Does anyone use in-tank algae screens?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
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BuffaloPolypteridae

Feeder Fish
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Aug 5, 2013
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Buffalo
Or scrubber or whatever you wanna call it, was looking into micro scrubbers and saw uarujoeys design on YouTube, if anyone knows it its just a layer of plastic, a screen, and an airstone to put water over it. Then you put a light on the outside of the tank to stimulate growth. A 7x7 inch one should do a 55 gallon just fine so I'm thinking of a 8x8 for my 70 gallon

Point is, does anyone use these for their smaller tanks? How does it do as far as phosphate and nitrate reduction?

I'm thinking of using this in conjunction with pothos, will neither get enough food because the other is also there sucking it up? I have a fairly overstocked tank (didn't realize it was overstocked till too late) and am trying to sell some fish, but want to give them the best water quality I can before they go into my build in late spring.

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They are best run in a sump. They are ugly and very particular. What is your light source?I built one but didn't like it. Also didn't want to clean it an do maintenance in it. You can never fully clean it you only remove 60 to 80% so as to keep it efficient


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Ive been running one in my 150 for a few years now. It works great and I don't get a spec of algae in the tank anywhere. I clean it once every 2-3 weeks sometimes I forget and only get to it in 5-6 weeks. I still do 30% weekly water changes so I don't rely solely on the scrubber. Now I also ran a scrubber on my 650g and it didn't work very well at all. I ran it for about 1.5 yrs and I've concluded that it was because my flow was too low. My 150 has much higher flow proportionate to the size of the tank so it works better.

With an in-tank system you won't have a problem with flow only with amount of air or bubbles.
 
I've been running scrubbers on my marine tanks for years. I got into them when Santa Monica first introduced his original design. They work fantastic when properly designed and are very forgiving if you slack somewhat on the maintenance. Which is good because I wasn't designed to do regular maintenance. They will keep your phosphates and nitrogen compounds at undetectable levels with API test kits.

And I wouldn't start selling fish based on what the 'Stocking Police' have to say. If your system/filtration will support the fish you want/have then don't worry about what other people have to say. Look up "Too Spicy Noodle" to see what a master at fish keeping can do.
 
Too Spicy Noodle has been incognito for almost a decade, but he is still around. Let's just say he is a senior member here at MFK.

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Just an update on my scrubber... I just cleaned it after two weeks (maybe three) and the algae was so thick that it that it almost filled a two gallon bucket. That's some significant nutrient exporting.
 
Nice, I got the mesh and will be making one shortly. I have a plan to silicone glue some plastic decor onto the side to camouflage it, I have a spare desk lamp w/ a cfl I can use for it but if I need something better I can get it.

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Just curious,

If you have a fluidized bed filter or a sump with K1, would an algae scrubber still be useful? Would the two compete and maybe be less effective?

Also, if you use a UV, would an algae scrubber not do anything?
 
The result of fluidized bed, and sump media biofiltration is the conversion of ammonia and nitrites, to nitrate, and algae consume nitrate, I believe an algae scrubber is the next logical step.
After reading this thread a couple weeks ago, I added a small screen to the surface of a tank. It is under the influent pipe, and seeded with filamentous algae from one of my other tanks.
The screen "is" ugly, but my interest is the water quality result at this point, and it will be an interesting experiment to see what changes (if any are ensue).
Below is the algae I transferred in the original tank, I usually harvest and feed it to my bocourti (maybe this will provide more food for them in the end).



Had to tweek the colors in the above pic, to make the algae more apparent.
Will try to get a pic of the ugly screen later on today.
 
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