Algae Scrubber Survey of Results

[dtyharry]

I know there is a section on here for results of successful scrubbers, but is it not time we asked all on this forum of their results, both positive and negative.
We all know now the requirements in terms of lighting, flow etc so anyone who is scrubbing a 150 gallon tank with a 11w bulb need not reply.
What is needed is the results of properly constructed and maintained scrubbers, and whether they did indeed give the intended results, i.e no phosphate, nitrate, display tank algae.
A rough idea of the timescale the scrubber has been running would also be useful.
It does not need to be an essay, just a brief outline.

[weatherby68ss]

i have been into this hobby for 3 years now and was using a wet /dry filter for the first year and a half or so untill i found out about algae scrubbers. i have to admit i would not still have an aquarium if not for my ats. its simply to much time, work and $$$ using any other type of filtration. with the ats i can actually sit back and enjoy my tank and keep my fish fat and happy with out worrying about the next water change because i hav'nt done 1 in over a year! anyone thats thinking about building 1 all i can say is go for it THEY WORK!!! nuff said

[new2scrub]

my reef tank has had a scrubber running for over 2&1/2 years now and ALL my corals and fish are doing great. I have zero nitrates and zero algae on my rocks. I do get film algae on my glass and some cyano on my rocks tho. I have only done one water change in the past year.

[180rftank]

I had mixed results. Moved my aquarium, set it back up with two sm100's...everything was going awesome then at about the 2nd month everything just started to fade away and die. One loss, then two, till the whole tank just died off. I am now 7 months into scrubbing. I have had solid green on my screens for the last 4 months, but still have an overabundance of cyano on the rocks, and a lot of hair algae growing on every inch of the back and side glass. I have only been feeding a small amount of dry food a couple times a day just to keep the fish happy. No need to liquid feed as their are no longer any corals to feed. All other perameters in my aquarium have been perfect for the last 7 months so really don't know what I did wrong. I know there have been a lot of success stories on this site, but I'm certainly not one of them. :?:

[SantaMonica]

Moving a tank is never easy. When the rocks go into the new cycle, the ammonia from them hits the corals (attached to the rocks) before it ever gets to the scrubber (or any filter), and thus does lots of damage for several weeks.

[dtyharry]

The damage only started to happen in the second month after moving. Would the damage from any ammonia have been seen way before this?

[Ace25]

Same thing happened to me when I moved an established reef.. first 3-4 weeks, corals looked bad but not dying, weeks 4-8 wiped them all out (SPS corals). Week 4, lost 2 corals to RTN, after that it was a snowball effect and by the end of the second month, I had lost them all. I was running GFO/Carbon, skimmer, and ATS, even doing 2x 50% weekly water changes (40G twice a week) but I could not save over $5000 in corals, most were ORA corals.. moves are hell on reef tanks.

[SantaMonica]

Before a move, the entire surface of a rock that is exposed to any light at all is covered in periphyton or coralline, of which both are photosynthetic, and which have grown to match the level of flow. The undersides of the rocks, even if totally dark, have developed non-photosynthetic coverings too (sponge films, etc), which also have grown to match the flow. This is why the rocks are no longer white, due to these coverings. The flow and the light, of course, are just a source of food/energy.

In a move, even if the rocks are kept in the same water, they are placed in a new locations that have new patterns of flow and light on the rocks. So stuff which used to have no light, now has light, and vise versa. Same with flow patterns. So the surfaces with the greatest changes now have to adjust to a different food supply. If they can't adjust, they die (especially if they were exposed to air). They are not poisened, they are just starved. So their die-off takes a few weeks as they slowly run out of energy.

That's about when things start dissolving... after they die off. The dissolving then takes a few more weeks. This, of course, is what develops the ammonia, which is indeed poison.

[Rumpy Pumpy]

That's about when things start dissolving... after they die off. The dissolving then takes a few more weeks. This, of course, is what develops the ammonia, which is indeed poison.

Is it feasible to counter that by using some zeolite to remove the ammonia in the short term, or will that prevent a new scrubber from seeding?

[SantaMonica]

Well any ammonia-filter can only work after the ammonia reaches it. Unfortunate for the corals, they are the first to get hit with the ammonia as it leaves the rocks, before it gets filtered.