Setting up a Scrubber for Hospital/Quarantine

[midnight]

First let me say thanks to Santa Monica and the Algae Scrubber Community for the great work, development and knowledge transfer occurring on this site.

In my experience with treating "sick" fish, dealing with Ammonia and the water changes needed is a problematic, time consuming, expensive and a further source of stress to already stressed fish. It seems to me that a system based on a Scrubber as the sole source of filtration can be an extremely effective and versatile way to treat fish according to their symptomatic needs. This of course is predicated upon setting up a Scrubber on a moments notice. If this can be done and if various treatment options can be satisfactorily accomplished without compromising the filtration integrity of the Scrubber, I believe many more fish can be saved.

My question concerns the feasibility of setting up an aquarium using a Scrubber as the sole filtration for a bare bottom hospital or quarantine tank. This of course would require either moving an existing seasoned Scrubber to the hospital tank or preferably, taking a seasoned screen from and existing Scrubber for use in the hospital Scrubber. Santa Monica's nano scrubber seems like it would be a great system to put into service when the need arises and taking it down and storing for future use it when it is not needed.

Has anyone done something like this, and if so how did it work?
How would hypo-salinity affect its performance?
How would copper treatment affect performance?
Would using copper prevent it from later being put into service on an invert tank? Would the copper be absorbed by the acrylic, pvc, plastic components?
How would other medications and antibiotics work in this scenario?
If needed could a product like Ammo-Lock be used with the Scrubber?

I look forward to your thoughts.

Thanks

James

[SantaMonica]

I've heard of a few people doing this, but since it's sporadic, I've not heard follow ups.

The start-up issue of having something ready to go could be minimized by making a very strong scrubber with very powerful lights. This would get growth going within hours. Strong flow would not be needed, since the system would not be set up long enough to get the thick growth that needs strong flow. Something like 200 or 300 watts on a 10 X 10 screen with regular flow.

I suppose it's possible to have a ready-to-go section of screen available from a main scrubber, that can be detached and put into the hospital scrubber.

Additives are unknown. Small amounts of copper will be removed by the algae, but there won't be much algae to start with. Large amounts of copper will kill all the algae.

I have no info on other additives, and salinity does not matter.