ATS on large tanks?

[palmer373]

im curious if anyone runs an ATS on a tank 180g or larger as a sole filtration. im considering upgrading my 75 reef (with a scrubber XP ) when we move and was looking at an 8 foot tank or close to that. id rather not spend a few 100 dollars on a skimmer if a $200 scrubber could replace a $900 skimmer. i run an SWC 120 on my 55 and im having great results on both tanks so im hoping to go the cheaper route. anyone running scrubbers on large tanks?

[SantaMonica]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsVEVUfVtcM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dvTtwQzLaQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsCstx50p54

[palmer373]

wow thanks for the links any idea on how that style of scrubber works? it seems like it pools the water and the surges it back to the tank. does it follow the rules of the horizontal scrubber? so for a 200g tank you need 800 sq inch of screen? thats alot but would be sweet to add to a large tank.

[SantaMonica]

Those were the original styles of the 1970's. They are not recommended for many reasons.

To answer your original question, many people with larger tanks use scrubber-only filtration, but the new vertical ones. It does not matter how large the tank is.

[srusso]

Great videos, thanks!!!

[chrissu]

Great videos, thanks!!!

+1

[palmer373]

Those were the original styles of the 1970's. They are not recommended for many reasons.

To answer your original question, many people with larger tanks use scrubber-only filtration, but the new vertical ones. It does not matter how large the tank is.
oh ok so then im just ramping the scrubber size up, say from my 10x10 to a 30x10 or something like that for a 300g tank (example tank)? thats a big area being taken up but itll prob be worth it.

[SantaMonica]

With larger tanks you want redundancy. I would do 3 separate units.

[chrissu]

+1 with what Santa Monica said. Another benefit of running more than one big scrubber is that you can clean one scrubber and leave the other one up and running. Then you alternate cleanings week after week between the scrubbers. That keeps your water quality at it's best all the time. (paraphased from many of Santa Monicas past posts).

[palmer373]

hmm i was thinking of multiple scrubbers bout then wouldnt that require multiple pumps with can be alot of $$? one mag7 here is $120 (i think, forgot lol) and the longest scrubber i could do is 20" (700gph for the pump, 20"x35gph is 700gph) then i could make it say 15" tall so i have enough screen for a 300g tank. so youd rather, for a hypothetical 400g, me have two scrubbers 20" long, 10" tall, and powered by a mag 7 then have one scrubber, 25" long, 16" tall, powered by a mag 9.5? the price difference is about $100 locally. the screen area is the same (both sides lit) but i have 2 scrubbers compared to one.

redundancy is great, dont get me wrong, but should i spend almost twice the amount of money to have two scrubbers instead of 1? would you?

[vicbay]

watching this thread now as I just purchase a 400g tank myself. Came with a skimmer but using an ats on my current 75g. and no way no how I'm skimming on big guy lol

But like you I'm debating one or two atses(plural??)

Hey SM. Wondering if you could point me to info on how 35 gph per inch minimum was established??

My thinking is lights too strong. more flow fixes it. and if flow is too low. less light fixes that. is 35 gph per inch the break point of effciency or algae growth?

Idea!! what if I used a long pipe with only say 15 gph flow per inch. wouldn't the water still fall at the same rate being a vertical drop?? thereby velocity stay the same and boundary layer would too.
more cost effective is my thinking. less number of pumps and pumping electricity. I guess kinda sacrificing(sp?) space savings for cost saving by spreading the flow, light, and algae over a larger area kinda. Just brain storming other day and this was one question I been meaning to ask. obviously I'll be trying it. but if the info on what happens in that situation is already out there it would save me some trouble.

And I wanted to say thanks to santamontica for sticking it out and keeping this kind of filtration info alive. Tried discussion this some on a local forum and got a small taste of the crap you must of caught for going against the "norm". thanks again man.

[SantaMonica]

35 gph was just done through experimenting. "Less" is not really a savings, because it also slows filtering. Filtering is proportional to wattage, flow, area, and screen roughness. Plus, slow flow blocks more easily, which stops filtering completely.

It's not a good idea to put a 300 or 400 gal tank under the care of a single pump ($100 savings?), or single light, single fuse, etc. Unlike a skimmer, if your only scrubber goes out, you will immediately get a build up of nutrients, and start seeing green coatings on everything in the tank, especially if you have learned to feed heavy (skimmers don't remove nutrients, so when they go out, nothing happens). If you don't want 2 pumps, you can put one of the scrubbers under the overflow.

It's just a matter of time before you'll realize why it was a good to go with 2 separate units.

[vicbay]

35 gph was just done through experimenting. "Less" is not really a savings, because it also slows filtering. Filtering is proportional to wattage, flow, area, and screen roughness. Plus, slow flow blocks more easily, which stops filtering completely.

It's not a good idea to put a 300 or 400 gal tank under the care of a single pump ($100 savings?), or single light, single fuse, etc. Unlike a skimmer, if your only scrubber goes out, you will immediately get a build up of nutrients, and start seeing green coatings on everything in the tank, especially if you have learned to feed heavy (skimmers don't remove nutrients, so when they go out, nothing happens). If you don't want 2 pumps, you can put one of the scrubbers under the overflow.

It's just a matter of time before you'll realize why it was a good to go with 2 separate units.

Ahh. Ok. guess it's worth a shot for me to play around then. Thanks SM.

As for two pumps/units I agree. Not worth the saving to use just one pump. But my thinking was more being able to use smaller pumps. Plus I have to admit I'm a lil spoiled from smaller tanks too. pump goes out I usually had something to get me by for a bit. and then it's just run to the store. few hours max that I had to use the "backup" one. Larger tank comes a whole new world to me. Guess it's time to put more thinking in redundancy(sp?) then I used too huh? lol

[palmer373]

35 gph was just done through experimenting. "Less" is not really a savings, because it also slows filtering. Filtering is proportional to wattage, flow, area, and screen roughness. Plus, slow flow blocks more easily, which stops filtering completely.

It's not a good idea to put a 300 or 400 gal tank under the care of a single pump ($100 savings?), or single light, single fuse, etc. Unlike a skimmer, if your only scrubber goes out, you will immediately get a build up of nutrients, and start seeing green coatings on everything in the tank, especially if you have learned to feed heavy (skimmers don't remove nutrients, so when they go out, nothing happens). If you don't want 2 pumps, you can put one of the scrubbers under the overflow.

It's just a matter of time before you'll realize why it was a good to go with 2 separate units.

alright makes since. funny you say "Unlike a skimmer, if your only scrubber goes out, you will immediately get a build up of nutrients, and start seeing green coatings on everything in the tank" i dont have a timer on my scrubber on my 75, turned it off at midnight and woke up at noon so it was odd for 12 hours, cleaned the glass last night and just cleaned it when i woke up. i couldnt see in!!! i feed like 5 times a day lol.

so if i go with a scrubber on a large tank i think ill modify the SM100 but have multiple scrubbers boxed next to each other with T5s inbetween. saw something like that in the 'design' forum, looks like itll work good.

Thanks!