Freshwater Algae Turf scrubber

[KcMopar]

Here are some pics of my ATS (Algae Turf scrubber). This is used to dramatically lower your ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and greatly reduce water changes. I have this type of device on my three saltwater tanks with astonishing results!!! See this link for detailed build info. http://www.myfishtank.net/forum/sal...a-powerful-nitrate-phosphate-remover-diy.html . This tank hits 80PPM of nitrate in a weeks time like its nothing so I will be monitoring the nitrate levels to see if they will come down to zero once the screen starts to grow algae as my SW tanks did. I have also included a pic (the last one) of a mature screen from my SW tank as an example.
These are very cheap to build. Not including the pump I already have running on the tank I had About $20.00 ish into it. almost $30 if you include the timer I bought for the lights.

 

[ryanoh]

I plan on putting one of these on my freshwater tank, so let me know how this goes.

 

[KcMopar]

I plan on keeping this thread updated every couple days or so to show the progress of the scrubber.

 

[KcMopar]

At this point I have a very, very small growth of light brown algae. I decided to take some green algae from my SW screen and seed it into a small spot on the FW screen, we will see if this works. So far its all looks like the growth of a new SW screen. Its been up since last Sunday and its making progress so I guess all is good so far. I took a pic of the screen but the slight growth of brown algae cannot be seen. I hope to have enough growth by the weekend to get a good pic.

 

[KcMopar]

Well there is more growth today, still not enough to show in the pic with my Droid phone . Either way we are making headway. I do not plan on doing big water changes as I want the nitrate to be a little high so we can see if the nitrates will be reduced as drastically in FW as SW was. I plan to float the nitrate at about 40-80PPM which is what it is with only one 40% per week anyway. This Algae Turf Scrubber is on my 150G FW tank.

 

[KcMopar]

Growth on the screen!!!

OK, here it is!! Finally enough growth to get a pic!!! I will be testing the water today after work for nitrates as this is the water change day for the 150G. I am not sure how much of a difference if any there will be in the nitrate level with only a little growth. Usually its between 40-80PPM in a weeks time so the test tonight will tell.

 

[ryanoh]

So are you running this as the only filter on the tank? As of now my plan is to have this and a wet dry set up going, but if I only need this I don't want to complicate my design at all. What're your thoughts on that?

Also, is your tank planted? I have a planted tank but I'm not running C02 or anything. I've read its fine to do the algae scrubber and plants, but I've also read that since they're competing for the same nutrients it can be a problem.

 

[KcMopar]

I am running a filstar xp3 as you still need to catch the solid waste. The wet/dry filter or something to catch the waste would be just fine. Plants and the ATS do compete but, the ATS will most likely make plant growing difficult if not almost impossible. I do not have plants in my tanks with the scrubbers.

 

[ryanoh]

So it won't kill my plants, but it'll keep them from getting bigger? I'm actually fine with that.

 

[KcMopar]

I do not think growing plants will be easy with an ATS. I have not tried it but, I do not give it much hope. The ATS is using the same food the plants would so these nutrients will be consumed by both the plants and the algae. I do not think the plants would thrive very well because the algae is going to consume all of the nutrients very fast.

 

[KcMopar]

Here are some pics of the screen after one week. The greenest one is before the cleaning, the one in the sink is after the cleaning. Also note it has not changed the nitrate level yet. This nitrate was 10PPM last Sunday after the water change.This nitrate level is normal for a weeks time. There should be a difference next Sunday.
View attachment 10667

 

[KcMopar]

Here some growth pics from the evening of the 5th, three days growth. Its looking real good. The nitrates have not climbed at all, they are staying around 40PPM. Usually by this time they would be well over 80PPM+++. I did not do any water change last weekend either. I hope to see them going down in the next few days as the screen growth is getting much better now.

 

[KcMopar]

Well as of Saturday I cleaned the screen again and had to do a water change as the nitrate stepped up over 40PPM. So far this has cut my water changes down to once every two weeks as before I was changing water twice a week. I do not think this screen is large enough for my tank capacity. I am working on a dual screen build with two almost full size screens. My pump is only good for about 16" so I may need another pump to fully drive the two screen build. I will try to post some pics of the new build today maybe.

 

[KcMopar]

The new Dual Screen Scrubber is complete!

I have finished my dual screen scrubber for the 150G FW tank. This on has 224.25 sq" of area. The old single screen was only 108 sq". So with just more then double the area I believe I can take care of all the nitrate problems. I still need to upgrade my pump, my pump is good for 16" of screen length and I have 17.75" of length now. I thought about running my Rena Filstar XP3 in the supply for now which would give me plenty of flow until I buy my new pump.

It also has a lit that closes, you can see it in the third pic. The screen is 9.75"x5.75"

 

[KcMopar]

150G dual screen scrubber update

Here are some pics taken yesterday of the new dual screen growth, notice the long algae growth leading to the drain. The nitrates have only gotten to 30PPM since the water change on 10/10/11 and the change over to the dual screen on 10/16/11. Not bad results, I hope to see the nitrates going down when I test them this weekend.