Should I add another HOG to the one I have?

[jeapa]

I have been very pleased with my HOG 3. When I set up my current 95 gal reef my intentions were to keep it simple and low tech. I have been involved with this hobby in some form or another for more than 25 years and my favorite tanks have always seemed to be the ones with the least equipment.

So for this tank I decided to have a 2-6" sand bed, good flow, a power filter to hold carbon and GFO, and maybe fuge to help with nutrient export. I ended up buying my live rock from someone who was taking down their tank as I just happened to be at the LFS when they were bringing it in. This rock was great, but I should have thought twice about using it without taking some time to treat it. At first everything was going along just fine, but when I started adding corals and adjusted my LED lights to a higher intensity the macro algae started to grow, and the bubble algae came along soon after. I have dealt with bubble algae before, but never in the amounts that were sprouting up from this rock. I am getting the hundreds of tiny clusters of bubbles and they are everywhere. Two of the rocks sprouted up the tiny grape caulerpa to the point of completely covering all visible surfaces. I started looking into algae turf scrubbers as a way to help me get this under control and that led me to the HOG filters. I don't have a sump so this design looked like a good way for me to implement this type of export on my tank.

I installed the HOG 3 on my tank the day after Thanksgiving. I put the cloth in-between the lights as per the instructions and started of with 12 hours on and 12 hours off. To be honest I really didn't pay that much attention to it except to take a peek every now and then to see if anything green was growing yet. It was the middle of January before I started to get good green growth and I removed the cloth and started increasing the photoperiod. I am at 20 hrs on and 4 off right now.

This photo is about 12-14 days of growth

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr5/ento_reefer/IMG_1017.jpg (http://s464.photobucket.com/user/ento_reefer/media/IMG_1017.jpg.html)

This is what it looked like after cleaning

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr5/ento_reefer/IMG_1018.jpg (http://s464.photobucket.com/user/ento_reefer/media/IMG_1018.jpg.html)

I am getting good growth, but I think I maybe asking too much of this filter. I have been manually pulling the caulerpa, but it is tough. My yellow tank eats some, but not enough. In an effort to make a dent I removed the two rocks that had the most growth and replaced them with clean rocks. I haven't really done much with the bubble algae. I have eight fish and many corals. I run carbon and GFO which I change out every two weeks. I change about 6 gallons of water twice a month. My nitrates test at 0 as does my phosphate, but I know there is phosphate. It is most likely leaching from the rocks. My corals are all growing like weeds and aside from the algae my tank is running fine and I am happy with it. My thoughts are to maybe add an additional HOG to try and starve out the remaining algae in the display. Is this a good idea? What size should I add? I feed about 2 cubes of frozen and a small amount of pellets daily. I will post some photos of the tank below to give you an idea. I apologize for the quality, but my iPhone doesn't like the LED lights.

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr5/ento_reefer/IMG_1024.jpg (http://s464.photobucket.com/user/ento_reefer/media/IMG_1024.jpg.html)

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr5/ento_reefer/IMG_1025.jpg (http://s464.photobucket.com/user/ento_reefer/media/IMG_1025.jpg.html)

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr5/ento_reefer/IMG_1026.jpg (http://s464.photobucket.com/user/ento_reefer/media/IMG_1026.jpg.html)

[jeapa]

I just realized that you really can't see the algae very well in the photos that I posted. I will try to take some close ups with a flash later, but I think everyone has seen bubble algae before...lol...

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

Glad your HOG3 is working well. Yes the rock you got has phosphate in it that is coming out. It's a good sign that algae is on the rocks, because the phosphate is being used up. The more algae on the rocks, and in the system, the faster the phosphate gets used up.

Although you are feeding 2+ cubes, each 50 pounds of phosphate rock is adding another cube.

Yes you could add another scrubber; you can't over scrub; it's just a matter of space and cost. One good advantage to multiple scrubbers is that one keeps filtering when you clean the other. Another HOG3 would make sense because you already have that one. The HOG3x is stronger but has two power supplies which may not be needed since you don't have high nutrients.

[jeapa]

Thanks for the reply Santa Monica. I am going to look over the HOG models and see how much space I have on the left end of my tank. If I add another it would need to fit right next to the HOG 3. I am really sold on algae scrubbers and i will always run one from this point on. I plan on eliminating the GFO once the rocks stop leaching phosphate and bubble algae is under control.

[SantaMonica]

The HOG1 and HOG1x take less space of course. And a new option is the larger DROP's like the DROP1.2 and bigger, which would take no glass at all.

[jeapa]

I think I will give the HOG 3 another month or so and see how things are looking in my display. If I still think I need more scrubber I will purchase the HOG1 as it will fit right next to 3 on the left side. It will be interesting to see how the rock in my tank cleans up over the next few months. I know bubble algae is tough to starve out.