My "Santa Monica 100 Scrubber"

[chrissu]

I thought I'd put up a post about my own experience buying a Santa Monica 100 Scrubber. Here is a rundown...

On Feb 15th, I contacted Santa Monica (Bryan) at http://www.algaescrubber.net/forums/ucp.php?i=pm&mode=compose&u=53. Bryan got back to me a couple hours later and provided his contact information. I talked with Bryan later that same day over the phone and decided to place an order for his pre-made scrubber. Bryan comes across as a professional, well spoken guy who knows reef tanks. You can tell he has a passion for reef keeping and the whole scrubber concept in general. During our conversation Bryan set my expectations that it would take a few weeks to have a unit built. I placed an order during this call.

We emailed back and forth a few times and about 10 days after placing the order, I received this email from Bryan...


Re: Santa Monica 100 Scrubber Order
Sent: 25 Feb 2010 18:15
by SantaMonica

Box is done, will be working on it this weekend....

MY current DIY ATS works OK but it's still a far cry from the clean, enclosed ATS design that Bryan designed. My tank is a 92 gal corner bowfront and since Bryan's scrubber is designed for up to 100 gallon aquariums, I should be fine.
-Chris

[chrissu]

I received an email from Santa Monica (Bryan) letting me know that the scrubber build is completed and on it's way.


Re: Santa Monica 100 Scrubber Order
Sent: 09 Mar 2010 18:45
From: SantaMonica
To: chrissu

OK it went out today USPS signature-required. I think they said about 7 days. If you need setup help give me a call

Bryan

[chrissu]

Here is a current picture of the tank. It's late at night and I just flipped on the lights to take this pic so most of the fish are hiding. There are some fake corals for now. Real coral will come later.

[chrissu]

This is the cabinet and inside you can see it has a really simple ATS that I made. My idea was to just test out the ATS concept with this setup. I found that this simple DIY setup with only one side of the screen receiving light really does work. It's not my long term solution though and I can't wait for my real scrubber to arrive this coming week!

When I receive it, the first thing I'm going to do is take it down to Coral Corral, my LFS in Tampa. Their acrylic guy will build a custom sump to my speces for the scrubber. Here are the ideas that Bryan (Santa Monica) suggested for the sump. If you have any other suggestions, please let me know!

- Make a cardboard mock up of the sump to make sure I have the right shape and that it will fit in the cabinet doors and work with the scrubber demensions. Provide the acrylic guy with the cardboard mockup and the scrubber.
- Scrubber will rest on top of the sump and there will be acrylic borders to hold the scrubber securely in place.
- There will be a mounting plate for a sock underneath. I may not use the sock down the road if I delve into corals but with my fish only setup right now, it is nice to have the really clear water that a sock helps with.
- There needs to be a place to put a 5"x10" bag for activated charcoal (or whatever). Need to have water passing over this bag so I may need some sort of chamber that the water has to pass through where the bag will sit.
- I will be incorporating a 3/4" venturi valve into the return hose. This will help insure maxumum aeration of the water for the tangs. I'll need the sump to have a chamber that insures the air bubles settle and don't make these way back into the tank.
- The sump should be about 15" high to maximize the volume of water that the sump will hold while still providing plently of space above the sump for scrubber maintenance.

What I already have:
- UV Sterilizer rated for a 250 gallon tank.
- PH meter, a thermostat controller unit and a couple of heaters.
- A RODI water filter hooked up to an electronic open/close valve and an automatic top off controller unit.
- A powerful pump (not sure what the model is but is is pretty big and pushes lots of water. My LFS recommended it for my tank but its actually rated for a larger tank than mine so it should work fine with the scrubber. I will be using just the one pump for everying.
- A Koralia powerhead.

- I don't have anything to support corals at this time with this fish only setup. That will come sometime later this year but if there is anything that the sump can use to support corals better in the future, that would be good to know and incorporate now.

Fish/Crabs:
2 small Regal Tangs (each about the size of a quarter)
1 small Purple Tang
1 Bartlett's Anthias
1 black and white Ocellaris clown fish
1 orange and white Ocellaris clown fish
1 Blue Reef Chromis
1 Green Chromis
1 Firefish Goby
1 Red Crab
1 Emerald Crab


Below is a drawing of approximately what the sump shape should be in order to fit through one of the doors.

[chrissu]

Here is a close up of my current ATS. The tank is being treated with a 1/2 strength dose of Cupramine and yet the algae is still able to grow, albeit not quite as robustly as it does when there is no Cupramine in the water. My light is a water resistant 65watt cfl outdoor floodlight (300 watt equivalent). The shape of the base of the light provides a good place for the light to hook over the edge of the container securely and is easy to move out of the way when needed. Not to spec with what is recommended at this site but good enough for a test run until the Santa Monica arrives.

[chrissu]

Hey Bryan,

I know you monitor all these posts so I might as well update you here.

The scrubber should be here any day now. I called USPS and referenced the number you provided. They see the ship location and date but cannot provide much more detail about the shipment when there is a signature required upon delivery. No big deal as long as it makes it through. I'll definitely give you a call when it arrives. My plan is still to take it into my LFS and let them build a custom sump for it.

Later,
Chris

[chrissu]

Good news! My Santa Monica shipment arrived in Tampa this past Friday in great shape. Here are a few highlights that come to mind right now.

-I've included a close up picture of the Santa Monica emblem but otherwise the unit looks just like Bryan's you tube video posts. Overall, the unit looks clean and professionally built.

-The Nova T5 lights are bright and they mount surprisingly close to the screen while remaining positioned safely behind its clear acrylic barrier. Closer than what I was thinking in comparison to the videos I saw.

-The Nova T5 lights also do not have cooling fans and I like that because it makes for a quieter solution. Not sure if that is something that Bryan did or if this light is built this way but it works for me. The system is even quieter if you keep the top cover plate in place. Everything is enclosed!

-A half inch or so of water accumulates along the inside bottom of the unit and strands of algae are already growing well here so I imagine that lots of extra algae will grow here providing even more growth than the typical ATS's I've see on this site.

-I've had my system running for 4 days now and the screen is already growing algae (see picture).

-Even though the dimensions of the unit are posted as approximately 25" x 7.25", I found that the unit actually requires more space than that to fit in my corner tank cabinet. The 3/4" union and nipple extend out a couple of extra inches and you need another inch or two beyond that for your vinyl tubing bend to mate up with the nipple. Make sure that you have closer to 29" of space to work with inside of your cabinet.

-The real test will be in seeing my water quality improve over the next week or so.

[sklywag]

Very nice. I look forward to seeing some pictures of before and after. I'm excited to diy my own soon to have a healthier system.

[chrissu]

It's been about a week since my last post. For me, this ATS project has always been about having great water quality and here are my final thoughts on my Santa Monica buying experience.

My Santa Monica has been growing a ton of bright green algae since receiving it two weeks ago. This is especially true of the growth along the bottom inside the ATS where the water and long algae growth accumulates as a slur of powerful nitrate removing magic. In all honesty, I thought my DIY worked well but this Santa Monica system grows algae at a rate of about 4 times faster than that of my old DIY ATS. That growth has resulted in probably 4 times the water cleaning/filtering power without a doubt.

I've been testing the water quality almost daily. Salfert Nitrate and Nitrite tests always show "0" since the ATS started growing the algae. The water tests don't even take on a hint of color and that is in spite of the fact that I've been intentionally overfeeding my fish with 4-5 feedings a day for the past week! The regal tangs and other fish are getting big bellies and they swim all over the place with a healthy vigor to them. Back when I had a big oversized Protein skimmer running, I could easily overfeed the fish and send my Ammonia, nitrates and nitrites to dangerous levels for the fish so I always had to be careful. With all these new "zero" readings all the time, I was starting to question the accuracy of my own Salfert test kits so I took a sample of my water in for testing at my LFS this past weekend. I know the guy there and he is used to seeing my readings so some amount of Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate in the water in the past. This time, I asked him if he wouldn't mind testing everything. Nitrite, Nitrates, Ammonia, Phosphates, Alkalinity, and PH. Every test came back perfect! He says to me "I don't know what you're doing differently but whatever it is, keep doing it. Everything is perfect." That is when I knew this experience had paid off.

I did not know Bryan (aka Santa Monica) before making this purchase. In fact, I've only talked to him over the phone twice. I just stumbled upon these Algae scrubbers on Youtube and then I found this site. Bryan hasn't pushed me to give him a great review or anything like that. I just decided to buy one, try it out, and post my findings. I'm glad I did this little experiment.

Could I have built my own ATS as good as a Santa Monica and saved some money? I don't think so. The Santa Monica is just easy to work with and its so effective at what it does. It just works really well.

The bottom line is, I highly recommend a Santa Monica ATS to anyone who wants a quiet, inexpensive, efficient way to keep your water quality the best that it can be. Don't waste your money on yet another expensive protein skimmer, a deep sand bed, or what not. Stop throwing your money away on excessive large water changes just to stay ahead of the nitrates problem (that was me). Just get yourself one of these Santa Monica ATS units, plug it in, and let your worries go for good. It will pay for itself just with the salt that you will save from reduced water changes, not to mention all the other benefits you will gain from having contsant pristine water quality moving forward. You will not regret it.








Sklywag, what particular pictures were you interested in seeing? Below are a few pictures of my FOWLR tank right now. There are 4 tangs total so I keep the salinity at 1.010 (15 ppt), which has worked out great.

Chris

[sklywag]

Chrissu. Glad to hear it's what you expected and/or even more. I see you altered your display a little. Your sand is pristine.
I was hoping for before and afters like others I've seen. Seeing results is always nice in the hopes that we others have the same.
I actually just finished the lights on my scrubber today.

[chrissu]

Hi Sklywag, Thanks for the feedback. I have posted a couple more pictures. The first one is a before shot and it shows my water was a bit cloudy. The second picture is from this past week and you can see that the water is alot clearer now. The tank stays consistenly clearer now with the Santa Monica. I have two girls, ages 6 and 15. They, and all their friends around the nieghborhood, love to get in on the action and they feed the fish daily too. These fish never go hungry and without the Santa Monica, I would be in big trouble!

BTW, I have always run a filter sock to remove the big particles from the water quickly. Even now with the Santa Monica, a filter sock filters all the water as it drains out of the unit below.

I used to have to clean my glass of algae growth every couple of days before the Santa Monica and now I only have to clean it about a third as often. I don't have any pictures with the glass full of algae (I never wanted to save a picture of that!). My 4 tangs are always picking away at algae on the rock too so the rock looks about the same as before. My main problem was that I just had borderline water quality. I was the cause of my water quality issues because I always liked (and still like) to keep my tank well stocked, well fed, and I don't like having a display tank chock full of rocks either. I used to have to keep a bottle of aquasafe water conditioner nearby so I could put in a cap full of the stuff once a week or so just to make sure that the Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates were'nt harming the fish. Now that I have a Santa Monica, I can still keep my tank well stocked and fish well fed and my Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates are amazingly zero all the time. I don't need the aquasafe anymore!

Good luck finishing up your own ATS. I am looking forward to your own posts about it.

-C

[ocean rock]

hi there why would you keep the salinity so low what benefits do you get . your saying its 15ppm but what the experts are saying now are that the refractors we use are for the food trade and that instead of keeping are water at 35ppm we should keep it at 37ppm so why do you have it so low as far as iam concerned its 20ppm to low . just my two pence worth :D

[chrissu]

Hi Oceanrock, I maintain 15ppt salinity to keep my fish only tank free of protozoal parasites like Ich. With a fish only display tank, you can maintain 15ppt (or try 16-18ppt if you prefer) indefinitely and the fish are quite healthy and more active than ever. Cryptocaryon irritans and velvet are literally "eliminated" from your display tank using this method. Commercial outfits have been doing this for years with great success and I haven't been able to find a single thread where this process has been proven to be harmful to any fish over the short or long haul. Here are a few links where you can read up on the 115 ppt method if you are interested.

The Ultimate Aquarium
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_4/V4I3/angelfish/Angelfish.htm

News from the Warfront with Cryptocaryon irritans
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2003/mini1.htm

Reefkeeping myths
http://www.reefaquariumforum.com/reefkeeping-myths-t3397.html

Note that if you have corals/Invertibrates, you cannot take your salinity this low for the long haul. My tangs stay ich free and even a tang that I recently brought home with some ich is now "ich free" so I feel that this solution is ultra healthy for my tank.

[chrissu]

Here are a couple of new pictures of algae from the ATS. This is about a weeks worth. The water quality is such that I've stopped doing water changes and have moved on to dosing with pickling lime.

I probably won't update this particular post again as it has run its course with a positive outcome. However, if anyone has a question, please do not hesitate to ask. I will be happy to respond.

Thanks again to Santa Monica for building an ATS that is worth its weight in gold.

[chrissu]

I've been running this SM scrubber for a while now and it is working as advertised. Here are a couple of pictures I took of the SM yesterday before doing a weekly screen cleaning. As you can see, I get plenty of algae growth. Nitrates, Nitrites, Ammonia are always zero now. Before - not usually. PH is steady at 8.1 - 8.4. Phosphates are gone!. The algae on my rocks is receeding too.

Now, just for the record, I was getting good results using the system exactly as it arrived but I like to dabble a bit so I made a couple of adjustments that seem to have put my scrubber into turbo scrubber mode (haha). The SM comes with a standard 1" bulkhead to drain the water out of the unit. I flipped the bulkhead around so that the long end is sticking up rather than down. This simple 10 minute change made the water level rise by approximately an extra inch and a half or so. The SM is uniquely designed in a way that it bathes the algae so I figured why not bath the algae some more. Now I get this 3D effect whereby the light is able to penetrate through all of this thick floating algae even better. After I did this, I would clean my screen weekly and within 4 days, the SM would be stuffed full of algae again. With all this turbo algae growth going on, I ended up adding a second drain using a spare 1" bulkhead I had laying around. The second bulkhead is reversed as well and this extra drain gives reduces the risk of the drain getting plugged up (it hasn't).

I also put a couple of 200 micron filter socks under the drains. I know they catch the food but they keep with water crystal clear so I use them.

[SantaMonica]

Yes 3D is better, it's just a trade off between higher filtering, and overflowing :)

[sklywag]

So then, are you guys saying it's better to have the scrubber submerged?

[SantaMonica]

No. It just needs lots of rapid flow.

[chrissu]

The Santa Monica ATS is designed to hold about 1/2 inch of water at the bottom of the chamber where the light shines in and the screen sits. In effect, if you own an SM (Santa Monica ATS) you get some of this 3D slurr effect already and this (I believe) is why Santa Monica's ATS works so much better then my own DIY ATS worked. If you raise the water level of your SM, you get even faster algae growth in this slur area. The thing is, you need a Santa Monica ATS or your own design needs to incorporate a chamber like the SM has in order for this to work.

[SantaMonica]

One thing to keep in mind, is that the 3D growth is going to look like a lot more, even if it is not. So you'll want to do some tests, by drying out the algae for a week and weighing it, to see if it is actually more.

[chrissu]

I guess I will go out and get a small scale that measures in ounces. Once I have that, I will get you some hard numbers to compare.

[SantaMonica]

I think you'll want a digital one that measure in tenths of a gram.

[chrissu]

A while back I mentioned that I was having a sump built with my new ATS in mind. I had the shell professionally made but put in the bubble traps, dividers and everything else myself. It's finished and working now and I'm happy with the way it turned out.

The sump holds 30 gallons of water
It has the shape of a triangle to match the cabinet for this 92 gallon corner tank
It has a lid that the ATS rests safely on
There is a 2" lip recessed 3/4" down for the lid to rest on securely
The recess and lip catch any water that might have otherwise spilled onto the ground, which is good and has saved me a few times
It has a built in triangluar shaped chamber for kalk. The chamber is up front and towards the center in the picture
An auto top off is hooked up directly to my RODI unit. The FW is fed directly into the kalk chamber and I redose after taking readings each week
I put in 5 bubble catchers
I made a mount for a sock

The scrubber continues to keep the nitrates low at between 2 - 5 ppm.

[chrissu]

Here are a couple updated pictures of the tank for sklywag. As you can see, I reposition the rocks around from time to time :lol:.

[SantaMonica]

Lots of room for big fish! Sump looks clean too....

[sklywag]

Sump looks super clean. Nice purple tang. I'm hunting for one.
Interesting placement for that pump. No fear of it sucking in Hermits or snails?

[chrissu]

I placed the powerhead right in front of a rock that has a good bit of coraline algae growth on it. I'd heard that doing this helps to spead the coraline around the tank. It seems to be working so far. About the critters, I just leave the powerhead running all the time and have had no trapped or shredded critters to date. I'll probably move it again by next month as I'm planning to make fake rock walls that will completely cover the sides and back of the tank like the attached picture from epstein at reefcentral.com.

[SantaMonica]

You can also put a few pieces of coralline in a blender :)

Your walls will be covered in coralline within six months, so you might not need to do the fake thing.

[chrissu]

I ordered a couple of LumenBright Wide mini 250w pendants and made a hood for the tank. The wife hates the hood idea so I'm going to have to change it to a canopy of some sort. http://www.reefspecialty.com/Lighting-Complete-Retro-Kits-and-Pendants/c14_29/p233/CoralVue-DE-250W-Finished-Pendant-Complete-Retro-Kit/product_info.html

SM, thanks for the suggestions about the rock.

[dota]

hi! i would like to ask.. u clean ur scrubber every 7 days right..?

well in dat 7th day, do you also clean the box, and wat bout the windows, any algae growing on it..?

[chrissu]

I used to clean my ATS every 7 days but I have backed off of that schedule a bit. Nowadays I only clean the screens about once every 10-14 days. When I do a cleaning it is always just one half of the system too. I don't clean the box that often. I also don't try very hard to remove all the algae. Just the dark algae. I primarily gauge the need to clean by the kind of algae build up I'm getting. If it's a nice clean bright green algae, I will usually leave it alone. If the algae is dark and/or slimy, like pancake syrup covering the algae, I will clean that stuff out sooner. I don't worry about algae growing or sticking to the acrylic glass. The more algae the better if it is a healthy bright green. If I happen to feel like giving the ATS a really good cleaning to remove all that ugly stuff against the clear plexiglass, then it looks great but my water quality drops a little because there is less algae working. I have learned not to bother with it if I can help it.

On a side note, the Santa Monica ATS chamber is great for holding an inch and a half of water right up close to the lights. Just place a 1" piece of PVC pipe in the bulkhead so that the water level raises up a little. Your algae grows and floats in the water right in front of the light. As the happens, the growth rate shoots up even more. I added a second bulkhead drain to help with the drainage needs. This little customization was well worth it. With the ATS setup this way, it makes tons more algae and keeps my water quality up even better. Of course I assume that more, faster growing algae in a shorter time period translates to "better" but I really don't have any evidence. I haven't been able to get an ammonia, nitrite or nitrate reading above 0 in months and I have a happy puffer that's always pooping and 14 other fish in the tank that are all well fed daily.

Hope that helps!

[dota]

does the algae grow on the windows too..? because the light go through the glass fill with water.. i just wondering if ur windows full of algae n blocking the light, coz, u know green algae dat grow on the glass, its a bit hard to get it off :(
i hope u understand wat i mean (my english bad) :roll:

[chrissu]

Hi Dota, The light makes its way past any algae growing on the glass without a problem. The algae is literally suspended in water. I'll take a couple of pictures of that for you and will post them.

[chrissu]

I recently installed a small cabinet outside of the house. That's the gray cabinet on the right. The tank is just inside the window and the plumbing is run through the window using a piece of drilled 4"x4" and silicone in the window cill area. I moved my ballasts, timers, RODI, and ATO valve inside of the cabinet and the project was a success. After a few weeks, I decided to mygyver the setup one step further by moving the scrubber out from underneath the tank and into the freezer chest on the left. I was going for a quiet and easy to maintain setup and the effort paid off. It didn't cost much to do either so I recommend it if you live in a warm climate where this is possible. If you look closely, you can see that my ATS drains into a 14 gallon rubbermaid container. I installed a 1" bulkhead in the rubbermaid container and a 1" hose is used for the return, which is gravity fed back to the sump inside.

[chrissu]

The light gets by the algae on the glass without being a problem. It cleans off easily enough too. Here is a close up of looking down into the chamber. Lots of algae!

[attachment=1:2lndi1e2]photo2.jpg[/attachment:2lndi1e2]

Here is another view. Notice I added a small piece of 1" PVC pipe. I just slipped it into the bulkhead opening and that is all I had to do to raise the water level. I later added a second bulkhead just in case the algae were to plug up the exit.

[attachment=2:2lndi1e2]photo3.jpg[/attachment:2lndi1e2]

Here is a picture of my tank and sump area underneath as of today. I still run a skimmer but it's not really a "must have" anymore. I have left it off for weeks at a time but prefer to have multiple systems in place "just in case" I run into a problem. I bit of redundancy is a good thing.

[attachment=0:2lndi1e2]photo1.jpg[/attachment:2lndi1e2]

Cheers,

[SantaMonica]

What would the skimmer be redundant for?

[chrissu]

Oh boy, I knew I'd get a reply from you about the protein skimmer :-) My ATS, actually your ATS, is a powerful system but there have been a couple of times where I ended up over cleaning the screens and the water quality would drop off a bit until the growth came back. That hasn't been a problem since I've learned how important it is not to do that. I've also thought about the possibility of the ATS lights failing for days on and me being out of town. I travel alot and my wife wouldn't notice... Things like that. It's just a form of backup to the ATS, that is all.

I honestly feel that more people would own an ATS if it was viewed as a supplement, like having a DSB in your sump area or keeping a huge sump full of cheato like some folks like, or using a reactor, rather than a 100% "either/or" protein skimmer replacement. It is in my opinion the best "green" method out there for maintaining water quality at its best, otherwise, I wouldn't be on your site!

[SantaMonica]

Ok but just remember that the skimmer does not remove what you want removed (ammonia, nitrite, etc.), so it will not help save anything if the scrubber goes out, if that is what you want it for, other than dumping in a box of food by accident (which it would be very good for).

You can do a test... one week of no-scrubber with skimmer, and one week of no-scrubber without skimmer.

[dota]

Ok but just remember that the skimmer does not remove what you want removed (ammonia, nitrite, etc.), so it will not help save anything if the scrubber goes out, if that is what you want it for, other than dumping in a box of food by accident (which it would be very good for).

You can do a test... one week of no-scrubber with skimmer, and one week of no-scrubber without skimmer.

good point. later, when my ATS as good as your one, i think i would like to try turn off my skimmer forever.
as long as the Nitrate n Phospate is 0, we dont need the PS right..?

@ chrissu Thanks for showing the PIC. ;)

[SantaMonica]

Does not matter what the phosphate is. Skimmers don't remove any phosphate... they only remove food. A reef tank needs all the food it can get. Fish-only tanks, however, don't.

[dota]

btw, how big is the pipe? 1/2" or 3/4" ?

[chrissu]

The extra drain consists of 1" bulkhead with a 1" diameter PVC pipe inserted in it. I am traveling this week but will be sure to get you the exact hight of the PVC pipe. My guess is that it is about 3/4 - 1 inch high. About 1/4" of the pipe is recessed into the bulkhead.

My skimmer is on a timer and only runs 4 hours a night between 1:00 am and 5:00 am. The ATS is the powerhouse of my system.