What are you using to scrape?

[Amphiprion]

I've noticed that since I've gotten a tough brown alga growing, I've had to start using single-edged razorblades. I also follow with a toothbrush. Even the two combined don't really do that great of a job. I've got two screen and they are extremely rough, so I can see why they'd stick. It's just making it more difficult to "harvest." So, in light of that, I'm wondering what everyone else is using to get the job done so that I might find something a bit better.

[Aeros]

I was using a stainless steel kitchen pancake flipper (I call it a spatula) but the edge was to rounded. Then I bought a new blade for my tank scraper (the kind with the telescoping handle that doesn't work for #$%^ on coralline algae) in hopes that it would work better. Anyway...I had the old one laying close at hand when cleaning the ATS and found it worked better than anything else I've tried. The replacement blades are relatively cheap. http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/p ... atid=12756 (http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=12756)

As for method: I start as close to the slot pipe as I can and scrape down. It is more of a separating the algae from the screen than cutting it. The whole mess usually comes off in one clean (nasty) patch.

On an aside, I use three screens so I scrape right down to the top screen.

[Amphiprion]

Hmm, I'll look into that. At the very least, it looks a lot broader than what I'm using, so it could definitely shorten the amount of time I'm scraping.

[rahjelli]

I use the set of 3 white plastic joint compound knifes you get at Home Depot. It comes with 3 different widths, hard white plastic (no metal) and is like $3.50 for the set