3D Scrubbing with a Santa Monica 100 Scrubber

[chrissu]

I placed a white 1" adapter onto the bulkhead where water drains out of my new Santa Monica ATS. I did this to see if raising the water level up a bit would result in even faster or thicker algae growth. Not that I really needed it as the nitrates are always 0 nowadays; I was just curious if raising the water level would result in increased algae growth. Sure enough it did. With just 4 days of growth on a clean screen, the chamber is now filled up extremely thick with algae. The stuff grows from the screen right across to the clear acrylic 3/4 inches or so away. When you look down into the ATS, you can see that the light is shining deep into the algae.

I'm still feeding heavy 3-5 times a day, no longer have a protein skimmer, I have removed about 7 gallons of sand from my former DSB, and yet here are my latest water test results.
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
92 gal corner tank

[sklywag]

Excellent! Jealousy is setting in.

[SantaMonica]

This is 3D scrubbing. Even with only one bulb :)

Yes as long as there is turbulence, it will grow. It's just a tradeoff, because as the water level gets higher, the turbulence drops off in the pool. So you just have to go by the filtering results you get. You might try weighing the algae to see if it's actually more, since it might just look like more because it's swirling around.

But when swirling in 3D, it's definitely filtering more due to the light and flow getting to all sides of the algae.

BTW a good way to photograph it is to leave the light on the back side, and turn the front side off.

[Gigaah]

Thank you for this information. I do appreciate it.

[chrissu]

I've been doing some more comparisons and the increase in algae growth when using this 3D idea is almost twice that of the normal method. It seems that floating the algae 3D style and letting all that light bath the algae hase a measurable effect at about 2 to 1. Has anyone else tried this idea and seem similiar or different results? If you need your algae to grow faster and can float your algae screen, you will see results. Below are pictures taken today of the Santa Monica ATS I use with my tank. In the top picture you can see that the algae grows think towards the light. In the second picture, both lights are on behind the screen.

[jnad]

Hello!

This 3d scrubbing is very interesting, i hope you will post any uppdates if you have one.

Does 3D scrubbing give the same benefits with horisontal scrubbers? If so, the requirements for flow and size of screen with horisontal scrubbers may have changed some with 3d scrubbing? I meen, maybe it is not necessary to have 4x the size when going horizontal?

Is it possible to start 3d scrubbing with a new screen submerged under water, or do you have to get some algae growing first beafore the screen beeing submerged under water?

Jnad

[SantaMonica]

No, you cannot get 3D with horizontals, or submerged.

Mine is still doing the same. All weeks are not that thick... just depends on how much fed, and what nutrients levels are.