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Marlin
05-14-2010, 06:54 AM
Hello Santa Monica and community, I am an Inland Aquatics ATS hobbyist who has been out of the loop for some years now. Set up my first natural system ATS reef in 96, with a lot of input from Borneman and Shimek, back in the Reef-list days. I had great success running ATS in tandem with light periodic skimming and carbon filtration.

Planning a new system and return to the hobby now. I am extremely happy to run into this community, and excited about the idea of eliminating the skimmer from my new project. Santa Monica--how would you compare your system's efficiency to the ones Inland used to sell? From my little experience, your 100 seems kinda over-gunned compared to the Inland ATS I ran back in the day....

Additionally for Santa Monica and friends:
Do you have a time estimate for bringing the Nano Scrubber to market?

Anyone familiar with the latest on live sand beds and where I might go to get back up to speed? Especially interested in information on the smallest sustainable live sand beds, don't want a hundred gallon+ system this time around.

I am additionally in need of a source of quality, fresh, airfreight live rock-intense with life for developing a sustainable deep ecology from scratch.

Regards, and thanx in advance for any time some of you may spend helping to bring me back up to date.

Marlin

SantaMonica
05-14-2010, 11:21 AM
Welcome back. You are the first IA person to appear here.

No info on sand, and I barely remember the stats of the IA or Aquaricare scrubbers. They were one-sided, low-flow, low-light-power, noisy, spraying, and could get stuck. But the big discover since then is that by removing the screen for cleaning, you stop the water from yellowing, and thus do not need carbon.

The nano is still testing/growing. It's much harder to design because the light is only 3/4" from the screen, and I'm experimenting with how to diffuse the light (otherwise it cooks the middle to a bright yellow). Probably will be the end of the year.

Marlin
05-14-2010, 12:02 PM
Thanx for the quick reply SantaMonica.

I am surprised to hear that none of the hobbyists using Inland's ATS system are around. It worked really well for me, of course I did listen to Morgan, who told me when I got my system to take out the screen for cleaning, and run it under fresh water to keep the pods under control. I was an early adapter of the deep natural sand bed too, with all the positive natural filtration attributes a deep ecology like that could support. I imagine that had a lot to do with how well things went.

It's is a bit clunky for sure, but I still have that old unit in the basement ready to restart, it did a damn fine job for years. Comparing it to your new system though seems like comparing an old Motorola Flip phone to an Iphone. Very hot stuff! Probably end up buying one soon. Good luck with the Nano.

I was wondering what the weight of the 100 is when in operation. Thinking about mounting one on the back of the new aquarium.

G'Day

SantaMonica
05-14-2010, 12:53 PM
About 20 pounds if you include the bit of water at the bottom.