What do you expect out of an algae scrubber and what difference has it made?

[MnFish1]

Don't give up on them just yet... Lol. We make sure every customer that reaches out to us gets theirs working correctly.

Would you mind telling me the 'footprint'requiored -and the plumbing (if any required) -ora link to where I can look at ti

 

[Thales]

I have tried several over the years and none of them made much of a dent, if any, on nutrient loads. This is on an established tank.
I think algae control in the DT is more about herbivores and not allowing algae to take hold enough to 'phase change' your reef. Once there is enough algae, it wins, just like on wild reefs.

 

[eea60123]

I had purchased the clearwater scrubber and so far it has done nothing in reducing phosphates in my system. I am getting very disappointed in buying expensive equipment, yet, no results! I will say this thing is growing algae, but no reduction in my phosphates at all. I am at about 1.0 and just gave something else a try "PhosBan-L" which is actually reducing and plan on dosing this daily at very small portion of course.

I had a similar issue with my Santa Monica ATS. It took a month and a half to start growing algae and then I hit an ugly phase that lasted for another month and a half. I think there is truth to the rocks leaching phosphates because all of my existing live rock looked terrible, but my newly added cured rock was fine.

 

[Gary LeCompte]

What is the heat affect of the scrubber?

 

[jlts21]

I’m currently running a chaeto reactor using an avast marine spyglass that I’m trying to sell to switch over to an algae scrubber by Clear Water. It works, but I feel an algae scrubber would work a lot better since I just have a Kessil H80 aimed at the side of the reactor right now

 

[Josh@ClearWaterScrubbers]

Would you mind telling me the 'footprint'requiored -and the plumbing (if any required) -ora link to where I can look at ti

What size system are you running? We have 4 standard sizes so I can’t give you an exact footprint without knowing what model you would need.

 

[Josh@ClearWaterScrubbers]

What is the heat affect of the scrubber?

I can’t speak for every manufacturer but I know ours and Turbo’s Aquatics (Bud) should not add any heat to your system. There are exceptions to the rule like if you have a completely enclosed stand but even then it should be minimal. And if you drill a small hole in the stand, there will be none. Our lights operate around 100 degrees and they never come into contact with the water so there should be no heat transfer that way. The waterfall of the scrubber also helps to offset any heat that may happen in an enclosed stand.

 

[ReefBeta]

I don't plan to use algae scrubber because I'm running refugium instead, for the benefit of it scrubbing CO2 out of water and raise pH.

I do wonder though, does algae scrubber has comparable affect on the tank's pH. My understanding is that it doesn't, because its theory is to give GHA the advantage of using CO2 from the air, so less are taken from tank water.

 

[Fishguywc]

I’ve been running a cw-50 for about 8 months now and I love it. Plumbed into my return pump and have it sitting on top of the sump. See results below in the picture.. it’s like this on both sides and I scrape about every two weeks. Cleaned up the algae growing in my tank and keeps phosphates down.

 

[DarthSimon]

REV,
I have a Clearwater. Josh is awesome FYI.
Mine brings my phosphates down to .04
You can’t go wrong with a turf scrubber. It’s natural filtration and doesn’t take up as much space as a refugium...

 

[Gaspipe]

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.

Thanks for taking the time to show the links as well! Please post some pics when done!!

 

[jlts21]

REV,
I have a Clearwater. Josh is awesome FYI.
Mine brings my phosphates down to .04
You can’t go wrong with a turf scrubber. It’s natural flirtation, and doesn’t take up as much space as a refugium...

Natural flirtation huh? lol

 

[DarthSimon]

Natural flirtation huh? lol

Yes natural filtration as opposed to dosing chemicals to lower nutrients???
Was something funny about my comment??

 

[jlts21]

Yes natural filtration as opposed to dosing chemicals to lower nutrients???
Was something funny about my comment??

You put flirtation as opposed to filtration so I was making a funny haha

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ive been running a scrubber well over a year. I have less hair algae and skimmer working much less harder.

1. For those of you who run algae scrubbers what difference has a scrubber made on your reef tank and does it meet expectations? It has reduced the nitrates as I always was a little high in testing

2. For those who have never ran a scrubber, that may be thinking about one, what do you expect to accomplish by running one.

3. What should we NOT expect to happen from running a scrubber? A total nitrate reduction and easy maintenance. You have to scrub these well ( I use a hard toothbrush and lots of elbow grease.

 

[DarthSimon]

What am I amusing?? I make you laugh??? What am I a clown??! What’s so funny about me??? Tell me Henry!!!! Tell me

 

[DarthSimon]

On my current 300g system, I started out with a 50 Gallon Refugium with a high power Kessil Grow light. The Cheato grew fast, but I got tons of slime algae and what looked to be Dino’s in there. I cleaned out the tank a few times and started it over and it kept coming back. Nitrates and Phosphates lowered marginally. I then disbanded the fug and installed the Clearwater 200. It took about 3-4 weeks to get the thick turf. After that I need to scrape every 2 weeks. My No3 and Po4 went down much better. Phosphates are now .04

Nitrates 5-10.

 

[Neil S.]

They actually use more PO4 to grow than NO3. What most hobbyists don't realize is that most pellet and flake foods have a source of PO4 in them. It's how they get the pellets to stay together and also it creates a feeding response from the fish and corals. So while it might not be the silver bullet to balance nutrients, you won't find a better natural way of removing them.

A Triton Method filtration system uses a refugium (large) to grow macro-algae which takes up PO4 and Nitrates. I've been running Triton now for about 5 months and have very little nuisance algae growing in the tank now. I would assume that an algae reactor would be similar in function.

 

[Feet4Fish]

@vetteguy53081

What scrubber are you using? You have a pretty large system and I am debating what scrubber to use for my newest build. Will be big bio-land FOWLR. Considered doing DIY like @ca1ore because few commercial size units are readily available.

Ive been running a scrubber well over a year. I have less hair algae and skimmer working much less harder.

1. For those of you who run algae scrubbers what difference has a scrubber made on your reef tank and does it meet expectations? It has reduced the nitrates as I always was a little high in testing

2. For those who have never ran a scrubber, that may be thinking about one, what do you expect to accomplish by running one.

3. What should we NOT expect to happen from running a scrubber? A total nitrate reduction and easy maintenance. You have to scrub these well ( I use a hard toothbrush and lots of elbow grease.

 

[Sinibotia]

My tank is too small, not much point.