There should be a "Defend the ATS in this other thread" forum.

[M I N I O N]

I can't tell you how many times I have someone or a group of people who have a great understanding of the biological processes in our reef tanks, completely overlook extremely simply facts and unknowns in order to alter people's ideas on what is "good" in terms of filtration. After the "great DSB" revaluation, half of the hobby became conspiracy theorist and the other half became self-proclaimed experts. There is nothing worse than the perfect blend of credibility, opinion and misapplied science. There is always an explanation as to why they're right and you're wrong. It's not that the explanations are too hard to understand, they're just preposterous! These people draw a very fine line between fact and opinion and when left unchecked, WHAM! Masses of impressionable young hobbyist fall victim to misinformation. They hate when an "algae supporter" steps into their "this is why algae is bad" threads. That said, I'm going to start it. This is the official "support your methods" thread.

Here is a link to the current discussion on the forums which I regular:

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f7...do-198321.html

Have fun with it!

[kerry]

I have seen a many on the internet bash them. Most talk about and rant you still have to do water changes and I tell them I do but its only about 10% changes every few+ months or so. I encourage anyone in my area to just come test my water and see for yourself what a scrubber is all about. My favorite thing to do is to feed when they are over and then tell them I do this 2-3 times a day and an extra when company is over so they can see all the fish come out. I dont have any tank of the month looking set-ups but everything I have grows like crazy besides some LPS plate coral that I have not had luck with in a scrubber tank. They are catching on soon there will be a big boom of commercial scrubbers. Just give it some time, its coming and many folks are a lot more accepting of them now. I just dont argue them, if they are local I invite them out for some free frags and let them look it over.

[M I N I O N]

I feed 2-3 times a day rather heavily with 14 fish in my 90 and the tank is full of SPS! I keep getting told that my tank is eventually going to crash because of nutrients but they can't identify the nutrient sink. The tank is bare bottom with extremely high flow and I syphon and blown off the rocks all the time. I also run a huge skimmer. The "nutrient sink" went from my rocks (bacterial cleaving would never allow this with the low mean level in my water column) to the algae. My algae? The algae I throw away every week?

[M I N I O N]

Mine also may not be RC TOTM worthy but i wouldn't mind a nomination! :-)

[sklywag]

I don't bother anymaore. If people come over to buy,get or drop something off they see it. Get interested. Say they'll look into it. Do they? I see some jump in the local forum to see what others think and to get a feel of the polls for them. Most say they tried but didn't work. The same could be said for any equipment with a trail period of a month or less.

[M I N I O N]

All it takes is the wrong light for it to not grow anything. The thing that bothers me the most is that they treat it like the little piece of plastic is somehow CREATING NUTRIENTS! People believe it too. Sometimes I just laugh it off and sometimes I just tilt my head and think "you can't seriously believe what you are typing, can you?"

My favorite is the use of the word "eutrophication". This word has nothing to with a controlled system. Inorganic phosphate is what we are fighting.

[Amphiprion]

I don't bother anymaore. If people come over to buy,get or drop something off they see it. Get interested. Say they'll look into it. Do they? I see some jump in the local forum to see what others think and to get a feel of the polls for them. Most say they tried but didn't work. The same could be said for any equipment with a trail period of a month or less.

Agreed and this is kinda what I've ended up doing about a bunch of things. I had really been interested in the entire theory of algal scrubbing (or plant scrubbing in general) for many years. It just wasn't until SM came along and tweaked designs and improved feasibility that I decided to try one. I knew they worked on N and P, I just wasn't sure what else they would or could do. I am completely confident in them because I've seen what they can do first-hand. Unfortunately, the skimmer, zeovit, throw more $$$ at it crowd just don't want to be swayed. I can't say I didn't think the same at some point, because I did, but it had to stop somewhere. I was changing/upgrading skimmers and random components like my aquarium was my computer. I'm definitely a biologist before I am a techie and I lost sight of that for a few years. It was exactly what I said I would NOT do years before that.

Well, rambling aside, these people will simply have to try it to believe it. Not for a month or two, but for real amounts of time. Nobody counts success in months in this hobby, so why should an algal scrubber not be held to the same standard? As far as I'm concerned, scrubber speak for themselves.

[Garf]

We tend not to get any of this negative attitude in the UK. A lack of interest, sure, but it's widely accepted that scrubbers are a good thing if you can be bothered to make/buy one.

[like-fish]

It is my opinion that extream attitudes in either direction are a bit counterproductive. I belive in the concept of the algae scrubber (hence my use of 2 of them) BUT!!!!!

There is still a good bit of "fine tuning" to be done on the concept! Examples: the questioning of "what is a cube", the recent changes in sizing for feeding rather than volume, "best" lighting practices.

Than you soooo much for all of you that are providing feedback on this filtration technique! WIth this community of shared sucess and failure I believe that the ATS will become a very viable "Choice" as a filtration technique. Maybe it will prove itself to be best practice eventually.

Lets keep focus on developing this technique and not arguing with the nay-sayers. Results will speak for themselves.

Another point of mention is that not everyone is as committed to DIY as most of us on this forum are. Once the production models get some time on the market and prove themselves "turn-key" and freindly, they will develop there own reputation as being a good choice.

Lets keep it positive!!!!

[sklywag]

Amp. That's funny. I was going to have a lot more to my post but thought I was rambling. So I deleted it. I've always been a budget reefer so never owned too much equipment or high end stuff. But trying to convince others they don't need all that stuff is difficult to do. Sort of like telling new comers to the hobby that PCs are okay for corals. Then there will be an onslaught of posts saying they don't work. You need to buy 700 dollar LEDs.