Hog2

[Centralscot]

Hi, I had a Drop.2 scrubber which was working ok but i have old live rock laden with phos which the drop.2 couldnt handle. I bought a HOG2. Here are some pictures of my juwel Rio 125l aquarium with said HOG2 scrubber and results.
My only puzzle is, with the test results near perfect and the HOG2 working fantastic, i cant understand why ive lost a Kenya tree, a blue octopus soft coral and a blue mushroom when all the others seem fine. could this be due to a lighting deficiency? Im using juwel T5's with reflectors561056115612561356145615561656175618

As you can see from the pix, there is still a bit of algae on the rocks but it is definately getting the chase by the scrubber.
tests are, Temp. 25 - 26 deg c, ph. 8.3 but dips to 7.9 during the night. ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 2 calcium 460 carbonate H. 10
phos. 0.01 specific gravity 1.025
the HOG2 is only 33 days old today and has almost filled the inside with light green algae spirals.
Ive now bought a slightly larger Juwel Vision 180l aquarium and i want to use LED lighting.
My goal will be to have the scrubber as the sole filtration along with the live rock. There has not been a skimmer on the tank and never will be, the scrubber bubble noise is loud enough for me, i used a skimmer years ago and the noise was shocking.
i will post updates and expect the HOG2 to continue to work miracles, thanx santa monica for such a fantastic product!!
Garry

[SantaMonica]

Glad to see phosphate coming out of the rocks, and tests looking good.

What probably is happening is that nutrients are a bit low for the softies. Or at least, the nutrients dropped too quick for them to adjust. This often happens when tank are very low nutrient levels.

A solution is usually just to feed more, or, to add more fish.

It's a good problem to have. :)

[Centralscot]

Its a good problem for me but not my poor deceased corals :-(.
Forgot to add, I only use natural seawater and last water change was a month ago.
ive tried to stay under the feeding rule for the scrubber size but not always done so.
Nobody can be more pessimistic about the results you can get with a scrubber than I was but im now a convert to them. Do I get sales commission? Lol. Seriously tho. Its fantastic.
Garry

[Centralscot]

Hi SM, here is an update on my HOG2 scrubber.
There seems to be a problem and i have no idea what it is because my algae and red cyano problem is looking a lot better, tests are all fine, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 0, phos 0, calc 440, carb h 10, PH 8.2.
The scrubber was growing great fresh green algae but it has turned mushy and all around it has turned orange. some of my corals are good but some have closed up, one of my clowns flicks itself on the sand.
Any ideas of whats happening?
The live rock is a bit dirty looking because i moved everything from my juwel rio 125 to the bigger juwel vision 180 and the sand made the water cloudy.
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[SantaMonica]

When did you do the move?

[Centralscot]

Hi , i changed over to the vision on tues, 30th oct but if you look at the 4th last pic i posted last time in july, there is the start of the orange there. im baffled. one of my clowns now has its tail wasting away. ive put in API melafix and Primafix in an effort to save the wee mite. it says its reef friendly
Garry

[SantaMonica]

30th of September?

[Centralscot]

I changed from the rio to the vision aquarium on tues 30th September. Yes sorry. One of the pics I posted at the start of this thread show the start of the orange. That was prior to changing over aquariums. I cleaned the hog2 but it still looks orange. If it looks like it will fill up orange again... what do you recommend I could sterilise it with to start all over. With the tests all showing consistent low readings. It has me foxed. Anybody else had the same problem?

[Centralscot]

The xenia has red patches on it too. That a bad sign?

[SantaMonica]

Moving rocks, even in the same tank, is a bad thing. Moving rocks from one tank, into the air, to another tank, is the worse thing you can ever do. It kills the periphyton on the rocks, especially the sponges, and reduces the filtering that the periphyton provided, thus increasing the nutrients in the water. And now that the periphyton is dead, it will start decaying even more in the next several weeks. So it will get worse before getting better. So, never move rocks unless you absolutely must. After a move of the rock, even under water in the same tank, it takes about one year for the periphyton to re-establish itself, and that's if you don't change powerheads or other flow.

The orange does not mean anything; it's just a particular type of growth that you can see because of the white background in the scrubber. Also there is no correlation to your fish or corals; they are just responding to your move. However the orange is slippery and needs to be brushed out with a toothbrush in your sink.

Also with the higher nutrients now, you need the most scrubber light possible: 22 hours.

[Centralscot]

I moved the rock to a bigger aquarium, dont worry, i dont intend to move it all ever again lol. The hog was scrubbed clean in the sink.
The lights were on 21 hours, i reduced it to 18 but will up it again to 22.
My clown doesnt look too good, im expecting the worst but all the others are fine.
I'll keep an eye on the scrubber and i take it that i need to scrub any re-apearing orange.
Will let you know any changes
cheers

[Centralscot]

Hi. I said on my last post that I would let you know how I got on. Well I can report that things have gone from good to excellent. Since my hog 2 was installed, ive used 3 different test kit brands, all of which have shown Zero on nitrite, nitrate, phosphate & ammonia. ( once the level came down) My goal of having ONLY the hog2 as filtration is now achieved other than a poly filter in the sump. It feels like im not reading it right or something is going on I dont see. After years of keeping fish and havinv the usual problems, its all perfect now. Absolutely fantastic! Test readings are z.g. 1.025. Ph fluctuating around 8.0 - 8.4. Phosphate, ammonia nitrite & nitrate zero. I feed some of the scrubbers algae on a veggi clip to the yellow tang. I did go through a nightmare phase of cyano, caulerpa & diatoms . Had to cheat a bit by using chemiclean to get rid of the cyano but only one dose. Will try to post some pix taken yesterday but im using my mobile so might not work.
Hope you folks get the same results as ive got using the santamonica scrubber. Cheers for reading.5952

[Centralscot]

It looks like only one pic worked. Will try adding more from my laptop later.
Cant add any more. Mobile wont let me ( or maybe its me) lol

[Centralscot]

Ok, on the laptop now, try upload new pix just taken. Forgot to add that most if not all corals have doubled or quadrupled in the last few months. Also found out the dying corals before were not dying.... they were an expensive lunch for the dancing shrimp and peppermint shrimps, i caught them munching away so they got their marching orders.595459555956595759585959595359605961 Also showing a couple of pics of my converted Juwel Cupboard to house my sump. Last test results were :- Temp Steady 24.9 - 25.0 thanx to my STC themostat, PH 8.2 SG 1.025 ammonia nitrite nitrate phosphate, as already mentioned zero, Calcium 420, magnesium 1500, (isnt that high?) KH 8/9 Silicate & Iron zero. All that i can only guess is all down to the HOG 2 as its the only thing ive used differently from before and had nowhere near the success im having now.:smile:

[SantaMonica]

Wow great to hear :)

1500 mag is high but will work it's way down on it's own.

[Centralscot]

Great stuff. There is a Hydor auto top up which has RO water and Kalkwasser mix. I dose some iodine and salifert all in one but all the filtering is done by the HOG2 and live rock.
Whether anyone is building one of these or buying one from you santamonica, I would have no hesitation in endorsing that decision. Simple and effective piece of kit.
I've read some guys on here having slow to start going green scrubbers. Persevere with it. It does work. My system isnt the biggest or most expensive out there but im over the moon with it.
Cheers again.

[Centralscot]

Hi again, thought i'd update my scrubbers performance.

Still all going well, never seen the orange that appeared in the scrubber since i posted it. Tank has gone from strength to strength, scrubber is on 12 hrs pulling out a load of algae weekly, although ive never had green hair algae, mostly a mushy green algae. Tangs love it.

I took out the pre filter wool so no filtration other than rocks and scrubber(s), i built a smaller similar one and i clean them alternate weeks. some pics of before and now but quality isnt good sorry


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[SantaMonica]

Looks like phosphate leaving the rocks :)

[Centralscot]

Hi again, seems a long time since i last posted any results, I can recall saying i wouldnt be moving any rocks or aquariums again...... Erm.... ive moved the lot into an even bigger DT.
Since i bought a regal tang and a powder blue tang, i didnt want to restrict them in a 260 ltr aquarium so i bought an Aquareef 400 to give them more room.
Didnt seem to be any major upsets this time and i added some more new live rock as it looked a little empty
Even though the food has gone up in quantity and frequency, theres an auto feeder feeds flake 4 times a day to please the greedy regal tang and i beleive the anthia prefers to feed regularly during the day. Also, when i finish work around 3pm, i feed either a frozen cube or live food or both. The scrubber(s) have had no problems in keeping up with the bio load.
The corals are multiplying like weeds, i have sold loads of xenia, kenya trees and green star corals or the tank would be over run.
Leather coral has gone from a 3" square to a 9" sprawl in just over a year, i cut it back but it has already started to re cover the bit i cleared.
A 2 headed candy cane coral has now 8 heads. One of two new arcoporas died but the other is still there. 2 new Hammerheads are growing great.
I started off with 4 tiger turbo snails, 2 died but strangely now there are around 30 in there now!
Ive seen at least 4 baby 1/2" starfish in the last few days but i only have one minstral star fish so unsure where the little ones came from. Could be from the new live rock.
My new Regal tang had a problem with Ich for a few days. It was in quarantine where i raised the temp and lowered the salinity. That cured it then it went in the main DT.
Last addition was my long awaited Powder blue tang. Always wanted one of them. Im glad to say it had absolutely no sign of Ich. only trouble was, it didnt get on with my yellow tang so the YT had to come out. Not too pleased about that but i really wanted a powder blue.
All water parameters are still as before. SG 1.025/6 PH from 7.9 to 8.3. Ammonia & nitrite zero. There was a couple of nitrate blips of up to 3ppm for a few days after adding the PB tang. Hardly surprising as the LFS water bag tested at 40ppm nitrate and 2.5 Phosphate. Phos reading is now zero after it raised to 0.5 with the LFS water added. Magnesium has always kept high at around 1460 to 1500. Need to look at the Kent marine salt mix which i now use instead of NSW because the fuel to drive to the beach multiple times was just as expensive as the salt. Calcium has also been over 450. Dkh is normally around 9.
Santamonica HOG2 and my home made model are doing all the filtering with a polyfilter to help. The sump had foam prefilters which are also removed.
One annoying problem is the DT glass still goes green and needs cleaning more than im happy with.
I manually top up the deionised kalkwasser as my hydor auto top up system jammed in the on position and dumped all the kalkwasser in the DT twice! Thankfully the reservoir was small and no (apparent) harm was done.
Heres a pic of my new PB tang. will need to take more to post.
Any other details, ask and i will let you know.6419

[SantaMonica]

Very good to hear. I'd go for the pbt myself too. :)

[Centralscot]

Hi, Yes i think the powder blue is the best looking fish on the planet but im biased lol, Heres the pictures i promised, my camera always picks up the blue colour but you can see the results
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Like i said before, the only filtration giving me these results is the 2 scrubbers shown and a polyfilter. No skimmer, no phosban reactor, nothing else, not even foam or filter floss
This HAS TO BE the best filter available.

[SantaMonica]

Yep, the open and natural filtration allows the most food particles to float around, creating the thickest periphyton and the most coral growth (and food for anthias, etc).

You should create a tank show-off thread:
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?8-Waterfall-Algae-Scrubber-pictures

[Centralscot]

Think ive shown all the results, camera aint great enough to show more detail.
I will post more on here if and when theres anything more interesting to add :-)

[SantaMonica]

Here's an update on what some people do in crowded sumps: Put 2 scrubbers side by side. In this case, it's 2 larger HOG scrubbers®. This has the advantage of letting you clean/harvest one, while letting the other one continue to grow/filter.

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