Hey ppl.. I recently found out about algae scrubbers.. has anyone been using it on their FW or SW setups.. how effective is it? please let me know.. cheers..
Algae Scrubbers???
- Thread starter Kaya
- Start date
I never could get it to really work very well, plus having to remove half of the algae every two weeks was a pain. It might give your water a greenish tint. maybe mine never got a chance with all the other nutrient exports i had going on at the same time.
They are not commercially available(right???) so most of it is DIY.. from what i heard from the person who suggested this.. that it might take like 6 months to really work full flow.. any pics you could share mate..
this is actually for my 2400 gallon arowana pond.. based on your answer.. i'm assuming.. purely assuming you have not come across this concept.. if you have and you answered based on that, ignore me mate do google or youtube about algae scrubbers when you find the time.. cheersI decided to try to make my own for my college's fish tanks. Problem I ran across is that the sump level rose when the pumps were shut off, meaning the lights from the scrubber would have been submerged if the power went out. Tried to waterproof the lightbulbs, but I don't think we ever really managed it. I think it ran a week and evaporation from the sump got in the lightbulbs and burnt the bulbs out. I may try again, but i have no idea how people get waterproof lightbulbs in there.
There is a ton of info on these. I don't have one yet, but when I add a sump to my tank, I'm gonna do one! These things make perfect sense to me!!!
You have a lot of reading to do. Here is a link from this forum:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...ga-Powerful-Nitrate-and-Phosphate-Remover-DIY!
I hope you try it!
mark
You have a lot of reading to do. Here is a link from this forum:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...ga-Powerful-Nitrate-and-Phosphate-Remover-DIY!
I hope you try it!
mark
very cool link! I used that needlepoint plastic canvas for mine its really cheap, and has tons of uses, just cut a straight slit in a piece of pvc and ziptie it up, and I used one of those 26 watt compact fluorescents in a brooder light fixture.
Or you could try a remote tree farm. I put some Mangroves trees in my 30/60 marineland filter on my 29 and three little trees removed all the phosphates. My tap water that I do water changes with contains more phosphates than the old tank water. Mangroves are used for filtration in some reef systems but they love freshwater as well. Phosphate is a leading contributor to algae problems, a lot of people don't realize how high in phosphates a lot of municipal water supplies can be.
They are not commercially available(right???) so most of it is DIY..
I've know quite a bit about scrubbers but the 120 pg thread is where you would want to start. They are not "commercially" available, but there are people that do make them. It really only takes a few weeks to start working, 4-6 to really get ramped up to full capacity, if you build it right. But for a 2400g system you're talking a huge scrubber, and unless you use natural sunlight, a lot of wattage on lights and flow, and replacing lamps. An LED scrubber would be very long-term cost effective, but still huge up front $ and not many built, so that's still 'experimental'...but if you have questions I can help (so can Santa Monica)