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jcom 
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 Topic: Forum Newb: Algal Turf Scrubber
Posted: November 23 2009 at 1:24pm |
Hello All,
First time poster here, been lurking around for awhile and attended the Rocky Mountain Reef Fest a few weeks ago (good stuff). I have a four year old 120 gallon reef tank with a 30 gallon sump and I've made the decision to really step things up. I was a 15 year freshwater cichlid breeder and about 4 years ago, I decided to make the switch to salt. Because of time constraints, I decided to have a local shop help me set up the tank (conversion from fresh) and service it. However, over the last year or so, I have had them come by less and less as I've started doing water changes, testing water, and generally gearing up to run it on my own...and last month I indeed decided to take over 100%. As my wife can attest, I have become completely obsessed (perhaps to an unhealthy extent  ) with studying water chemistry and general reef husbandry. I feel that I've come a long way in a relatively short amount of time, but I know I've got a million miles to go.
I've become a bit of a test junkie after I found that the local shop had not been monitoring my parameters closely and things were way off. My tank has been the typical start up style with all the usual suspects...a few softies, LPS, zoas, GSPs, mushrooms, etc. However, I have now made the mental and financial commitment to step it up and go full bore into SPS.
Things are pretty stable now, but regardless of water changes, I cannot bring my nirtrates down from the 40 - 50ppm level. Unforunately, my sump is not as big as I'd like it to be and because of the way it's set up, a refugium would be a very big challenge. That's when I stumbled onto the ATS or algal turf scrubber. After reading as much as I could find about them, I decided to go for it and add one to my system. The idea behind them made a lot of sense to me and follows a more natural approach to filtration, which really interests me and seems to be more of my style.
I WOULD APPRECIATE ANY AND ALL FEEDBACK AND ADVICE FROM YOU, MY FELLOW REEFERS (not just on the ATS, but on progressive steps in general).
Now that I've given a long winded introduction, I will jump into showing you the new ATS. It is a siphon only system that draws water from my display via vinyl tubing, and into an 18 gallon Rubbermaid storage bin with PVC and a plastic, needlepoint screen illuminated by two 23 watt outdoor CFL flood lights. From there, water is returned to the sump for further skimmer filtration (+ozone....which I want to ditch). The pictures were taken at 48 hours of operation. Now, nearly a week later, the screens are filling in quickly with a brown, hair type algae and I'm planning on doing my first mild cleaning shortly.
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Luckedout
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Posted: November 23 2009 at 1:30pm |
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Welcome! I'd love to see pics of your system!
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-Ben
90g Mixed reef
www.body-balancechiropractic.com
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Mike Savage
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Posted: November 23 2009 at 1:33pm |
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jcom
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Posted: November 23 2009 at 1:41pm |
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Thanks for the welcomes! Hey, I'm feeling like a true newb here......for some reason, I can't upload pics. I've posted on hundreds of forums, but for some reason I'm struggling here. I have the pics selected (all under 150k) and uploaded, but when I select "post reply", it just endlessly loads. I just tried a restart to no avail. Advice?
Edited by jcom - November 23 2009 at 1:44pm
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Mike Savage
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Posted: November 23 2009 at 3:00pm |
Maybe the server is just slow right now?
Mike
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Luckedout
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Posted: November 23 2009 at 3:35pm |
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The forum server does seem to lag a bit at times. Give it another shot or host the pics on flickr or a similar site and post the links.
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-Ben
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www.body-balancechiropractic.com
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jcom
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Posted: November 23 2009 at 4:23pm |
Here are the pics on Flickr:
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fishoutawater
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Posted: November 23 2009 at 9:29pm |
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Keep us updated. I have been thinking about this for awhile as well. Can you put up a pic of it before you harvest?
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jcom
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Posted: November 24 2009 at 1:07pm |
Kind of interesting...some of the brown growth has either broken down and fallen off or died back and now I'm starting to see some red and green growth in its place (I think this is a good thing). Heading out of town, so I'm not going to mess with it until I get back on Sunday, but I'll try to post some pics then before I do an initial cleaning.
Since I'm planning to go the SPS route, I'll probably be wanting to get rid of some, if not all, of the GSP colonies in my tank. I also have two long spined urchins which I'm not sure will remain welcome.
My latest water tests show the following: (I'm having a hard time getting my calcium above 350, but I think it's due to my somewhat low magnesim. I'm getting a shipment of calcium chloride and magnesium chloride next week to make my own supplements and save some $$$ in the process. I just switched to reef crystals from IO for my 10% weekly water changes):
Salinity/SG: 35 ppt / 1.026
Ph: 8.1 - 8.3
Alk: 3.6 - 4.0 meq/L
Calcium: 350 - 360 ppm
Mag: 1125 ppm
Ammonia: Undetectable
Nitrites: Undetectable
Nitrates: 40 - 50 ppm
Phosphorus: Undetectable
Temp: 80 - 81 F
Thoughts going forward?
Edited by jcom - November 24 2009 at 1:11pm
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bfessler
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Posted: November 24 2009 at 1:36pm |
I have been toying around with making one of these but haven't gotten around to it yet. one thing about positioning of the ATF is that Ideally it should be placed as the last piece of equipment prior to return. This is because it creates a lot of pods and other critters that will feed the tank and you don't want to dump them into the filter sock or skimmer compartment of the sump. Many of them are located above the display where the output drains directily into the tank.
Anyway it will be interesting to see if it takes care of your nitrates. I'll be following this thread.
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jcom
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Posted: November 24 2009 at 1:46pm |
I hear you Burt... as I was mulling it over, I wanted to have the setup that way, but due to the height and location of my tank, it was simply not possible. Right now, the return from the ATS comes into my sump at about the same location as my overflow returns (I am in the process of trying to all but ditch the filter sock and only use them after water changes or other times when the tank gets stirred up). From there, any pods lucky enough not to get skimmed will then have to endure quite a ride (or get minced) in my 1320GPH mag drive return.
Hopefully I'll be able to harvest a few of these pods through straining or siphoning when I do my weekly cleaning of the screen...who knows? It's all brand new to me at this point.
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sanddune600
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Posted: November 24 2009 at 6:03pm |
I would bring your mag up to at least 1300 it will help with your alk and calcium I agree that this could be why you cant get you calcium up sounds like your on the right track 
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Andy Jorgensen
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jcom
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Posted: November 24 2009 at 6:21pm |
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Thanks sanddune! Glad to know I'm not totally offbase. If only I'd liked homework and studying this much when I was in school!
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: November 25 2009 at 8:57am |
Welcome Jack,
You are very onbase.  You have done a lot of good research and now have come to the best place ever for getting tons of good, honest and may I say, the most accurate feedback regarding this hobby. I tend to be very forthright with my advice so please do not be offended. I mean no offense. It sounds like you may actually appreciate my very natural approach to keeping aquariums. Rarely do I recommend chemicals to solve a problem, though some supplements are absolutely necessary for the continued ongoing health of closed systems like ours.
What you have done by adding that tub of water to the system is to create the ideal spot for an RDP Refugium. An RDP Refugium is an ATS, only better. 
Now, going back to your original "problem" of high Nitrates. You have come to the right place to get help with that. In order to help, we must start with some questions:
- Why are you changing water 10% weekly 
- Do you now, and did the maintenance company then, vacuum the sand at every or every other water change
- What supplements are you adding to get water parameters in line
- It appears that the water is being siphoned directly from the tank to the ATS and that it leaves the ATS from the bottom of the tub. What happens during and after a power outage? Have you checked it by turning off the return pump
- There are a good many things to be learned here. Are you ready
 Oh and before I forget, the impeller style pumps that we use in this hobby do not "mince" the pods, except perhaps the occasional larger Amphipod. And "pods" are only a part of what is found in live aquarium water. We can give the full explanation later, if requested.
Now, as my welcome to you, as to all hobbyists new to this MB, I offer a link to a thread that may shed new light on your understanding of the hobby. Perhaps in your lurking here, you have already seen this, but if not, have fun... http://www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 |
Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks:www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244 Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
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jcom
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Posted: November 25 2009 at 12:34pm |
Thanks Mark, I am humble and appreciate all input, advice, and constructive criticism if and when it comes my way. To answer a few of your questions:
1) I've been doing 10% changes weekly for the last month or so mainly in hopes of trying to get my nitrates down. I have been doing sections of my sand bed, just going down a couple of inches and getting the darker, grey sediment, detritus etc. My goal is to get them down and then be doing approx. 20% monthly changes (or 10% every other week). Let me know if this is off base.
2) I think the maintenance company was vacuuming every time. They were doing 20% changes every month. (I was always at work when they came, but the sand bed appeared to have been vaccumed every time as I recall).
I have also been slightly tweaking my alkalinity with Seachem Reefbuilder. FYI, I looked into doing Kalkwasser and a Calcium Reactor, but my sump is already set up with a Quad Reef Doser that I'd like to continue to utilize. The settings that the maintenance crew had on my doser were low, so I've been gradually stepping up the dose times of the A & B parts....the Coralvite setting was good and remains the same (once I use up my existing Coralvite, I'm planning to switch to Seachem Aquavitro Fuel). I'm currently dosing 20ml A & 20ml B part, which has my levels at those noted in my post above and keeps my Ph in the 8.1 range most consistently (it goes as high as 8.35 when I've tried to bump the doses manually. However, I want to get my magnesium chloride this next week...on order from Bulk Reef Supply....and increase it before I try to get my calcium up).
4) Nice observation on this and something I was keeping in mind when I set it up. The siphon sits only about 1.5 - 2 inches below the surface of my display and I've got it at the perfect level for a power outage. My sump only fills about 4/5 full by the time the overflows empty, the siphon stops, and the remaining water in the ATS empties into the sump. My only concern about this and something that I'm trying to figure out a solution to (and there may not be a good one) is how to keep the algae scrubber from drying out when this happens. Since my wife works from home, she can let me know immediately if the power goes out and she can pour water over the algae to keep it moist. However, since we travel fairly often, I'm concerned about this. I have a nearby friend who checks in often, but..... I guess the good thing is that when this happens, and the power goes back on, the ATS siphon will obviously not start back up, so I don't have to fear the dead, dried out algae getting run back into my tank and causing big problems. I'll simply have to clean it and start the algae growing again. Nonetheless, a work in progress.
And finally, just like you pointed out, the bin is indeed a great place for a refugium (there is about 3 - 4 inches of water at the bottom) and I was considering adding some sand and chaeto to it to have an ATS/Fuge combo. My only hesitation is about the potential for the macro and/or algae falling off the ATS possibly clogging the outlet. This has serious flood potential as well at the possibilty of burning out my mag drive. I need to address this issue whether or not I make it a Fuge. The idea I'm toying with is to insert a screen wall about 3 inches from the outlet using the same plastic needlepoint screening that I used for my ATS. This should effectively catch any loose algae and allow for plenty of unobstructed flow. I also may increase the size of my bulkhead and outlet lines just to be extra precautious. One other thing about the ATS that I want your input on is the matter of detritus settling in the bottom. In just a week, there is already a decent layer that has settled and I'm wondering what a small sand bed would be like with this effect. Most refugiums are setup right behind a filter sock and don't get much detritus correct?
Last but not least, what do you think about my idea of ditching my filter sock (except for post water change, intentional or accidental bed stirs, etc). I also want to phase out my ozone generator (I've been stepping it down over the last few weeks.....it's currently running at 25%). What do you think about reducing the amount of skimming as my ATS gets fully going? I was thinking of stepping it down to the point where it's only running 3 - 4 days per week as I've read that this can be good for coral nutrition and growth.
Whew....my fingers are tired.
Jake
Edited by jcom - November 25 2009 at 12:38pm
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bfessler
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Posted: November 25 2009 at 1:22pm |
Jcom,
I'll let mark address most of your questions but as far as restarting your siphon you can either buy an overflow box that maintains the siphon or make one You need the water to overflow into a box and have the siphon tube go deeper than the outlet going to your ATS. Now when the power goes out the siphon will be maintained but not flowing. When the power comes back on the siphon resumes. Better overflow boxes allow you to attach a piece of air line tubing to the siphon which when connected to a small aqualifter pump will restart the siphon even if it breaks. The aqualifter sucks air out of the siphon and restarts it. Here is an example.
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Burt
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: November 25 2009 at 4:24pm |
Burt, please feel free to add to this. I don't have all the answers and sometimes fail to explain it so that it's easily understood.
Going down the list:
1) Water Changes - This may sound counter-intuitive but 10% monthly can actually be healthier for the tank and for you. If you think about it, if Nitrates are 40 and you change out 10% of the water, you are only reducing Nitrates by 10% or 4ppm which leaves you with Nitrates of 36. That's really very insignificant. There are many easier and more efficient ways to reduce N compounds(Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate). We can help you discover the ways, one of which is next...
2) Vacuuming - That gray sediment, the detritus being removed by vacuuming is actually one thing that reduces N compounds. It's mostly made up of bacteria that has grown in clumps as it eats up the N compounds. Most people don't realize this and so they continue to have the maintenance company come and clean their tank at least monthly because it needs it again. By vacuuming often the maintenance guy is actually protecting his own job. Can you see what I mean?
3) Alkalinity and Calcium - The two part system is simply making sure that Alk and Ca are added in proportions nearly consistent with how a typical tank uses those components. Problem is, tanks are never typical for long and eventually one part of the equation gets out of balance. Alk and Ca are kind of in a balancing act. When one is high the other is usually low. The key to helping it stay in balance, i.e., to keep both within their ranges means adding more of one or the other as needed. The WMAS has published what we felt at the time are good ranges. Alkalinity is best between 8-14dKH or 3-5 meq/l and Calcium is 350-450ppm. So you see, both are actually within range. It's nice to have a doser going, if you don't mind the regular checking and tweaking. I have found that since I need to feed my fish anyway, that's when I add supplements. Even if I only dose once per week, it works out just fine. The tank seems not to care. FYI, it was quite a thing when we found that baking soda and Ice Melt is all it took to keep Alk and Ca supplemented. I assume you have read about this in the thread about the "Secrets of an Affordable Reef Aquarium"" Magnesium, etc.Mg is a good thing to have a handle on. I doubt it has anything to do with not being able to increase the Ca. It would have to be at a much lower level to have that effect. Coral-Vite is a good product. I used it regularly in my coral growing operation but for most tanks it's not that important. Food actually has lots of stuff that feed coral and regular monthly water changes make up most of the rest. Alk, Ca, Coral-Vite...What is the 4th thing that is dosed  4) Overflow - I like what Burt said. I have an article from way back that talks about how to build a simple overflow but that's not what I would do here. Two things I think we might consider, that there may be a way to create a Refugium in that sump and that it would be better to pump water from the sump up to that tub. If you chose to keep the ATS where it is then irregardless of whether you upgrade it to a RDP Refugium or use an overflow box, it's really no big deal to have the turf algae sit for a while. It's out of the water for 6 hours twice a day in the wild and does just fine. (Just a note: There is a problem with considering that you would simply scrape off all the algae and start over. How would the tank cope with the loss of all that filtration capacity while waiting for the ATS to grow back. This is a formula for disaster. This is when nuisance algae would take over your display.  ) Screens and drains - Yes, the needlepoint plastic canvas, as I believe it is called, makes excellent screens, but I would not recommend any screen on the drain from the ATS/Refugium. In a good design the macroalgae is very well contained in the Refugium and does not clog the drain. A larger than normal screen or secondary screen over the return pump intake screen is sufficient protection.
ditching my filter sock - Sure, no problem, many hobbyists, including myself don't bother removing detritus, except for maybe vacuuming some of the sand once a year.  phase out my ozone generator - Sure, but why? If you already have it running on a good skimmer, why not leave it. It's good at protecting the fish from the Ich parasite. Is it producing Ozone at the 25% setting? If it's more than a year old I can pretty much guarantee that it isn't. Do you know how to easily check for ozone reducing the amount of skimming - Sure but if SPS is what you want to have more of, then I would keep it going. As a 15 year hobbyist I certainly can run a nice skimmerless tank with SPS and i can teach you how to as well. But when I already have a skimmer and I want to ensure the SPS survive I will run a skimmer. Skimmers are very good safety nets. Especially if you are at work or traveling and something big dies, the result can be catastrophic for SPS.  Not sure if I covered all the points. Let me know. BTW, I believe I used to be one of your maintenance guys. I believe we can help you make your Sump into a refugium. Can you show us the Sump
Edited by Mark Peterson - November 25 2009 at 4:35pm
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jcom
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Posted: November 25 2009 at 5:12pm |
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Thanks Burt, I guess I sort of understand how that works. The first thing that came to mind was the potential for algae to clog that clear line and sure enough, it looks like a few of the comments on that link you sent complained of this. I like the idea of a DIY...maybe you could help enlighten me more on these because it's certainly something I should address. Last thing I want is a healthy algae scrubber to die on me and watch my nitrates shoot up again once I've got new corals established.
Edited by jcom - November 25 2009 at 5:13pm
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jcom
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Posted: November 25 2009 at 5:51pm |
Mark,
Ok, let me make sure I'm understanding everything correctly:
1) Water Changes - reduce to 10% per month. I'm making a rough guess that my total volume is about 100 gallons. 120 gallon tank + 30 gallon sump = 150, minus estimated 30-35 gallons LR + Sand volume and sump 1/2 full (15 gallons) = 100+/- total water volume. Therefore, 10 gallon water change monthly.
2) Vacuuming - Unnecessary, just exchange water. Occasionally vacuum surfuace debris. etc?
3) Ca + Alk - Ok with current dosing setup. A few have suggested that a higher magnesium content (1300 - 1400ppm) actually helps to keep Ca and Alk more stable, but your opinion differs. I have had to tweak my doser in numerous ways (parastalitic pump, timers, tubing, etc.) and am quite intimately familiar with it now...seems to be running well but, of course, I still always check it to make sure it's running correctly.
I just decided to get the high quality calcium chloride and mag chloride from BRS because the bromide additives in commercial ice melt, etc. spooked me a little...there are obviously varrying opinions. Bottom line is that I will be saving tons of $$$ even with the pure, high grade stuff by mixing it myself. I'll simply add baking soda and epsom salts to the mix and should be good to go.
Mag - see above. Correct me if I'm wrong, but with my DIY Cal, Alk, Mag supplement, I'll also want to be adding some of the trace elements seen in products like coralvite, fuel, etc right? Or does the monthly 10% water change with IO and/or Reef Crystals sufficiently replace those elements?? Even in an SPS loaded tank?
4th dosing station currently empty.
4) Overflow - perhaps a pump from sump is the better option. I actually bought a Rio 450ghp pump for this purpose and then kind of stumbled upon the siphon idea. I liked the idea of not having yet another power using item like a pump, but it would be much safer that way. It would help to avoid the catastophic possibility of having a bunch of dead algae flushed back into the tank and, like you said, not having to start over with new algae growth once the system has become dependant on its filtration.
Screens/Drains - Ok, but if I were to use the ATS bin as a refugium, it wouldn't hurt to add a safety screen right (since there are no baffles, etc) ?? It still seems to me that a large chunk of micro or macro algae could cut loose and clog the outlet.
Filter Sock - cool, I'll just use them sparingly.
Ozone - ok, guess I could keep ozone running, it just kind of scares me. I've had health problems for almost a year (chronic headaches) and I'm trying to eliminate anything in the house that may be a contributor. I have no idea to tell if it's still generating ozone, probably 2 years old now. Please, do tell.
Skimmer - ok, guess I'll plan to keeping it running full time. I was told by a LFS owner that skimmers can be more efficient if run intermittently....again, everyone has their own opinions.
I'm in Cali at the moment, but will take some shots of my sump when I get back this weekend and see what you think about the sump.
If indeed you were one of the maintenance guys, then you are very familiar with the system! (I'm in the Millcreek area - 3900 South 3000 East area if that helps)
Thanks for the input, I'm like a dry sponge (or perhaps more appropriately a fresh pellet of carbon) ready to suck up as much info as possible!
Edited by jcom - November 26 2009 at 12:22pm
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bfessler
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Posted: November 25 2009 at 7:13pm |
JCOM,
The link I sent you was an example of whats available. There are others that may be more reliable. I haven't actually used any overflows as all my tanks have AIO filtration. If you examine the condition of your drain lines while doing maintenance you can catch the problem before it bets close to blockage. There are products available for cleaning tubing should that much algae grow in the line but I think if your ATF and Refugium are working properly you shouldn't have much problem.
Another issue you mentioned is vacuuming the gravel. I used to vacuum my gravel but now I just use a turkey baster and blast the gravel in my tanks before I clean my filter sponge or do a water change. The sediments in the gravel cloud the water and much of it is trapped in the filter media but it also feeds the corals and other critters in the tank. My corals have been growing much faster and are happier now that I use this method as opposed to vacuuming it straight out of the tank. I blast the entire perimeter of the tank weekly and do 1/4 of the inner gravel each week so that all the gravel is cleaned monthly. The tank looks like mud when I'm done but within an hour the water is crystal clear and the corals are happy as can be.
I also like the BRS products. They are high quality and relatively low priced.
Screens - A course screen that doesn't fit tight to the drain would be fine. I would be concerned about a fine screen clogging more than a chunk of algae getting stuck in the drain.
Filter Sock, Ozone, Skimmer - I don't use any of these items so I don't have any comments on them.
I am also in CA at the moment. I spend about 1/2 my time here for work. Are you just visiting or are you here on business?
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Burt
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[email protected]
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