Bought a scrubber, need input

[petefranc]

A few years back I stumbled across Santamonica's thread on another forum about scrubbers. To make a long story short, my nitrates have always been high so I made a vertical scrubber. I didn't have success with the scrubber, it was set up in a tight area and the lighting was poor. I've read enough success stories to know these work great if set up correctly. I was about to make another one when I found a new Aquaricare scrubber for sale, it was local so I picked it up. It looks like this scrubber is from the late 90's. Does anyone have experience with it? It's appears to be very well built, it has mirrors to reflect light around the entire perimeter.

Would two standard florescent strip lights do? If so, should I replace the bulbs with the ones sold to enhance plant growth?

I've attached some pictures of the scrubber, I will keep everyone posted with updates. I may have some more questions during the installation.

Thanks.

[Garf]

Looked up some stuff on similar types and it seems that these are all horizontal scrubbers. If you put some scuffed up canvas over the gridding and LOTS of light on top, should prove to be a decent asset. However also read there are internal baffles ( this may not apply to yours ) which cause turbulence, up and down through the grids. This may mean you have to temporarily secure the screening material to the gridding. I think you need 1.5 watts of light per square inch of screen, but checking the guidelines would help you get it spot on. Worth a try anyway !

[Redbone]

I had an MMFI scrubber for over ten years, see my thread "Pete's Algae Scrubber". They are very difficult to clean and are ineffecient. The bottom egg carton plastic does nothing but support the mesh which only grows algae on one side.

My advice is to build a waterfall scrubber, similar to the one that I built. They are easy to clean and are much more effecient at growing algae.