100 galon tank with a lot of GHA and new algae scrubber

[Yolka]

Hi I'm Polish girl living in Mexico, I'm new here, first of all thanks for than forum, excelent informacion, hopefully it will help me to win my battle with GHA., my tank has about three year now, it's about 100 galon system, it was a very nice setup but about a year ago I started to have HA problems and was trying to battle it with water changes but it realy dont work at all, then I found en algae scrubber solucion and I want to give it a try. First let me show you what I'm dealing with
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And here is my scrubber, it's working for 5 days now, I seed it with hair algae from my tank.
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I use 4 CFL bulbs, two each side, they are 27 real wats 2700 K color with some reflectors made from half of bottle and aluminium papel. My screan is 10 inch long x 13 inch wide, it's very roug. I hope I made it good enough and it will help me with this GHA battle. I will post every week pictures of the scrubber and display tank. Realy sorry for my english I do my best and hope you understand it.
Greetings from Mexico
;)

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

You have about 100 watts on about 130 square inches, not bad. Lot of phosphate in the rocks, so algae will start getting worse on the rocks for a few months, then will go away.

[Ace25]

Do you have any turbo snails in the tank? I have found those to be the best for clearing up hair algae. Only problem with them is they are big and knock over your corals. If you can take a rock or two out during a water change and scrub the algae off the rocks that will also speed up the recovery, but like Santa Monica said, even with snails and scrubbing rocks it will still take a few months before the tank recovers to the point the hair algae will no longer grow in the display. Scrubber seems adequate though so I think you are doing positive things for your tank. Just make sure to clean it every 7 days for at least the first month. After that you can go up to 14 days between cleanings once green algae fills in on the screen.

[Yolka]

Thank you very much for your reply SantaMonica ;) I have 4 bulb 80 W ATI Sunpower Fixture in my tank and I was thinking to run only two bulbs (160 W) till my scrubber get stronger, I only have 3 small frags of zoas in my tank for now ( all my zoo colonies was murdered by algae :( )do you think it's a good idea or it will not help much?

[Yolka]

Thanks for your advice Ace25, yes I have 5 turbo snails but they really dont help much, they seem to prefer algea from the glass and barebottom. Maybe I can take my rocks out during the water change and use H2O2 or scrubbing it and then rinse it with saltwater, you think it would help to acelerate the proces?

[SantaMonica]

You can do that.

[Ace25]

The way I do it is I would take water out and into 2 5gallon buckets. Put about 4G of water in each bucket and take a rock out one at a time, scrub it really good in the first bucket, then swish it around really good in the second bucket and then put it back into the tank. The algae will still grow back after you clean it, even if the rock looks perfectly clean, but it will grow back slower. It is still going to take time for everything bad to leach out of the rocks.

Only do a few rocks at a time, you don't want to upset the balance in the tank too much at once. By cleaning a few rocks the nitrates and phosphates will leach out into the water quicker because there is no algae barrier to absorb it, so you want the other rocks that do have algae to act as a buffer and absorb that so you don't harm your fish or corals. There will also be a lot of bacteria changes happening on the rock just from scrubbing it and putting it back in the tank. You want to minimize disrupting the bacteria balance in the tank so that is another reason to only scrub a few rocks at a time and wait at least 3-4 days before scrubbing anymore rocks. Scrubbing a few rocks should also benefit and possibly speed up the maturation process of your ATS screen as well. It isn't a solution, nor is it even necessary to do, but if you want to do the work it will help and make the tank look a little better.

How old are your turbo snails? I have found after about 6 months they get very lazy and don't do work anymore. You may want to add 1 or 2 new ones and see if they work. I have found the ones that are called "mexican turbo snails, zebra turbo snails, or Belize turbo snails" work the best. They have a green shell with black lines in it. There are so many different snails labeled "turbo snail" and I have found some work much better than others.

http://underwaterworldz.com/library/turbosnailbelize.jpg

[Yolka]

Thank you very much for all that info I will try it this weekend and tell you how it goes becouse I think with all that algea in the rocks my scrubber will have a dificulty to win the nutrients from the water. I think also maybe eating algea goby will help I can purchase one and purchase more turbo snails, yes my snail are very lazy but I think it becouse its so much food around them that they dont even need to move a lot :)

[kotlec]

If you dont have many light sensitive corals, I would bet on DT lights decreasing . This way your scrubber will increase power, as lumens balance will strongly shift towards scrubber. DT algea will have less light to feed on.

[mess7777]

On some sites, even the mention of the word tang starts a debate. That said you have 100 gallons so you can have at least 1. I had turbo snails, crabs, blahblahblah. Nothing took care of algae like my yellow and sailfin tang. My sailfin in particular is a huge pig and eats every speck of HA in the main DT. I have had relatively high phosphates and nitrates for almost a year, yet no algae in the main tank. If you don't have one, why not get yourself a yellow or kole tang. They are great to watch, reef safe, and eat the stuff naturally.

If you are already fully stocked, another option is to borrow a sea hare from a local reefer or LFS. These guys will eat all the HA in a matter of a week or two. The problem is they are too good at their job, so you have to pass them forward or they will starve to death.

Aces plan with the rocks will go a long way to keeping it manageable without adding anything new to the tank.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Your setup looks pretty good, and should do a good job of pulling down the nutrients (waste) and out-competing the algae in the tank. However after that is done, you might find that it will not grow as well. This is because Algae Scrubbers are now sized according to the amount you feed, not the size of your tank. You can look up the rules under the FAQs but in general it is 12 square inches of screen lit on both sides with a total of 12 watts (6 per side) or 12 watts per side for the "double-light, half-time" method for each cube of food fed per day. Once your display tank algae is under control, I would shift the scrubber over to a size based on what you feed. You will get better growth and more efficient filtration. But for now, leave it as it is.

One thing I noticed is that you have a couple of spray blockers. They look good, but if you can get some Saran Wrap, then you can drape that over the pipe (or the whole screen, for that matter) and this will completely block the water spray from the lamps, and will also allow you to put the lights a little closer without burning the algae. Look around on this site for a few examples, srusso did this on his screen (covered the entire screen and moved the lights closer) and reported much better growth.

Welcome to the site!

[Yolka]

Hi Kotlec, I only have few zoa and mushroom frags so I'm going to use 2 80 wat Ati blue plus bulbs only for now.
Mess7777, I already have a yellow tang and he is picking at algae sometimes but it really dont change much, I never had a sea hare and I would love to try it but it's not possible to get it here localy.
Hi Floyd R Turbo, I made my scrubber as strong as I could manage in my sump for now. this
weekend I will pull out my rocks, some at this time and other next week and clean them from algea and also chance my splash blokers to a saran wrap and give it a try, I will post new pictures on sunday at my scrubber before cleaning and if you please tell me guys what do you think of it, I would be very greatfull. I have some flow isue becouse of my slot, it's not very straigh becouse I made it with a hot knife. I need to make anew one to achive a better water distribution.
Thanks for helping me :)

[Garf]

Your slot is VERY important!

[joelespinoza]

Your slot is VERY important!

Sometimes it sucks to be a pervert, you see terrible things everywhere.

But on a more useful note, the saran wrap thing is a lifesaver, especially if you have a sloppy.... waterflow.... Drape saran wrap over the whole thing and move the lights as close as you can get without burning or shorting out anything.

How much do you feed a day?

[Floyd R Turbo]

LO f'in L

[Yolka]

Today is a first week of scrubbing, I cleaned the srceen. That's how it looked like before cleaning
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I had a flow issue thats why there is a white part of the screen in the middle, I have decided to change water pump and now use 2500l/h pump (before 1600l/h) so the flow is much better. I used also a black plastic bag up to the screen, thanks for this idea, it realy makes things simple an save.
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Ok so what do you think?

[joelespinoza]

If my math is right that is about 51 gallons of flow per inch of screen, since 35+ is recommended you sound like you are in good shape. Any growth on the screen in the beginning is good, just give it a light rinse to get off as much of the black stuff as you easily can every few days or so.

[kerry]

That is growing in real nicely!! Looks great so for, good job Ma'am.

[SantaMonica]

Is that 2 layers of screen?

[Yolka]

Thanks all for your reply, Santa Monica as you can see in the picture my screen is actually three parts of canvas together, first up is a small strip which is smooth and that goes in to the tube (now under the black plastic) then is my screen and down there is other strip that's really almoust totaly under water. The screen is only one layer screen. I needed to make it that way becouse I couldn't find a one piece canvas this big here localy :(.
Next weekend I will post new pictures, I hope it will grow stronger with more water flow.

[Yolka]

So it's two weeks of scrubbing now. I made some new reflectors
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Some pictures running before cleaning
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and taken of for cleaning
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There is a lot more green this week and first benefit I obtain is that I didn't clean the front glass in the display tank for a week now and it's not realy necesery. Before I was cleaning the glass every other day but DHA still is the same and growing. But I know it's only two weeks and it needs a lot more time.

[SantaMonica]

Display algae on the rocks may grow more before getting better.

[Yolka]

I know it's becouse all the phosphate in the rocks true? I also have a lot of HA in the acrilic ( my tank is bare bottom and have some white acrilic in a bottom glass)
I know it will take a lot time to kill the alge from the rocks but how much time it needs to kill the algea in the acrilic and back glass? Next week I will measure my parameters when the test arrives and I will compare them every week.

[SantaMonica]

Correct.

If there is no coralline on the acrylic, it will clear quickly. If there is coralline, it will take weeks. Coralline is made of the same material as the rocks.

The rocks will take many months.

[Yolka]

I have a lot of coraline in the front but it do not have HA but the back behind the rocks have a lot of HA but no coraline so I hope it will go away soon.For the rocks I need to be veeeeeery patient then :D

[Yolka]

So my Salifert test arrived today and this is the parameters

Nitrate NO3 - 5
Phosphate - 0

What do you think?

[kerry]

That's really good, I like to see my NO3 between 0-5 and the Phos zero-ish.

[Yolka]

I think all the algae in the DT consume all the nitrate and phosphate thats why its at low levels, I think I would need to feed more to up a little bit the phosphate to get my nitrate down to 0, or am I wrong?

[SantaMonica]

You should not have to feed more. Just scrub strong, and give time.

[Yolka]

Ok I will do so, thanks a lot for your help :)

[Yolka]

Tomorrow it's three weeks of my scrubber. I took some video before I clean it tomorrow.


http://youtu.be/Frb1A3Npb04

I also checked my parameters again and got readings

nitrate (NO3) 7

phosphate 0

I wonder why my nitrates are slightly higher then few days ago.

Tomorrow I will make some pictures when I take the screen off for cleaning.

[SantaMonica]

Matters more what they are long term.

[Yolka]

So I took off the screen for cleaning, here are the pictures
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So what do you think?

[SantaMonica]

Growth is good but I think you are not cleaning the screen all the way. You need to get all the growth off of the screen each time, so you can see the screen.

[Yolka]

I do clean all the screen with an old credit card. This is the screen after cleaning, there is only some small spots of algea where it don't come off so easy.
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You think I need to clean it stronger?

[SantaMonica]

Yes you need to clean it all off. The part that is remaining is getting too thick/dark, and dying and letting go. That's why you get the wheat-color around the edges. I use a hack saw to get all the turf off, so I can see the white screen material.

[Yolka]

Ok I will clean it much stronger then, thanks a lot for helping me Santa Monica :) and I will post next week.

[Yolka]

It's been 7 weeks of scrubbing now. Here are some pictures of the screen before cleaning.

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Today test reading shows

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Nitrate some between 0,5 -1
Phosphate - 0

My display tank algae seems to slow a lot it's growth, I siphon what I can every week and is less and less algae in the sock and now I need to clean my front and back glass only once a week, it only have some little slime alge.

I think all is going in the right way finally :)

[SantaMonica]

!!!

Looks like you have two layers of screen? If so, it will work even better with just one layer.

[Yolka]

It's one layer only, the black strip up is where the black plastic bag goes to protect the ligth from spray and the down strip goes in to the water that's why it has diferent growth and may look as two layers :)

[Garf]

Looks like you doing good. Now patience will really show dividends.

[Yolka]

Yes I need a lot of patience, I hope with help of all of you and scrubbing I will see my DT with out algae once again. I will post in one week with new pictures and testing results.

[Yolka]

Today I made new water test again and my phosphate are 0 and my nitrates are 0.2, and about tree days ago I noticed my display algae started to turn golden brown, it's not growing anymore, I hope it means it's dying finally. If it's continue like this I think my tank will be clear more fast that I expected. I'm really glad of the scrubber result so far I hope soon can post no algae DT pictures :).

[SantaMonica]

Yay!!!

[Yolka]

Tomorrow is 9 weeks of scrubbing, this is my screen before cleaning
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This is the scrubbing results
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My nitrate are 0 and my phosphate 0
Algae in my display tank have changed the color from green to brown but it still survives.
I hope soon it will start to die.

[ruddybop]

Tomorrow is 9 weeks of scrubbing, this is my screen before cleaning
My nitrate are 0 and my phosphate 0
Algae in my display tank have changed the color from green to brown but it still survives.
I hope soon it will start to die.

Great results.... I hope my scrubber grows like yours... :)

[Floyd R Turbo]

I hope soon it will start to die.

It already is starting to die. Sounds like great results!

[holidayz]

Tomorrow is 9 weeks of scrubbing, this is my screen before cleaning
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This is the scrubbing results
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My nitrate are 0 and my phosphate 0
Algae in my display tank have changed the color from green to brown but it still survives.
I hope soon it will start to die.

Wa.....so nice!!

[Yolka]

Thanks for your reply :) See ya next week

[crashmushroom]

I have the same problem as you green algae in DT. Then my scrubber had growth like yours now i have brown golden algae on glass and rocks

[Big C]

I have the same problem as you green algae in DT. Then my scrubber had growth like yours now i have brown golden algae on glass and rocks

How long we're you scrubbing before the dt algae started turning brown?

[Yolka]

You think the color means it's week or diying? I thought it's diying first time I saw it changes the color but it's two weeks now and its still the same, no more, no less algae, I will wait paciently and if I see some changes I will let you know.

[SantaMonica]

Yes it turns brown when dying. It takes a while to disappear. Or you can brush it off.

[Yolka]

YES!!! then I'm on the good road :) I dont want to syphon the algae becouse my turbo snail had babys lately and they are all over my tank and I dont want to kill them, I think I will wait paciently for the algae to die alone.

[crashmushroom]

I have been scrubbing about 6 months with no results as i had it all wrong. But the latest scrubber i made is running about 6 weeks and very successful as i have growth like the pictures yolka posted (really bright green). Then i made a huge mistake i turned on my protein skimmer to get rid of the brown on my sand rocks and glass, what a nightmare killed my sun coral as i never target fed him since removing skimmer he didnt need it. Also since turning on the skimmer killed my green growth no i have diatoms on the screen. Will be checking tonight to see if the green is coming back and will post again.

[crashmushroom]

yolka do you notice if you clean the brown from you glass it comes back after a few days, but if you dont it does not seem to get any worse strange?

[Yolka]

I really do not cleaned anything about two weeks now, my glass stays clean with a little slimy algae in places which my turbo snails like to eat and keep it in control and my rocks stays the same, the algae looks the same as two weeks ago, its a good sign it isn't growing any more. I have ATI Bubble Master skimmer in my tank and I never turned it off but now with scrubber it's almost with out skimmate so I think once I kill the algae I will turn it off.

[acorral]

Same problem as you (also in mexico btw...) tackling it with a UAS and taking out the rocks that are accesible and rinsing them with H2O2, it will nuke the rock almost completely, except for cnidarians and zoas/palys, I've rinsed in H2O2 many rocks with mushroms and zoas and they look affected for a day or two and then they flourish again bigger and stronger without the surrounding algae.

Some rocks are free from algae now but it started spreding on the coralline covered back glass of the tank, I'll continue the same recipe... UAS + H2O2 on some rocks + lots of patience !!!!

[Yolka]

I have tried H2O2 and its excelent to kill the algae but algae returns and my rocks are really big onces and it cost me a lot to break my rock work to take them off so I think I will leave the work to my ATS. I use H2O2 to clean my zoo frags rocks and It works as you said, it seems afected two days and later open very nice once again :).

[kotlec]

Can you share more detail on h202 treatment. I have few small rocks with zoas that i'd like to clean . What this procedure looks like ?

[Yolka]

I take the rock out and with a cotton aply H2O2 directly where the algae grows, then let it act about a minute and rinse it with tank water and put it back in the tank. I only tried it with some frags of zoas and palys and after that procedure they can close some hours but after one or two days they are opening wide once again.

[Garf]

I take the rock out and with a cotton aply H2O2 directly where the algae grows, then let it act about a minute and rinse it with tank water and put it back in the tank. I only tried it with some frags of zoas and palys and after that procedure they can close some hours but after one or two days they are opening wide once again.

When you say H2o2 it may sound quite reasonable, if it works. But when you say "Hydrogen Peroxide" hopefully it would put people off from trying it. Any leaching from the rocks may have an impact on your scrubber and who knows what long term effects on a reef tank are. I hope your rinsing it REALLY WELL. I would never consider using it personally. If the nutrients and conditions are there for it to grow in the first place, it will grow again in my opinion.

[Yolka]

I totaly agree with you Garf, that's why I instaled my Algae Scrubber but it´s a good choice when you want to save some frags from dying becouse the alge grows on it, I know it's not a solucion long term but it can help survive your frags till algae scrubber do it's work :).

[kotlec]

What if patches of algae are among zoas? Not sure if cotton can go inside ...
P is 0 to 0.02 and still I have some algae on rocks.

[Yolka]

I use that
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get rock out of water, let the polip close and then aply H2o2 with cotonete, it wont hurt your zoas if you leave it only 1 minute on but try to avoid touch the zoas as much as it's possible to avaid the irritacion, then rinse the frag with tank water and put it back in your tank and after some time you will see the algae slowly change it's color from green to white and it will take off. It takes about two or three days for algae to die.

[kotlec]

Thank you Yolka !

[Yolka]

You welcome and good luck !

[kerry]

May people dose 1ml of h202 per 10G of water for algae control for a few days so I dont see why the spot treatment would hurt anything.

[acorral]

I completely dipped the rocks for 3 minutes in 3% H2O2, then rinsed them on a separate container using water from the tank and then back to the tank. The rocks ended up completely free of algae

Garf, what do you consider to be the difference between Hydrogen Peroxide and H2O2? Hydrogen peroxide is the name, H2O2 is the formula but it's the same thing.

The little amounts of H2O2 that get into the tank can rise the dissolved oxygen, that's why you need to rinse very carefully the rocks.

The Phosphates remaining on the rock if you have lower levels on your water tank will dissolve with time... I agree that it can regrow, but if you are using other means of removal from the water (ie biopellets, ATS, UAS, VSV, etc) it will most likely won't

[Garf]

Hi a corral - yes I know that's it's the chemical makeup of hydrogen peroxide, but is banded around like a brand name of some miracle pest algae cure. It is a sticking plaster, a very dubious one at that. Some people actually dose this stuff into there tanks to get rid of dino's and cyano. Madness in my view, but it is my view.

[Floyd R Turbo]

...It is a sticking plaster, a very dubious one at that....

What are you talking about here Garf?

[Garf]

Well, sticking plaster I mean as to be a short term fix,
Dubious because it leaves a nuked rock, and once all the chemical has been released from the rock, a prime site for algae growth. I may be totally wrong about this because I have never used it, and never will.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Ok I am still totally confused. You are talking about sticking plaster (I assume you mean the moldable 2-part reef safe epoxy?) and Hydrogen Peroxide in the same sentence like they are the same thing. ??

[Garf]

I think it's called a BAND AID in the US ( but not sure ), must be a British saying.

[Floyd R Turbo]

he he I gotcha now.

[acorral]

Hi a corral - yes I know that's it's the chemical makeup of hydrogen peroxide, but is banded around like a brand name of some miracle pest algae cure. It is a sticking plaster, a very dubious one at that. Some people actually dose this stuff into there tanks to get rid of dino's and cyano. Madness in my view, but it is my view.


Oooooohhh I get it now... I've seen it also here in mexico that some people sell "hydrogen peroxide" but it's kind of cream, they use it to dye hair...

To avoid confusion with anyone who reads this... we are talking about using 3% Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) solution without anything else than 97% Water + 3% Hydrogen Peroxide... Beware also that you may find 30% Hydrogen peroxide or 50% Hydrogen peroxide, that would melt your reef right away.

[Garf]

Here is a tit bit on H2o2;

http://www.simplyhydro.com/hydro.htm