Help me design a scrubber for 300gals

[Gros21]

Well I'm thinking of running a scrubber on my 300g tank. Now a few questions

Can I use the pump as my return pump and have scrubber drain into tank
Can I use normal 4ft fluros for lighting? I'm thinking 160w or something.

Also all I can find for the scrubber is gutter mesh which is that black soft flexible stuff. I can prolly get some acrylic sheeting but it's 12mm.

Im thinking quite a long scrubber what happens if water flow is to low? Think my current dump pumps is approx 1000gph

Tank will have lots of coral and not 2 many fish.

Also will this totally replace my reefigium? And be my sole form of filtration. Allowing me to run a tiny sump.

I will keep my skimmer just in case and to run when adding large amounts of livestock.

[SantaMonica]

First question is how much you will feed.

A skimmer does not remove any ammonia from livestock.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Definitely size based on feeding. your system will be much smaller unless you drip-feed a ton of coral food continuously.

Go LED if you can T5HO and CFL is sooooo last year. :) You will be hard pressed to need any T5HO over 24" though just FYI. You would have to be feeding a lot of food to need a screen that wide anymore.

I would not use the gutter mesh. Do what you can to get the plastic canvas, order online and pay the shipping, it's 100% worth it. I'm guessing that you're outside the US?

I wouldn't count on a 'tiny' sump, because you will need some area to take care of microbubbles from the plumbing or the scrubber. Making a high-flow sump that is too small will result in a lot of bubbles in the tank (I know). But you can reduce the size considerably when compared to what you need for a skimmer/filter sock/etc sump.

[Gros21]

yea im in australia what color leds and how many what physical size should my scruber be?

[SantaMonica]

Nutrients "in" (feeding) must equal nutrients "out" (scrubber growth), no matter how many gallons you have. So...

An example VERTICAL waterfall screen size is 3 X 4 inches = 12 square inches of screen (7.5 X 10 cm = 75 sq cm) with a total of 12 real watts (not equivalent) of fluorescent light for 18 hours a day. If all 12 watts are on one side, it is a 1-sided screen. If 6 watts are on each side, it is a 2-sided screen, but the total is still 12 watts for 18 hours a day. This screen size and wattage should be able to handle the following amounts of daily feeding:

1 frozen cube per day (2-sided screen), or
1/2 frozen cube per day (1-sided screen), or
10 pinches of flake food per day (2-sided screen), or
5 pinches of flake food per day (1-sided screen), or
10 square inches (60 sq cm) of nori per day (2-sided screen), or
5 square inches (30 sq cm) of nori per day (1-sided screen), or
0.1 dry ounce (2.8 grams) of pellet food per day (2-sided screen), or
0.05 dry ounce (1.4 grams) of pellet food per day (1-sided screen)

High-wattage technique: Double the wattage, and cut the hours in half (to 9 per day). This will get brown screens to grow green much faster. Thus the example above would be 12 watts on each side, for a total of 24 watts, but for only 9 hours per day. If growth starts to turn YELLOW, then increase the flow, or add iron, or reduce the number of hours. And since the bulbs are operating for 9 hours instead of 18, they will last 6 months instead of 3 months. For LEDs, try half of these watts.

HORIZONTAL screens: Multiply the screen size by 4, and the wattage by 1.5Flow is 24 hours, and is at least 35 gph per inch of width of screen [60 lph per cm], EVEN IF one sided or horizontal.

Very rough screen made of roughed-up-like-a-cactus plastic canvas.

Clean algae off of screen every 7 to 14 days, so that you can see the white screen material.

[Gros21]

I was planning to make a much larger screen. I might make mine 48" x 12" and use fluoros to light it a twin on each side giving me 160w

[SantaMonica]

How much food

[Gros21]

fully stocked id be lucky if i fed 2 cubes per day.

[SantaMonica]

4 X 6 two-sided screen, at at least 12 real watts on each side for 18 hours, or at least 24 real watts on each side for 9 hours.