Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everything

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

The new scrubber FAQ for 2010 is now posted:

Algae Scrubbers • View topic - ALGAE SCRUBBER FAQ (August 2010)

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Well I thought it couldn't grow any more in two weeks, but this time it reached the top of the window and was getting ready to spill out the end. My other scrubber was not very grown yet, so I did not want to clean this one today, but I thought I better before it spills. Tests today were N02=0, NO3=2, P=.015? (very faint blue). Feeding is one silverside per week to the eel, 4.8 ml/day continuous feeding of Oysterfeast for the corals (very low amount, currently), and misc nori/daphnia for the fish. Pics (right-click and "view image" to see whole pic):

Video:

YouTube - Santa Monica 100 - Max Growth and Screen Removal
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[Floyd R Turbo]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Holy thread length Batman. I am still back on post #640 in December of 2008. I maintain 3 SW systems (I don't have one up and running myself, it's in the garage!) but I am extremely interested in converting one or all of them to ATS after what I've read.

SM I am really curious to understand why you spend so much time promoting this device and seemingly get nothing out of it except spreading the word about how it works and helping people perfect their systems. I have read a couple other threads where you got basically attacked, and I'm glad to see that no one has stooped to that level on this thread (well, I guess I have 600+ more posts to go...but at least it's still open!!)

By the way, I'm an Electrical Engineer also. You can't spell BEER without "EE" is what we always said in college.

There are a few questions I have though, and I figured I'll ask them now and continue to read...for the next couple weeks...

1) I keep reading about rinsing off the screen with RODI top-off water to kill the pods. Maybe I'm still new enough, but I thought pods were ok, and your fish and some corals will eat them. Why would one want to get rid of there, can they become a nuisance or hazard or something? Also, aren't they small enough to make it through the return pump without getting shredded?

2) I am a little confused on the water-flow issue. I get that it has to be 35 GPH for every 1 inch of width, then you need 1 sq in of screen for every gallon in the DT. The problem is that how do you know, reliably, what your GPH flow into your sump is, short of putting a 1g bucket under the overflow and timing how long it takes to fill, and doing that a bunch of times and averaging it out? I can have a 900 GPH pump, but if it has to pump 5 feet up that head pressure drops it down to something like 500-600 I think. I wouldn't want to make or order the screen to small or too big.

3) I read somewhere that ATS will eventually starve Xenia? I have one system with a huge colony of Red Sea Pumping Xenia and another huge colony of Waving Hand Anthelia, will these be affected by the presence of an ATS

I keep a running thread on the tanks I maintain, because I basically rescued each of them from the brink.

One reef tank with no corals left, not enough lights, Nitrate 200 Phosphate 3+. Now Nitrate 0 (I brought it down to 25, LR did the rest and 0ppm for 6 months running) Phos 0.1 450W of T5 VHO and tons of thriving corals. Not all of them are thriving, there's a few that are struggling, but that's probably due to Ca and Mg depleting. I gotta get on that. This is all a learning experience for me and luckily I get paid something for it.

Second FOWLR started Nitrate 1000 (yes, one Thousand) and now better, but can't get it to stay below 50 for long, and lots of green hair in DT (was REALLY bad Cyano).

Third FOWLR I tore down and started over - no PWC in 3 years, Nitrate 1000 (yes) Phosphate 20 (yes) Cyano everywhere and scratches on acrylic, I sanded it, surface bleached the LR, got it all up and running and 2 months later getting lots of green and red slime algae back (temp 80+ all the time).

So yeah, I'm totally interested in eliminating PWCs. I make a little $ on that, but I just got back into Engineering and between that and family, I have no time, so this would be huge.

I have to design ATS for 3 different systems, than troubleshoot and maintain. If I get it working well, I have an LFS employee that might jump on the bandwagon.

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Well I wanted to just promote them, but since nobody would make them, I've having to do it myself.

1) Rinse with tap, not rodi. The pods will eat the algae and put nutrients back in the water. Most DIY designs do not grow fast enough to compensate for the pods' effects.

2) You need to use a bucket and test it.

3) Xenia will probably go (no guarantee though), unless you start feeding huge amounts of food, or, start feeding liquid food continuously. Of course this feeding will boost any other corals too.

Hope you can get all your tanks going...

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Finally getting the 25 nano scrubber to have consistant results. Am testing one side of it here, on a FW 10 gal with some tetras, catfish, suckerfish, and a discus. 0, 0, 0, when feeding one frozen cube blood worms a day. No water changes, and top off with tap water (no chlorine remover added)...

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Finally getting the 25 nano scrubber to have consistant results. Am testing one side of it here, on a FW 10 gal with some tetras, catfish, suckerfish, and a discus. 0, 0, 0, when feeding one frozen cube blood worms a day. No water changes, and top off with tap water (no chlorine remover added)...

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Xenia will probably go (no guarantee though), unless you start feeding huge amounts of food, or, start feeding liquid food continuously. Of course this feeding will boost any other corals too.

Do you have any idea why the Xenia will go? What other species of coral will be affected negatively?

And why not use RO/DI water, I thought it was the 0 salinity that would kill off pods. Also, I would rinse in tap water during/after scraping, I was talking about topping off the tank (some of my customers do it daily, some 2x a week.)

 

[AndyMan]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Quick Question for you, I have been having an issue with Cyno, most of my other algae issues have disappeared or have been reduced to a point where they are not an issue however Cyno is has replaced the other algae issues. So I am wondering if the ATS will help solve they Cyno issues? Have you seen improvements in Cyno? I have some refinements to make to my ATS to make it better, ie: cover areas where where light is hitting other spots in the sump, get rid of the chaeto in the sump, cover bottom of aquarium where light is hitting bottom of my substrate and increasing flow and adding a second screen attached to the original screen to increase coverage. I am hoping these improvements will help refine my ATS but still wondering if Cyno can be beaten by an ATS?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

I read through this entire thread and this is mentioned several times (I didn't read every word, but hey, it's almost 1300 posts!!). After you start up an ATS, you can actually go through a cycle where you get Cyano, because Cyano 'generates' it's own N, but over time, the ATS will beat out the Cyano and it will disappear.

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Do you have any idea why the Xenia will go? What other species of coral will be affected negatively?

Xenia need a lot of nitrate and phosphate to grow. The only way other folks have kept them with scrubbers is to feed very very much more. No other corals need as much, as far as I know.

And why not use RO/DI water, I thought it was the 0 salinity that would kill off pods. Also, I would rinse in tap water during/after scraping, I was talking about topping off the tank (some of my customers do it daily, some 2x a week.)

Because rodi is expensive. But use it if you want.

I am wondering if the ATS will help solve they Cyno issues?

Cyano does not compete with algae. They eat differently. Cyano takes nitrogen out of the water; it does not need to eat nitrate. So when there is more clean surface to grown on (because of less hair algae), it can still survive. But it does need phosphate. So if you keep scrubbing, powerfully, the cyano will fade too. Feeding liquid food will give it more phosphate. You also want rapid turnover from your tank to your scrubber, so that as soon as there is phosphate in the tank, it gets sent to the scrubber. If you make your scrubber strong, almost all cyano will be reduced to what looks like dark purple coralline, which will then be overgrown by real coralline. I like the dark purple cyano-coralline; it's how a natural reef looks.

 

[Larcos66]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Hey guys, all this information is priceless, i have a RSM 130D and i have a Sump under the cabinet, i want to install this Turf Algae Filter but i just need to know what kind of screen i can get to do this.....

Thanks for your help

My best Regards Carlos

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

from the "scrubber faq" link on Santa Monica's Footer:

"Q: What's the best material to make the screen out of?
A: The overall best material is "plastic canvas", which can be found at any craft/sewing store, and online at hundreds of places. It's cheap, strong, and does not wear out. However it's smooth and it's made out of non-stick plastic, so to make it work the best, you need to rough it up using a hole-saw in your hand (not in a drill) so that it feels like a cactus. The rougher it is, the quicker the algae will grow, and the thicker it will grow without falling off, and thus the less nitrate, phosphate, and nuisance algae you will have in your display. Just remember that the more algae that can grow/stick on the screen, the less algae you will have in your tank."

 

[deehz]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Ok, so I have read all about the ATS and have been wanting to do it for some time but just can't seem to pull the trigger. After reading the FAQ's, I am all in. I believe in having a system that mimics as close as possible what the natural ocean does and the ATS has me convinced. Now I have a couple of questions naturally.

1. I believe on the FAQ's page that it said (not going to state or quote, that page was long!) when you start, to get rid of the mechanical filtration such as filter socks, sponges, reactors, etc to it does not block the nutrient path for the ATS. Is this so?

2. Another question was then asked when to remove the skimmer? The answer was to keep all of the mechanical filtration ie, filter floss, socks, sponges, skimmers, etc. till you do 3 good cleanings of the screens. What about the above?

3. Which one is it? Remove all mechanical filtration (MF) before you start or remove after the ATS has established, then remove MF after 3 solid cleanings?

I have everything else down. Just want to make sure I get it right the first time. Thanks SM!

 

[silva218]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

okay sorry if I missed this somewhere in the thread, but what material can i use that will float?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

I had a conversation with someone today regarding Nitrates and Phosphates that seemed to go against everything I've read regarding reef tanks. I was giving someone a GBTA that I picked up for them and was discussion tank chemistry.

He stated that during one of the local reef seminars, at the end, the gentleman giving the seminar stated that "you should keep your Nitrates around 10ppm" in a reef system, otherwise you will start to lose coloration in your corals, and your soft corals will slow their growth rate.

Now, everything that I've read is that any level of Nitrates can be detrimental, which is why everyone is so hard core to keep them down to a minimum in a reef system, and also that most corals will stop growing or shrink in the presence of any level of Phosphate (with the exception of Xenia).

After reading through this entire thread, and reading many of the articles (what parts of it I could while my eyelids were propped open with toothpicks) it seems that this is more related to the DOC issue that anything else. Since the "mainstream" way of thinking is that you need to skim of the DOCs and use GFO and Carbon and what-not to 'clean' your water, then this would make sense that corals would lose their color if you removed all the nitrate (DOC or TOC, whatever) or at least 30% of it by skimming and whatever else you could via a sulfur denitrator or other devices.

In contrast, if you are using ONLY a Algae Scrubber, and you are removing the nitrates and phosphates and other impurities in a natural way that mimics what is actually done in the natural ocean environment, then there would be a huge amount of difference in the beneficial nutrients that are present that allow for corals to attain good coloration and growth levels, compared to the "mainstream" methods.

Could this be the explanation for this person's comment?

He also stated that LPS corals will not grow very much in 0 Nitrate water. This seemed like a silly statement to me, based on everything that I have read about reef systems, and I'm not just talking about what I've read on this thread, in fact if I had never read this thread, I would have found that comment suspect in scientific basis.

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

I believe on the FAQ's page that it said (not going to state or quote, that page was long!) when you start, to get rid of the mechanical filtration such as filter socks, sponges, reactors, etc to it does not block the nutrient path for the ATS. Is this so?

For a reef tank, this is what you want, so that the water nutrient chemistry can become what it is in the ocean (algae controls the water nutrient chemistry is in the ocean).

Another question was then asked when to remove the skimmer? The answer was to keep all of the mechanical filtration ie, filter floss, socks, sponges, skimmers, etc. till you do 3 good cleanings of the screens. What about the above?

If a tank is new, you can start with scrubber-only right away. If they tank is older and heavily fed and heavily filtered with various devices, then you want to wait for three full screens.

okay sorry if I missed this somewhere in the thread, but what material can i use that will float?

Don't try a floating version.

"you should keep your Nitrates around 10ppm"

First, remember that when test kits say "zero" they really mean "very low". Most corals, and certainly stoney corals, grow best and have the best coloration when P and N read "zero" on hobby test kits (like Salifert). LPS can stand a bit more P and N. And softies and certainly xenia do well with 10ppm N. So that person is saying something different from what most people understand. Not sure what he's getting at. I doubt he's talking about DOC. You want DOC to be high, as it is in the ocean. All corals eat lots of DOC.

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Great Barrier Reef Aquarium

Many people who have not built a scrubber properly (after August 1988) often say how the Great Barrier Reef aquarium was a scrubber "failure" because the corals did poorly. Apparently these people have not done much reading. In the early days of that aquarium, the scrubber was doing it's job great:

1988:

Nutrient Cycling In The Great Barrier Reef Aquarium
ReefBase :: Log In

"The Reef Tank represents the first application of algal scrubber technology to large volume aquarium systems. Aquaria using conventional water purification methods (e.g. bacterial filters) generally have nutrient levels in parts per million, while algal scrubbers have maintained parts per billion concentrations [much lower], despite heavy biological loading in the Reef Tank. The success of the algal scrubbers in maintaining suitable water quality for a coral reef was demonstrated in the observed spawning of scleractinian corals and many other tank inhabitants."

But did you know that they did not add calcium? That's right, in 1988 they did not know that calcium needed to be added to a reef tank. Even five years after that, the Pittsburgh Zoo was just starting to test a "mesocosm" scrubber reef tank to see if calcium levels would drop:

1993:

An Introduction to the Biogeochemical Cycling of Calcium and Substitutive Strontium in Living Coral Reef Mesocosms
An introduction to the biogeochemical cycling of calcium and substitutive strontium in living coral reef mesocosms - Lang - 2005 - Zoo Biology - Wiley Online Library

"It was hypothesized that Ca2+ and the substitutive elements Sr2+ and Mg2+ might [!] have reduced concentrations in a coral reef microcosm due to continuous reuse of the same seawater as a consequence of the recycling process inherent in the coral reef mesocosm."

"The scleractinians (Montastrea, Madracis, Porites, Diploria, and Acropora) and calcareous alga (Halimeda and others) present in the coral reef mesocosm are the most likely organisms responsible for the significant reduction in concentration of the Ca2+ and Sr2+ cations."

"Ca is not normally a biolimiting element, and strontium is never a biolimiting element; HCO3 [alk] can be. It appears that, because of a minor [!] limitation in the design parameters of the mesocosm, these elements and compounds may have become limiting factors. [...] It is surprising that the organisms could deplete the thousands of gallons of seawater (three to six thousand) of these elements even within two or more years [!!].

"The calcification processes are little understood."

So then in the late 90's, the Barrier Reef aquarium start using up it's supply of calcium, and the folks there said "the corals grew poorly". Really. No calcium, and the corals grew poorly. So they "removed the scrubbers" and "experimented with the addition of calcium" sometime after 1998. Then in 2004 it "definitely improved a lot". Really.

 

[SantaMonica]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

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[DrugMonkeyRX]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

Monica, what version would you install in a FOWLR tank? Would Version 1 be of fine?

I have a Wet/Dry Filter with Bio Balls and a protein skimmer. Also if i do install this would i need my Protein Skimmer?

By the way amazing work!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Re: Mega-Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium, Everythin

First, remember that when test kits say "zero" they really mean "very low". Most corals, and certainly stoney corals, grow best and have the best coloration when P and N read "zero" on hobby test kits (like Salifert). LPS can stand a bit more P and N. And softies and certainly xenia do well with 10ppm N. So that person is saying something different from what most people understand. Not sure what he's getting at. I doubt he's talking about DOC. You want DOC to be high, as it is in the ocean. All corals eat lots of DOC.

I'm with you about wanting high DOCs to mimic the ocean. Maybe the guy I talked to mis-quoted the speaker or misunderstood him. It would seems to make sense if he meant to keep your nitrates BELOW 10 ppm to get good coloration, but that's not what he told me - he said that you want to KEEP them around 10ppm.

What I was trying to say was that maybe, in the speaker's experience, higher Nitrate (relatively - 10 being higher than 0) led to better coloration, but what he didn't understand was 'why' - that 'why' being that a higher level of Nitrate equates to a higher DOC in the water column, and you could get that or better level of DOC in the absence of Nitrate via ATS, and get even healthier brighter corals.

Does that make sense, or is Nitrate not considered a DOC?