First Scrubber

[Ace25]

Hate to say it, but when you see those bubbles that usually means it is dinoflagellates and not hair algae, which is usually a nightmare to eradicate once it takes hold. Hope I am wrong about that.

Seems Floyd and I posted at the exact same time.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I won hahahaha

Seriously though once your scrubber starts to go yellow start trimming it down to the feeding size. I had dinos in the tank and they would build up towards the end of the cleaning cycle, then right after cleaning they would pretty much go away. I was growing yellow goo with a brown slime coating (which I think it dinos) on the scrubber. Also had a lot of plastic canvas in the tank, like as an intake basket (top of tank temp setup). They killed off my RA green birdsnest and taxed a few other corals too.

Now I shielded the light and the scrubber is back in a sump but the dinos still show up on the front glass after a few days, but they're under control and really nothing much needs to be done, they're just a general nuisance and come off with the glass cleaning a couple times a week. Also I trimmed the screen down from 20" to 14" and that helped, but that's still too big. I think there is a connection between growing the yellow rubbery algae and production of dinos. I think there is also a connection between growing dinos and/or diatoms and plastic canvas. If you have extra canvas in the system that is not there as a substrate to grow algae, or if there is not GREEN algae growing on it, then it prompts growth for dinos. I have canvas in 4 places in the current setup that are not part of the scrubber (blocking bubbles, acting as non-pod-trapping particle filters, pump intake screens, etc) and all of them grow mad amounts of slimy brown goo.

The pattern I've seen is no yellow goo growing = no dinos (or no significant growth of dinos). Yellow goo growing = dinos, sometimes significant growth.

It's completely anecdotal, though. I soon plan to remove almost all of it when I replace the scrubber with a properly sized one and we'll see if that makes a difference.

I should note that before I moved the system, I only had dinos once, and it was in the sump only, and cleaning the waste out of the sump solved it. Surface water motion and surface skimming is a big one too (in the tank via overflow, not a skimmer) seems to make a huge difference too.

[markrj]

Thanks guys!

I will try to remove the dinoflagellates tomorrow.

I am placing an order for a new ph tester among other things.

[kerry]

That looks awesome!!! I just had that with my 40G LED scrubber last night for the first time and on the third cleaning just as you. I didn't get a pic as it was late. I was pretty excited to see 3D at an inch deep!!!

[markrj]

How do you scrape and vacuum at the same time? lol

[Floyd R Turbo]

You shouldn't need to really scrape them. They're not very strongly attached. Just get a standard siphon hose (without the gravel vac attachement) and run it right over the top of them. If you swish your hand by them they'll detach. When they get on rocks/corals I would start a siphon with airline tubing, that's all the suction you need. So if you want to minimize the water drawn out get a long airline hose and then attach one end to a stick or something so you can watch what you're doing and keep arms dry

[markrj]

Thanks Floyd!

[markrj]

Well that was easy!

Still managed to siphon about 4 gallons but I just replaced the water so all is good.

Looks a lot better too.

[markrj]

The back glass is being cleaned very quickly. I will have before and after shots soon.

However, I have noticed a significant increase in a dirty looking hairy growth on most of the rocks. It doesn't cover the entire rock but it is everywhere.

I made a 30 second video of it.



Is this the phosphate leaching out of the rocks issues I've read about? It started about the same time I started the algae scrubber but it is growing incredibly fast now.

Will it eventually go away?

[SantaMonica]

Yes it will go away.