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maglofster
03-13-2011, 11:52 AM
While waiting for my SM100 (on order for my Elos 120 mixed reef) I decided to build a DIY scrubber for my new 600 liter reef. I have 2,5 CM2 active area (It looks very long, but thatīs only to keep it in the water and quiet). Lights are 4x36w and 3x24w on the other side due to room constraints, all are CPL tubes. Flow is about 3500 L/H.

[attachment=0:34asg1bd]DSC_1414.jpg[/attachment:34asg1bd]

SantaMonica
03-13-2011, 05:50 PM
Watch the top of the lights, in case the pipe sprays.

maglofster
03-14-2011, 02:14 AM
Will do! They are IP54 rated though. So they are rated for bathroom / outside installation.

maglofster
03-17-2011, 02:52 PM
http://www.saltvattensguiden.se/forumet/attachment.php?attachmentid=55002&d=1300397577

5 days of growth during startup of my new tank. 5 Anthias and 8 Chromis with frequent feedings.

maglofster
03-20-2011, 03:10 AM
First harvest.

http://www.saltvattensguiden.se/forumet/attachment.php?attachmentid=55075&thumb=1&d=1300615725

SantaMonica
03-20-2011, 05:01 AM
Filling in nicely.

maglofster
03-20-2011, 11:36 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypVFIh4658E

The display - three weeks old. Chromis & Anthias chasing Cyklops.

maglofster
03-23-2011, 12:59 AM
Three days after cleaning media, the growth is on par with the whole first week. Looks like it's starting up nicely! :)

maglofster
03-24-2011, 09:45 AM
Just wondering. The light brown algae/stuff growing in the beginning is supposed to come right off under running water, right? I barely need to even touch it to rinse it off. Right now I should clean every 4-5 days?

SantaMonica
03-24-2011, 10:19 AM
Always 7 days. It comes right off.

maglofster
04-02-2011, 02:45 AM
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/5581844782_825ae6a5ce.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5581844782/)DSC_1442 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5581844782/) by 70967fb60e7024edcb4ae96e4d3e110a (http://www.flickr.com/people/58065777@N04/), on Flickr
Before harvest (third one)

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/5581844822_3220615e1c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5581844822/)DSC_1443 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5581844822/) by 70967fb60e7024edcb4ae96e4d3e110a (http://www.flickr.com/people/58065777@N04/), on Flickr
After harvest, you can clearly see the GHA that is starting to grow in spots.

NO algae whatsoever in the DT! Yay! :)

maglofster
04-10-2011, 12:26 AM
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5270/5604950805_b0510a9bd8.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5604950805/)
Latest harvest. Dark brown slime algae, but also lots of green! :) After cleaning most of the GHA was left on to be able to grow onto the whole screen.

The screen and lights should be able to cope with 1800 liters and I only have 600 so this should work with very heavy feeding once it's mature! It's hard to judge the size of the media in the picture but its about 75 cm's long.

maglofster
04-20-2011, 04:02 AM
Today I added acrylic splash guards (just basic sheets hanging from the roof of the cabinet and down into the sump) and this made it possible to increase flow to about 5000 liters/h.

maglofster
04-23-2011, 04:28 AM
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5230/5646090050_e7134ac2c9.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5646090050/)
Just before harvest today. I did an extra harvest three days ago, so there is a lot of growth I think. The screen is very dark, almost black.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5063/5645527067_13e9e84e51.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5645527067/)
This is how it looks underneath. Very green. Actually more green than the photo shows. So I'm thinking I will do one extra harvest in the middle of the week to ensure that the GHA gets more light instead of getting blocked by the black/brown slime algae?

Am I right or wrong here?

I should say I have been feeding very heavily (5-10 cubes per day) for a while to get my newly acquired Anthias to fatten up a bit. There is also some dead LR in the tank which I suspect are leaking Phosphates.

To summarize scrubber data:
Light = 216 Watts total counting both sides = 0,36W per liter = HIGH filtering.
Flow = 5000 L/H = (about) 120 liter / cm / hour = HIGH filtering.
Area = 2625 cm2 = 4,4 cm2 / liter = HIGH filtering.

SantaMonica
04-23-2011, 10:15 AM
You schedule looks good. As the GHA gets better hold of the screen it will fill in sooner. The strong lighting is keeping the screen from growing black.

maglofster
04-27-2011, 12:20 PM
did another cleaning today, about 2 dl of algae mostly the brown kind.

maglofster
05-07-2011, 01:19 AM
Have removed my Biopellets today. Hoping that the ATS will cope with the increased load and mature faster.

maglofster
05-20-2011, 01:10 AM
I have updated the lighting. When i bought the lamps I got CFL:s with 4100k included and already installed into the lamp so I let them run for a while. Yesterday I changed all of them to 2700k lights. I also took away the 3x24w light and installed two pieces of 2x36w instead. This mean I now have 288 watts of 2700k light.

To summarize scrubber data:
Light = 288 Watts total counting both sides = 0,48W per liter = HIGH filtering.
Flow = 5000 L/H = (about) 120 liter / cm / hour = HIGH filtering.
Area = 2625 cm2 = 4,4 cm2 / liter = HIGH filtering.

maglofster
05-20-2011, 01:27 AM
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2632/5739472718_3f1254b885.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5739472718/)
My somewhat messy sump cabinet. I still run my KorallenZucht Revloution S (on the left) since it's smart design let's plankton through without damage. I have no filtersocks or anything like that. You can see that vertically hanging lights, I have four of those. Two on each side. Also, my dodgy looking but very effective splash guard in clear acrylic can be seen in the middle.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5304/5739472772_0aa04e2cf6.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5739472772/)
The algae growing on the media - a close up.

SantaMonica
05-20-2011, 10:06 AM
You might be surprised to hear that no skimmer lets plankton get through, unfortunately. Bubbles attach to any organic particle, live or dead. And besides that, even the "dead" stuff that's in the skimmate... all of it... is coral food.

maglofster
05-20-2011, 12:51 PM
Well, I'm not going to start a "skimmer v.s scrubber" debate, but.. I beg to differ (just a little bit).

I do understand that bubbles will attach to all organic particles in all skimmers (I mean that's what they do). My skimmers (KZ revolution and Elos NS 500) as well as most will pass some organic particles through though. Also, depending on how the sump is designed not all particles will pass through the skimmer when passing through the sump. Sooner or later "all" particles will end up in the cup, but not right away, so there is a good chance they will be eaten before that. I want my Phyto and Zooplankton (I culture a multitude of species) to stay alive as long as possible after I dose them. By using a skimmer that is "gentle" (I.E not using a mesh or needle wheel to produce bubbles) and not killing the plankton right away I can achieve this.

For me the skimmer is a backup plan and nothing else since I started with the ATS. But both my systems work just fine with a skimmer and ATS working in parallel so I will keep it that way until I have a LOT more experience with using an ATS.

SantaMonica
05-20-2011, 05:44 PM
Yes they both "work" fine together, for now. The difference is when you need lots of food in the water, like a real reef has. That will be when you want to keep mandarins, anthias, flower pots, etc. (all very difficult to keep), and even totally non-photosynthetic corals (impossible to keep) without any target feeding at all. It will also be when you want your current coral growth to be double, triple, or quadruple what it currently is, using the same amount of light that you have now. Growth rates of acro's in the wild are a foot per year in length. This requires a lot of food in the water.

maglofster
05-22-2011, 08:13 AM
I understand, and we'll see what happens in the future. Currently I have both Mandarins (has been with me for a year) and a group of Pseudanthias Squamipinnis (six months) and they all seem to thrive. Could be because I'm culturing two species of Copepods as well as Nannochloropsis and feed the tanks with all the time. I'm not at all into LPS - so the Gonipora is not something I will try. I have ok growth rate with my Acros, it could be better a bit better I think, but it's ok.

Ace25
05-22-2011, 10:22 AM
Sooner or later "all" particles will end up in the cup, but not right away, so there is a good chance they will be eaten before that.

I would certainly argue that point.

Source: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/1/aafeature

On the molecular level, this surface association is typically driven by the molecule/particle having a hydrophobic (= water hating) patch that can be buried in the bubble surface/interior. This arrangement avoids the energetically penalizing juxtaposition of hydrophobic surfaces with (hydrophilic) water, and so overall the system energy is lowered (a favorable occurrence). Some of the molecules/particles in aquarium water will meet this hydrophobic region criterion, and some will not. The ones that do not have a sufficiently large hydrophobic patch will not interact with bubbles, and hence will not be removed by skimming. From, the results of the experiments described here, it appears that only 20 - 35 % of the measurable TOC meets this hydrophobicity criterion (= [TOCl] defined earlier) whereas the remaining 65 - 80 % does not (= [TOCr] defined earlier). In essence, bubbles are a rather poor media for removal of organic nutrients from aquarium water compared to, for example, GAC. However, they do have the distinct benefit of being cheap.

SantaMonica
05-22-2011, 10:27 AM
Yes I thought everyone knew that skimmers only remove 30 percent of DOC. Bacteria remove the rest, although corals do eat DOC directly.

But skimmers do remove tons of particles, and it's the particles that do lots of the sps feeding.

maglofster
05-22-2011, 10:02 PM
I am fully aware that skimmers do not remove all particles - hence the quotation marks around the word all.. But I did not realize that it was as low as 30%. But SM what do you mean by your earlier post " You might be surprised to hear that no skimmer lets plankton get through, unfortunately. Bubbles attach to any organic particle, live or dead." I think this is a bit contradicting to later posts in this thread? Or maybe it just needs clarifying of some terms?

SantaMonica
05-23-2011, 12:13 PM
Particles are not DOC. DOC is invisibly small. Particles, for the most part, are visible.

All skimmers use bubbles, and bubbles attach to organic particles, whether the particles are alive or dead. Thus no skimmer is plankton safe, since all plankton are organic particles.

maglofster
05-23-2011, 12:37 PM
What size of particles are we talking here?

Plankton like 1-2 ĩm in size will end up in the skimmer cup. But DOC will not (other than the 30% ofc). Is that what you are saying?

So I'm right in my earlier post "Sooner or later "all" particles will end up in the cup, but not right away, so there is a good chance they will be eaten before that." BUT you argue the point that it would work even better if I would remove the skimmer because the particles would stay in the tank longer?

Ace25's post is also right but I was not discussing DOC, but particles made up of Phytoplankton. A bit confusing.

SantaMonica
05-23-2011, 04:32 PM
Correct.

Since the skimmer does not remove and Inorganic Nitrate or Inorganic Phosphate at all, and instead removes the food that you are paying to put in, why skim at all?

Ace25
05-23-2011, 04:34 PM
Well, the article did say "On the molecular level, this surface association is typically driven by the molecule/particle having a hydrophobic (= water hating) patch that can be buried in the bubble surface/interior.". From my reading of that article, I would say the same applies for both DOCs and Particles. They have to have the magic "stick to the bubble" properties in order to be removed, and only a fraction of the stuff in the water has those properties, which is why skimmers are so inefficient in what they do. They are a 1 trick pony and the trick only applies to 25-30% of the stuff in the water on average.

maglofster
06-04-2011, 03:24 AM
Ok, rebuilt scrubber into V 3.0. :)

I have seen some versions with two parallel tubes/medias so i redesigned my scrubber into one, although it's still an open one. I also changed out the CFL light for T5:s instead. I use Hagen GLO ballasts which I like a lot since they are virtually watertight with a nice rubber seal in both ends of the T5 tube.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5067/5796342548_51279f5855.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5796342548/)
The white parts of the media are new additions to let water flow silently into sump.


To summarize scrubber 3.0 data:
Light = 144 Watts total counting all sides = 0,24W per liter = High/Medium filtering.
Flow = 5000 L/H = (about) 60 liter / cm / hour = HIGH filtering.
Area = 1530 cm2 = 2,55 cm2 / liter = HIGH filtering. This area is what I count as active since it has concentrated light on it. There is still a lot of media that grow some algae but is outside of the concentrated light and not very efficient, it's only in the design to lead the water quietly down into the sump.

SantaMonica
06-04-2011, 12:17 PM
You can move the outside bulbs closer if you want; almost touching the screen.

Then, if you want to re-make the pvc, you could also bring the screen in together, so that no bulb is more that 2 inches from a screen.

maglofster
06-04-2011, 01:29 PM
OK, I'll look into it, right now the bulbs in the middle have about 7 cms to the screen. The outside ones have about 4 cm to each screen.

SantaMonica
06-04-2011, 06:31 PM
Also the middle ones are losing half the light to the top and bottom. Maybe you can put a top and bottom reflector.

Floyd R Turbo
06-04-2011, 06:38 PM
This is where I chime in with my half-a-light argument. If you use a reflector on the middle lamps to reflect the light you lose up and down and direct it half one way and half the other way, you have 1/2 power on the inside of each screen. It is a nice build though, those outside reflectors will do you wonders. I would try to make a thin guard to hang over the screen and protect the lights. you can use something really simple, like 1/16" acrylic or polycarbonate, 2 pieces, and use zip ties between them and hang them over the tube just to protect the lights and reflectors, then you can put them right up to the screen.

Where did you get those corded waterproof endcaps? Those are perfect.

maglofster
06-05-2011, 12:26 AM
The corded endcaps are part of a ballast system from Hagen. It's called Hagen Glomat t5 2x24w.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2107/5799316828_95acd8e2f9.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/58065777@N04/5799316828/)

maglofster
06-07-2011, 10:32 AM
Have built an acrilyc box for the media, the lights are now closer.

maglofster
06-28-2011, 04:09 AM
Last thursday I put my first SPS (other than a few test frags in the begining) into the tank. One red, one blue and one yellow A. Millepora. It took about 1 hour before polyps were fully extended. If they continue to look fine I will add a lot more in about two months time when temperatures are lower and I can safely crank up the MH lights to full power.

maglofster
07-05-2011, 12:47 AM
ah.. I couldn't wait so I added some more frags. Two more Acros, one Pocillophora and two Montiporas. All look healthy! :)

SantaMonica
07-05-2011, 02:15 PM
My pocillipora was growing really fast until I added two yellow gumdrop gobies. They would eat one complete branch a day. Now that they are gone the pocillipora has grown double in size in two months.

maglofster
07-06-2011, 04:26 AM
NO gumdrop gobies then! :)