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

[everwater]

ive never seen turf grow in a reef tank except on the outflow of a powerhead.
and I let turf scrapings go right in the tank .....fish and pods eat it up quick.

[BigJay]

btw I did some searching on the collapsing of the turf scrubbers. I found several referrals to them collapsing but no listed incidents. Time will tell how these go.

[everwater]

big jay

please explain collapsing....where?

[SantaMonica]

witfull, The algae that grows on the screen cannot spread to the tank. You already have spores of algae in your tank right now as you read this, including green hair, green slime, and red/brown turf algae. But without enough light (and in the case of turf, flow and air), they will not grow. Algae grows first where it has the most light. That's the first part of how a screen works: It's just more light, out of the tank. The second part of a screen's operation is the turbulent flow across the screen; this brings many more nutrients in contact with the screen than just regular tank flow does. Lastly, if you are doing a vertical screen with a pump, and you put a wavemaker timer on the pump (on, off, on, off), then the "off" time will simulate the time between real waves in the ocean, which breaks up the "boundary layer" around the algae. This boundary layer slows down the passage of nutrients from the water to the algae. This last step (pulsing the water) is very important if you are going to want the true stiff red/brown turf algae, since real turf lives out-of-the-water (on rocks, pylons, etc).

[gone postal]

Some great info in this thread. I'm going to tackle this tomorrow. I have a few questions though.

1) LFS is closed Sundays. There is a Petco here, but if they don't have the "tank separator screen", what else should I use? I'm sure Home Depot has window screen and I'm thinking I can put lil crimp-on lead weights on the bottom of it to hold it tight and straight, but would that cause a problem? Will lead eventually seep into my water?

2) Is length or height of the screen more important or does it even matter? I have a 55 DT w/ a 10g tank as a sump. I'm going to install this over the sump. My idea is to just take the hose from my HOB overflow and have it run directly into the PVC that feeds the screen. It is a good amount of flow, but if I use a PVC to cover the length of the 10g tank, we're talking about 20", so that should disperse it nicely. The screen will probably only be about 16" long though, which should work great b/c my return pump is in the 500-600gph range. The screen will only be able to be about 6" tall - which will make roughly 96 sq/in, so more than enough for a 55.

3) What are the best lights to purchase? I've seen people suggest 10k, others say the lower the Kelvin the better and then others suggest plant grow lights. I'm looking for easily to obtain CFL type that I can buy at Home Depot.

I appreciate the help and I'll post up pics when I get this all setup!!

[BigJay]

Originally Posted by everwater

big jay

please explain collapsing....where?

when I first got into reefing a long time ago turf scrubbers were talked about often. Lots of large aquariums were using them (public, breeders and scientific) and it was commonly said they can collapse for no seemingly no reason in a very very short period of time. Santamonica asked if I could find listed incidents and I can't, only references to that it can happen.
THe thing about reefing is a lot of stuff was very expreimental and actually still is. So sometimes one incident gets passed around till it becomes anecdotal fact. Since I don't feel like writing letters to every aquarium that has used a turf scrubber over the last 2 or 3 decades to find out if they have a record of the events I am going to leave it where it is.
The bottom line most all agree they work extremely well in most cases.

[everwater]

santa mon,
dont take this wrong....i'm just sharing my experience with the dump bucket style turf scrubbers..
...the turf will definately slime up and\or die with too much exposure to air.
..the turf on the reef (that grows on IA screens) is submerged 99 % of the time.
..sometimes our screens will float and then the algae slimes up and sloths off big chunks leaving a bare spot on the screen.
...the other concern I have is when there is not complete coverage of water on the screen....and please explain how these systemswork because I am assuming the way water flows and with algae growth that the water will make "streams" on the screen and not all the algae will get proper flow\exposure to the water...?

postal,
-6700k or 10000k work great on our turf scrubbers.
-smon can answer your other questions better than I can on construction

[everwater]

your right bigj
...the smithsonian turf scrubbers crashed and a couple private aquariums....mainly from neglect.
I thought maybe you had some other info.
we have over 20 commercial sized turf scrubbers filtering 35,000 gallons of saltwater and has been for the 11 years I have worked at Inland Aquatics....
they are great....but we suggest skimmers, refugiums, sand beds....anything to help maintain good water quality is the main goal.
this has been a great thread....thanks to sanmon for experimenting with algae with yet another method.

[gone postal]

Everwater - Since you have over a decade of experience with this, what is your method? Are the pics posted several pages ago from your tanks? It looked like the screens were just floating on top of the water. My purpose of this is as a supplemental filtration method. I will not be getting rid of my fuge, but wouldn't mind losing my skimmer (it's cheap and doesn't work all that well anyway).

[Kerchakone]

Originally Posted by SantaMonica

everwater: Yes I know they are different algae's, but, nobody has red/brown turf to seed with. Even if they did, wouldn't it just get replaced by green as soon as the screen started to grow? Some people are setting up screens that are not designed to grow true turf anyways (so they will only have green hair), so for them it would seem to make sense to at least speed the green along.

varga: That's great about the growth. But where is the lighting? Are you moving it out of the way so you can get pics? If not, it should be right up against the screen, on both sides, and we should be able to see it in these pics. It will grow much much faster with the lighing that way.

When you clean it, you will have a lot more remaining than what I see in this pic; you won't be able to see that fan through the screen. And you can't wait a month, even if it hasn't grown much, because the pods will start eating the algae, and you'll start getting spots like I showed in the pics a few days ago. So at least weekly (which is probably today), run the screen under some tap water in the sink to kill them. You don't have to clean the screen today, but you do have to run some FW.

Also, do NOT turn the pump off for 15-20 minutes. You'll dry out the top layer of algae. Use a wavemaker timer on the pump; I have mine set right now to 60 seconds on, 60 seconds off, with a strong fan blowing on it.

You are ALL OVER this thread. As if you were out to make money off these people. BUT YOU AREN'T! I'm VERY impressed with this whole thing. Kudos!

[Witfull]

Originally Posted by Kerchakone

You are ALL OVER this thread.

he better be,,,,,he started this mess.....he has to clean it up~~

[SantaMonica]

postal:

(1) If you are going to grow the screen yourself, just get any stiff material that has holes in it, like knitting backing, gutter guard, or tank-divider. Petco should certainly have tank-dividers, though. Try also going to hardware stores, craft stores, garden stores, sewing stores, or just get one of these online:
Aquatic Eco-Systems: Tank Dividers
I never thought of putting weights at the bottom of window (fiberglass, not metal) screen. I think you'd want to use rock, though, not any kind of metal. The main problem of this kind of screen will be getting it into the slot in the waterfall pipe. That's why I think you are better off with stiff screen. Stiff is easier to clean in the sink, too.

If you want one of the pre-grown screens, the only current place to buy one is Inland Aquatics (in the U.S.)... Call 812-232-9000 and get a turf screen overnighted to you. They charge $10 for 16 square inches (4 X 4), so just tell him how many square inches you need. Then you'll need to pay for overnight delivery to your location. Already have your screen operating, though, so you can throw the screen right in; it will need lights and flow immediately upon arrival.

(2) You need about 35 gph per inch of screen width (there is a chart at the beginning of this thread) in order for the flow to give good coverage. So a 16" wide screen needs about 560 gph. So your pump might be perfect; might not even need a valve to adjust it. Height verses width does not really matter; lighting all parts of the screen, intensely, is what is important. So size your screen so you can get light to all part of it. And keep in mind that when using a feed from an overflow, the flow will stop when your return pump is off. So you have a limited amount of time (5 minutes) to do things before you either have to turn it back on, or manually pour water over it. The other thing about overflow feeds is that you cant easily pulse the flow, like you can with a wavemaker timer on a pump feed. But this is a secondary concern that's only of importance down the road if you really want to grow real red/brown stiff turf.

(3) Easy answer: The most powerful lights you can afford/tolerate/control. Aside from that, the $10 CFL 5100K 120W equivalent floods that I used are now proven to work. But I'm now researching into better. I just bough two more clip-ons, so my bucket will now have 4 lights. And soon I'll be trying other spectrums and types of bulbs. Your 16" wide screen will need at least two of the clip-ons on each side. But they only take 23W each. I think that the lumens, and distance from the screen, are more important than spectrum, however.

BigJay: That's probably what I thought you would find. Back then, scrubbers were left for months without attention, and scraping was done in-system. Both no-no's. Current evidence shows that cleaning the green algae off of the red/brown, and killing the pods, should be done at least weekly (in tap water), and should be done out-of-system (in your sink) so the broken algae strands do not release their contents into your tank, possibly yellowing it. If I were to leave my screen unattended for even a month, I'm sure my tank would crash too.

Everwater:

the turf will definately slime up and\or die with too much exposure to air.

I was referring to 10 to 60 seconds of "off" time from a wavetimer on the pump. It has worked really good for me, simulating real waves. Other folks asked if they could turn their pump off for 30 minutes or a few hours, and I said no... that would kill it.

the turf on the reef (that grows on IA screens) is submerged 99 % of the time.

I guess I was picturing the stuff on pylons and rock (along with barnacles) that you see between waves. This stuff is getting full sun, and a good drying, between waves.

the other concern I have is when there is not complete coverage of water on the screen....and please explain how these systemswork because I am assuming the way water flows and with algae growth that the water will make "streams" on the screen and not all the algae will get proper flow\exposure to the water

It probably does seem like there would be uneven flow, but in the two buckets I built, and in the pics of the flow that others have built, it seems to be 100% coverage so far. I think it works like a waves coming on shore: If one part of the wave slows down, the parts of the wave on either side try to fill in, until it evens out. I've not noticed water avoiding the parts with algae; it just flows over it. Also remember water is also flowing on the back of these screens, which also helps it to saturate thick areas. I guess if a clump got so big that it blocked flow, then flow would just go around it, thus giving more nutrients to the surrounding areas which will enable it to catch up. So I guess it's self-correcting.

Kerchakone: Thanks. Just part of working in promotions

[jski711]

just a quick update. i notice that some red algae seems to be growing pretty fast. it doesn't look like the turf but thats just an observation.

Jake

[SantaMonica]

Ok when you take your pics this time, get some close ups too.

[Frankie]

Holy algae growth Batman! How did this thread evolve into this?
I say you all just dump the Gac filters and scrubbers and get on the zeo with me