reef forums/shows /go to school about marine biology and everything. But look like you guys never heard about water change. Any time I got problems with my tank on anything.. gha/alk/cal/ nitrate/ph /well you get it anytime I do water change something more often depending on the problem but WC always fix my problems.. and I never worry about dosing or spending so much $ on equipment. only on salt soon another new more sofisticado Algae scrubber come out / or even worse the one you have just got upgraded or now is scrubber/2 better and improve. So the old one was not good from the beginning or what .. well my opinion I vote no
Iván Olalla
Well-Known Member
Used to have a small fuge, biopellet and gfo reactors to keep my nutrients where i wanted...the i used a Santa Monica Hog 1 out of curiosity and today the fuge is used for cuts, no biopellet reactor and just eventually turn on the gfo one with same levels, also ph went up...one of the best purchases ive made equipment related
Feet4Fish
Valuable Member
Using algal filtration does not alleviate water changes and no would would claim that they are needed. There really aren’t too many pieces of equipment that are needed. There are differently methodologies that all have advantages and drawbacks that we all personally decide or stumble into that fits our systems best.
ca1ore
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Yup, dump bucket circa 1995 .... or thereabouts .... gads such a long time ago I don’t even recall what some of the crap in that photo was for LOL ....
ca1ore
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Gee no .... been keeping reef tanks for decades and I never heard of water changes .... what a curious concept. How does that work ...... ?
A little friendly sarcasm aside, lots of different ways to accomplish nutrient export of which the ATS and water changes are just two. I just find relying solely on water changes for nutrient dilution to be both tedious and not terribly effective, particularly on large systems (mine is pushing 700 gallons). Of course, cleaning the ATS screen is pretty tedious too.
Terrp
Community Member
I’ve used different ATS and refugium setups (and other approaches) over the years to control nitrates and phosphates while limiting the need for water changes. Any of the approaches can work, but the RAIN scrubbers from Santa Monica Filtration are my new favorite by far.
What I like about the RAINs:
1. REALLY easy to maintain – Remove the cover, slide out the screen, scrape off the screen and replace the screen and cover. Nothing needs to be turned off or unplugged. No other approach I have tried comes close to this easy. Scrubbers that rely on submerged airline tubes require the pain of cleaning the tubes regularly or performance will deteriorate quickly. Refugiums create way too much maintenance headaches by making a mess of the sump, skimmer, etc. I also hate having to change media like GFO.
2. Very flexible – In addition to the changing the light timing based on your scrubbing needs, you can increase/decrease the number of lights used. You can also increase or decrease the water flow a bit.
3. Very effective – I rarely do water changes, and I maintain N around 1 and P around .02 or so. I use a RAIN4 with 200g total water volume. I have a relatively moderate bio load, a skimmer and a filter roller, so I only use 2 of the 6 RAIN4 LEDs for 14 hours per day and get very healthy growth. I clean the screen every 10-14 days. I’ve toyed with the idea of only cleaning the front and back of half the screen each 7 days for more even growth, but haven’t experimented with that yet.
4. No sound.
5. Easy to start – Very easy to install. Assuming you have an established tank producing nitrates & phosphates, growth starts quickly. In a new tank, you won’t see much growth until nutrients rise, but you also won’t be melting chaeto in your refugium during the startup phase.
6. Small footprint.
What I don’t like… It feels like the cost is higher than it needs to be. This design is pretty simple and could be done DIY fairly effectively. But I’m lazy and have limited time for my tank as it is, and I like the more professional look of a commercial offering, and I understand that small businesses don’t have the economies of scale needed for low cost, so I just forked over the cash.
What I like about the RAINs:
1. REALLY easy to maintain – Remove the cover, slide out the screen, scrape off the screen and replace the screen and cover. Nothing needs to be turned off or unplugged. No other approach I have tried comes close to this easy. Scrubbers that rely on submerged airline tubes require the pain of cleaning the tubes regularly or performance will deteriorate quickly. Refugiums create way too much maintenance headaches by making a mess of the sump, skimmer, etc. I also hate having to change media like GFO.
2. Very flexible – In addition to the changing the light timing based on your scrubbing needs, you can increase/decrease the number of lights used. You can also increase or decrease the water flow a bit.
3. Very effective – I rarely do water changes, and I maintain N around 1 and P around .02 or so. I use a RAIN4 with 200g total water volume. I have a relatively moderate bio load, a skimmer and a filter roller, so I only use 2 of the 6 RAIN4 LEDs for 14 hours per day and get very healthy growth. I clean the screen every 10-14 days. I’ve toyed with the idea of only cleaning the front and back of half the screen each 7 days for more even growth, but haven’t experimented with that yet.
4. No sound.
5. Easy to start – Very easy to install. Assuming you have an established tank producing nitrates & phosphates, growth starts quickly. In a new tank, you won’t see much growth until nutrients rise, but you also won’t be melting chaeto in your refugium during the startup phase.
6. Small footprint.
What I don’t like… It feels like the cost is higher than it needs to be. This design is pretty simple and could be done DIY fairly effectively. But I’m lazy and have limited time for my tank as it is, and I like the more professional look of a commercial offering, and I understand that small businesses don’t have the economies of scale needed for low cost, so I just forked over the cash.
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