Surf 2 Not harvesting after 6 months

[lion-o]

Hi All,

I'm hoping somebody can help me. I really want this scrubber to work :) I bought the scrubber this year and received it around June 26. It's been running since with little or no luck. I'm not sure what the problem is. It will take me a little while, but I'm going to post all the pics I can ... I do ~10% water changes weekly on my tank (it is an elos midi) and pull out the algae clumps by hand as best as possible. We also vacuum the gravel for excess food particles (during water change) and run a protein skimmer. The skimmer used to have a filter sock catching the output, but I removed that at some point along the line hoping it might help. The sock was another thing we cleaned every week or so. I may add it back in...

Here are pics from July 27 (one month growth):
There is very little growth in the scrubber itself. Algae is still growing in the main display. Corals are all doing well, and algae getting hand picked out on a weekly basis. LED in the scrubber running 22 hours a day at this point. Air bubbles set to max.

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[lion-o]

Next update, September 30th (~3 months growth):
Scrubber had been running for some time now, but we had gone on vacation for 6 weeks. Tank had been overrun with algae during this time while being "babysat". I cleaned the tank out the day after we got back, but lost a good amount of the corals. Algae scrubber looked the "best" it has ever looked to date. Nice green coloration, but no harvestable growth. Just a thin layer of green covering everything.

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[lion-o]

October 18th (~3.5 months):
Since the scrubber still had no thick growth, we removed it from the tank and gave it a light cleaning in the sink (toothbrush and tap water). Rinsed out airtubing etc, and placed back into the tank. Roughly 20 days after that cleaning, these pictures were taken.

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[lion-o]

At this point, we're doing weekly or bi weekly scrubber cleanings. Not much improvement, still the same orangey/brown kelp color. Some green mixed in but still nothing harvestable and still plenty of algae growing in the display. Some corals recovered, some did not. LED on the scrubber tuned down to only 18 hours a day at this point.

Nov 2:
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Nov 10:
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Still doing weekly water changes, removing algae from display by hand (occasionally with the help of a toothbrush), and vacuuming. No filter sock running at this time.

That's pretty much everything I can think of :) If anyone has advice, I'm all ears. I would love to be able to take a vacation and come home without a crash :)

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

Are the bubbles flowing strong so that they hit the light and almost flow out of the box? Notice the last pic, how the green is only where the bubble are. This indicates that only the holes are supplying enough nutrients, meaning that the bubbles seem slow.

Nevertheless, I'm going to say the overall picture looks good. Comparing the display pics at the beginning and end, the one on the end looks like the growth has reduced the amount of surface area it's taking up on the rock (more white rock is visible), which is a sign of phosphate leaving the rock. This would explain the growth going from green to brown, as the amount of phosphate available to the scrubber increased as the phosphate came out of the rock. I'm guessing the rock has been soaking up phosphate for years.

The main thing at this stage is to remove the slime in the scrubber so that green hair can attach (hair can't attach through the slime). But also it's important to let the hair grow long and out into the bubble flow each time.

So, clean good with a toothbrush, set the light to 22 hours, and let it go 14 days. Only the light should be cleaned during this time.

[lion-o]

Hi,

I use the fusion 700 air pump turned to max, so bubbles should be sufficient. I just cleaned it out again and turned the light back up to 22 hours (from 18). I'll post again in roughly 14 days with progress. Here are some pics right now (kind of dirty looking as I usually clean on Saturdays. But, you can see the amount of algae accumulated on rocks and corals).

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[SantaMonica]

Scrub all of the stuff of the textures; should be white. The brown stuff is slowing down the green from attaching.

[lion-o]

Hmm... I've scrubbed it pretty good but it doesnt seem to want to come more clean than that. Just using a standard toothbrush (one of those frees ones the dentist gives you).

Maybe I need to bleach it out??

[SantaMonica]

No not bleach. Let it grow 14 days, at 22 hours light per day.

Are you running any GFO?

[lion-o]

No GFO. I am running some carbon + phosban though (http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/SeaGel.html).

Last time I checked all the parameters looked very good.

[SantaMonica]

Phosphate removers have sometimes caused scrubbers to slow down. I still think P is coming out of the rocks because of the phosban, however. So you could also try not using it for a while.

[lion-o]

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Here's a growth update after 14 days of 22 hours per day. The tank was last cleaned saturday (so ~4 days ago), where i pick out most of the display algae by hand. Color in the scrubber is still the same mustardy/kelpy slime color.

[SantaMonica]

Remove the phosban, and let it grow for 14 days.

[lion-o]

ok, can do tomorrow. will also clean it out too, to get the surfaces free of slime.

[lion-o]

Update:

After losing a couple corals I decided to add the filter sock and the filter media back into the equation. Everything appears to be stabilizing at this point...

Still no good growth in the surf, so I'm trying someone else's suggestion of lowering the photo periods down to twice a day for 6 hours each. I don't know if my growth counts as yellow (I'd call it a shade of orange), but this seems to agree with the instructions printed on the surf label of lowering photoperiods. Will update back when I see some change.

thanks,
danny

[lion-o]

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Here is 3 week's growth at the new settings (before and after cleaning). Fun fact - that is the largest starfish I have ever removed from my tank :P He was attached to the bottom of the scrubber when i pulled it out.

[SantaMonica]

Ok moving in the right direction.

Try just 8 total hours of light.