Is an UAS more efficient than Cheato?

[mobile]

I have a nano tank with Cheato growing in one of the back chambers. The Cheato is illuminated 24hrs/day with red and blue LED at a ratio of 2:1. It grows very rapidly but I still get some algae growth on the display tank glass. Would an uplift algae scrubber be more efficient than Cheato?

[SantaMonica]

Welcome from the UK,

"Production within dense mats of the filamentous macroalga Chaetomorpha linum in relation to light and nutrient availability"

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/134/m134p207.pdf

This is a good study, because chaeto is familiar, and because some people consider putting it in a refugium instead of using a scrubber.

Fig 5B shows how, under bright light, chaeto productivity (filtering) drops 72 percent with just 2 cm of chaeto thickness.

With algae scrubbers, however, the green hair filaments are very thin, and translucent, so light and flow spread throughout the algae, thus maximizing filtering. No part of the algae is "on the dark side of the growth" like it is on almost all parts of chaeto.

Also, algae scrubbers utilize a turbulent air/water interface that strips away the boundary layer around the algal strands, again maximizing nutrients into the algae and thus filtration. This was discovered by Walter Adey and included in his designs. Chaeto has no such air/water interface and thus can't get nutrients into it's tissue very fast.

Thus algae scrubbers as a category always filter more than chaeto, and will kill chaeto if in the same system.