kcress's Horizontal Ceramic Turf Scrubber

[zoa]

My first thought was to use the CBUs but I chickened out as I just wasn't sure about the possiblity of it containing some sort of mold inhibitor. Also as mentioned, I would treat it as if it were DIY rock due to the possible PH issues it could cause.

Just be carefull. Make sure you cover your back side before you place a CBU in your tank. I can tell you the Hardi backer board is just out of the question. It is printed on there clear as day about mold inhibitors.

kcress;

Yea I never thought about trying to find a potter that might give it go for me. I am sure it would be a lot cheaper. I also thought about just making my own like the DIY rock. Just make a flat piece. I really like mrwilson method of making DIY rock.

[rainerfeyer]

thank you for the words of caution

I would have never thought of it containing Mold Inhibitor, but it makes obvious sense! I will check into it.

I thought that the curing of cement was a question of pH reduction, but you could be right about the phosphorous - I'll do a search.

Nice to have all of your thinking brains to draw from!!!

Rainer

[rainerfeyer]

You saved my day!

I checked: what I have is DuraBoard which is Mold resistant!

Back to the drawing board,

thanks!

Rainer

[kcress]

Horizontal Update:

Strange mutterings..

The growth proceeded as I expected but slowly under my punny old CFLs, until the entire screen was covered with very dark, thin algae. Then about the 15th day spots started to appear in the uniform covering of very very dark green(almost black) algae. The next day there were hundreds of these poke-ah-dots. In the center of each there seemed to be some lighter green hair algae. Sort of like islands around Luis Pasture's penicillin spores. I wondered if this new growth was running off the previous growth? I left it so see what would happen.

Well after a few more days the ceramic just started looking like it was self cleaning. A great majority of the dark algae was just leaving. Closer inspection showed that just under the CFL spots there was a slimy green algae unlike the dark stuff. The retreat continued.

Time to up the lights. I moved a 90W Metal Halide over the scrubber today.

I am also wondering if something in the ceramic is making the algae leave town.. Not sure.

Anyway here's two shots after the MH was added. You can see the greenish circle under where the last CFL was located.

The MH has a pretty intense hot spot which I will use to gauge the correct amount of light needed since the hot spot will probably too bright.
The experiment continues.


With MH the colors you see are perfect! The brightness is low in these pictures - probably 1/2 of what is perceived directly.

[zoa]

Your tile is showing the same type of growth mine did. I did however clean half at a time every week. So I never noticed a recession on mine. After a while the turff started to show up.

[AlgaeNator]

like those Ghetto reflectors in the early shots! ahhaa

Hiya spunk!

anni here... read a LOT of posts about this topic last night.. thanks for turning me onto it!

Built my first scrubber today.. need a few more parts to complete which I will pickup tomm.

I am thinking seriously about ditching my skimmer once my setup matures..

I will post some pix.. I had som extra plastic peg/board lying around and figured I would give that a go...

I am powering mine from the overflow off one of my standpipes (might be two shortly)

As for the ceramic...Only downside I would think was only being able to light ONE side of those materials vs both sides.. reducing area by 1/2?

Still yu getting good growth it appears on one side?

prolly still works just fine and is more like nature... i was looking at your later posts with the halides, and spotting issues..

I am wondering if you are BLEACHING out the algae with TOO much light/heat/UV off the fixture and thus the blotching look?

Might want to back off the distance on the MH fixture see if you even out with the growth... You might just be cooking everything thus it peels off and leaves the surface of the ceramic, because of too much light and residual UV.?

[kcress]

Welcome to the forum AlgaeNator Anni!! Wait no further!

Update - A month and a few days. (These are 1024 wide pics. The wider your page the more you will see. It's weird you can't seem to scroll them.}

Here it is before cleaning. It's interesting to note that the light is a circular pattern and that the very brightest center has less growth. The lighting is metal halide 90W 16 inches above the screen.
Note also that where there is virtually no water motion in the right two corners there is zero growth.
I am also disturbed to note that as the turf builds it is totally stagnating the flow directly over it. This is a horizontal TS issue I hadn't realized was so dominant.




Here's the screen stood on edge. I'm letting it drain. During this short wait I realized there were a lot of BIG pods running around on it. I tried to photo them but cannot actually find them on the photos. The photo is plenty clear enough. Where's Waldo?




I would estimate there are 6 kinds of algae growing on my screen. I only want Turf though. I believe some of them get a grip and this delays the turf as they are kind of slimy(bright yellow). The central 'pile' in this picture is the actual turf you want. See the tiny cylindrical stalks? That's it. Now, off to the sink for a thorough cleaning.



Here it is cleaned. I used my fingers then went back with a toothbrush focusing on all the non-turf algae.
Notice I removed the elbows where the water was coming out. This seemed to up the surface motion a lot. Unfortunately It increased the micro splattering dramatically. Since this picture, I taped some 2 inch acrylic walls on the two sides and even They have splatters clear up to their tops. That means splatter is reaching about 6 inches above the screen in this horizontal delivery. Dang.

[kcress]

BTW AlgaeNator. Start a thread in here and show us your scrubber and how it progresses. Mine seem to take a while compared to others. Once mine get up to speed they seem really robust. Not sure how long it should really take.

[AlgaeNator]

yours looks good so far.. good job looks like yu have several types of GOO on there! lo...

Yea I moved immediately today to start fabricating mine...should work nicely... and Thanks for the tip on these scrubbers.. Great threads great topic, I think this is just what the DR. ordered for my tank!

I even cleaned the FRONT of my tank today really well, in honor of the start of my first scrubber.. that way I can document how it works....be glad to share how it works out...before after etc...

Hey BTW, how you like my name? lol....

As for documentation, I would be glad to give photos of my progess.. but...I think it would be hard to get a solid "mean" figure on what is "normal" time for these things to get up to mature and start scrubbing. EVeryone's water volume, feeding, PH, and NITRATE/ite, levels are diff...not to mention the MATERIALS you use to scrub with and LIGHTING of course..... (plastic, ceramic, etc) and tanks quality of water will all be different. Even the WATER that you make up your TANK with, could effect this as well. Some people may have really CLEAN R0 water and lower nutrient levels in their systems from the start, which means longer times for the scrubbers to mature. Also feeding habits and bio load and critters in the tank, and type of lighting could ALL effect the time it takes for a scrubber to start "maturing" I would think... Very similar to how a skimmer takes to "cure" its different for everyone.

I will post some pix next few days of mine... I came up with a pretty simple design that should work nicely, VERY simple design that should work well. be easy to clean and remove etc.. I need to complete it with a few more parts i will get for it tomm.. need to pick up some PVC at OSH to complete it.. I had some pretty thick PVC board about 1/8" perforated pegboard I have used somewhere a few years back, so I will try that.. I am doubling it up using two 10"x 17" sheets should work OK.

I decided to use my overflow flow to power mine since it means one less pump in the system.. I split my flow using my standpipes so its no problem now for me I have half my flow (about 450gph) going to the new scrubber.

LIke I said i am tempted down the road to dump my skimmer and add ANOTHER scrubber inside the skimmer area which is fed by the OTHER standpipe. I figure I will do it once i have ONE mature scrubber going. interested in any feedback on this topic too!

Very interesting stuff these scrubbers.. I asked SM about going skimmerless and also read Bornemans (sp) post about skimmerless tanks.. I am leaning towards dumping skimmer since I have always thought it is STRIPPING my volume of necessary nutrients and additives just to add O2 and remove other nasties is not worth the cost.

My main concern was losing Aeration of the volume when removing the skimmer. Saltwater (esp higher temps) does NOt hold O2 very well.. and I think animals can suffer from lower dissolved 02 in volume.. (get lethargic) But today I increased the vinyle tubing in my standpipes and it REALLY increased flow and AIR/WATER mix.. so I feel comfortable removing skimmer since the pipes are adding a great deal of 02 now and the scrubber would remove the nasties.

[SantaMonica]

Kcress... you have a clear case of algae burn. Too much light, too little flow. That's why the algae is thick under the pipes... more flow. So move the light away, or reduce the hours or the watts. Also, the reason there is no growth at the bottom corners is because you are losing your laminar (thin) flow... it all piles up at the bottom and is no longer thin.