Dual Screen Horizontal Scrubber

[AlgaeNator]

Well I like the design idea overall, maybe you could spill the top screen onto the TOP of the other screen... instead of on the middle of it? Seems like you are wasting a lot of surface area?

I think what SM was getting at is that for OUR use Vertical is more efficient use of space. As MOST people dont have room under the tank stand above or around the sump to put a horizontal scrubber in without covering other important items. vertical one for REEF tank users, that want to put it under the STAND utilized the limited space much more efficiently because you get TWICE the surface area on each side, and it can be place above the sump out of the water. Also this allows you to place your lighting HIGHER up away from other water splashing in your sump from other items, like skimmers, and other pumps etc.

I would have

[ThePisces]

Hi, have not built my ATS yet , possibly getting my postings mixed up with the photos of Routestomarket? He has built his already and is getting excellent results, no Nitrates, Phosphates,etc etc and an explosion of pods and other critters.

I have been looking at the websites of a few US based industrial ATS manufactures and it makes intersting reading. All seem to use an inclined slope which is impervious.It is then covered with a grid on which the algae develops. They use Pulsed Laminar Flow. In a FAQ on one site it was asked what the depth of water was..."Usually less than one inch" with a contact time of between 7 and 12 mins depending on the length of the Flow-way" Now I'm no rocket scientist but that hardly sounds as if the water is flowing at the rate of a waterfall, does it? Yes it's the accumalative effect of the many passes of water going over the algae which removes the nutrients so why is a high flow rate in a verticle design any more efficient than a slower flow rate in a horizontal design?

I fully appreciate what SM is saying with regards space but am perplexed as to this opinion that a verticle design is more turbulant and efficient? Gravity is constantly pulling/flattening everything on this planet, that includes the flow of water. In a verticle design I can see that if the output pipe is not 'truly verticle' gravity would effectively be trying to pull the flow of water away from the screen? However in a horizontal design the water would naturally be getting pulled against the roughed up screen and create more, not less turbulance, albeit a slower flow of water. Turbulance + Light+ Nutrients = Algae?

I think it comes down to personal choice what design we make and that no one design is better than the other.

Always appreciate other people views and opinions in a constructive positive manner.

The Pisces, (John)

[routestomarket]

I wanted to wait until cleaning day to put my response up here.

Initially I was a little put off by the elitist comments regarding my design but at the end of the day every mans opinion is his own and looking through this and other sites, horizontal scrubbers seem to be very efficient Kcress' and Worleys for example.

Lets just keep to the nice side of sharing our information and results for the benefits of everyone.

The reason for my design was that I had a overtank sump to play with to set my scrubber off. I have no space under the tank and my other half would not allow a bucket on a shelf! (Women eh!)

I have been tinkering with the design since june when my first incarnation pics went up which were met with great encouragement, check the thread UK Based Horizontal Scrubber.

Following the advice from Worley and Kcress I have made thier suggested changes and others and to my mind have achieved great results, ie. no phosphates, no nitrate, nitrates or ammonia and a constant PH of 8.4 which has always been my personal white whale.

As you can see from the pic below I have hit algae nirvana with what is described on Kcress' earlier post as 'proper turf algae':
[attachment=2:21urqcp1]cleaning-4.jpg[/attachment:21urqcp1]

here are some other shots of the full screen and an unfortunately blurry one of the sheet underneath:
[attachment=1:21urqcp1]cleaning-1.jpg[/attachment:21urqcp1]
[attachment=0:21urqcp1]cleaning-2.jpg[/attachment:21urqcp1]

I have one more which ?i will put on the next reply!

[routestomarket]

[attachment=0:3aqb0ncu]cleaning-3.jpg[/attachment:3aqb0ncu]

The turf you can see is budding all over the screen and in fact is more prelevant on the second screen which was described as useless. I will post some pics of this on wednesday on that screens cleaning day.

All in all I think the ATS is a brilliant idea but it needs to be embraced as a concept and not a unequivocal unchangeable method and it is obvious from sites such as this that a vertical scrubber in some instances does not get the wanted results and maybe in some cirumstances, although different, a horizontal one may work.

I am not saying either one is better, I just know mine works al lot better than i would have liked to anticipate and it is this I am sharing on here so others may take some of my ideas and use them themselves to good effect!

Hope someone finds this info useful and good luck in your endeavours!


"UK Scrubbers do it horizontally!" (T-Shirts coming soon! :lol: )

[ThePisces]

Hi, fantastic results using your HORIZONTAL scrubber, good to see all that real turf algae growing happily!

[SantaMonica]

Turbulent pulsed flow is going to exchange more boundary layer water than fast laminar flow.

True, but the other tradeoff's are too great to warrant using a surge as I advocated in the past. It's been tried, but it did not provide any extra measurable results for the aquariums that were being filtered.

This is why Adey went that way.

Maybe true, although you'd have to personally ask him if he was aware of a vertical option at the time.

Single sided screens are no less efficient than two sided screens.

But they are, in terms of flow. Horizontal inherently has slower, thicker, flow for the same gph. So to make up for it, you need more gph.

They have the same surface area.

But, many times the area is not covered in flow, because just a small growth of algae will block the remaining flow. With vertical, it will flow right over the algae. Also, as in your design, flow sometimes has trouble reaching the corners.

If verticle was greatly more efficient then why has industry with all the space and goverment funding they have, not gone down that route?

Because it would cost the govermnet a lot more tax dollars to build scrubbers 300 feet high, not to mention the pumping power required.

Verticle scrubbers are as you rightly say 'Bulky' due to lights on both sides.

Not if you use T5's, near the screen. In a horizontal design, you STILL have to get your light near to the screen, and you have to do it with twice (or more, due to inefficient flow) of the area.

To light a verticle screen to the same intensity as a horizontal screen you would need twice the number of bulbs or higher wattage bulbs ($$$)

But you are forgetting that you still need TWICE the area for a horizontal.

A horizontal screen angled across a sump is going to have the same if not greater surface area compared to a double sided verticle screen in the same sized sump if height is restricted which it usually is

Mine is only 6" tall. How tall is yours including the light?

So surface area is greater in a horizontal design even if you double the verticle.

I'm not understanding this.

The area my sump allows for a horizontal screen is 22in x 12 in. That gives me a surface area (one side only) of 264 sq inches. Which in my case ( allowing 1sq inch per gallon) gives me an excess of 144 sq inches of screen, or 2.2 sq inches of screen processing per gallon

Ok this is a good horizontal size to start with, as long as flow is even and rapid (and does not get blocked by growth), and also as long as the light is strong all the way across the screen.

At the end of the day I doubt very much that there is any significant performance difference between the two options.

There is a huge difference, when things like algae-blocking or screen-waviness occur, which re-directs all the flow once a little growth occurs.

I'm not against horizontal... I posted builds of them, and we even made the worlds first horizontal nano scrubber right here in the office. But I have to make sure that the average person who builds a scrubber will have strong filtering and good success with their display. So I only recommend what get's reported to me as successful. The horizontal designs are touchy, and over half of the time, they don't work at all due to the operator. And, they take up the whole top of the sump. Verticals, however, work every time as long as you can cut the slot in the pipe (I don't recommend drilled holes). Remember, hundreds of people have reported their builds on my threads alone, and I hear all the stories. Horizontals just have much more problems (for the average person) than verticals. It is possible to get a horizontal working properly, but it takes more skill, and more coverage of the sump.

As for success of one vs. the other, you will never know unless you build one, use it for a year, then remove it and use the other for a year. If you only build a horizontal, and your display algae or nutrients never go away, then you won't know if a vertical would have done better (for the SAME gph, watts, and space). The purpose of my reporting the results of other builders is to show what happened to hundreds of others when THEY tried it. Many have tried horizontals, but only a few kept them. Building and operating a horizontal simply leaves less room for errors.

[routestomarket]

freudian slip perhaps? :lol:

"Building and operating a horizontal simply leaves less room for errors." SantaMonica

[ThePisces]

Thank you Kcress for your 'Positive' comments in which you have not dismissed what industry and other scrubbers have found in using the horizontal design. If verticle was greatly more efficient then why has industry with all the space and goverment funding they have, not gone down that route?

Verticle scrubbers are as you rightly say 'Bulky' due to lights on both sides. The fact remains that horizontal scrubbers have all the flow on one side and not divided over two sides and all the lighting is on one side.To light a verticle screen to the same intensity as a horizontal screen you would need twice the number of bulbs or higher wattage bulbs ($$$) With a slight incline as in Worley's a 30 degree design ( closer to horizontal than verticle) seems to work fine as do others (Routestomarket) who adopt the horizontal version. A horizontal screen angled across a sump is going to have the same if not greater surface area compared to a double sided verticle screen in the same sized sump if height is restricted which it usually is, because you have a whopping great aquarium above it!

How do you measure the size of a television screen? Across the horizontal, top corner to bottom corner, not verticle. That gives you more than double the verticle height. My 4 x 2 x 2 ft aquarium has a horizontal (top corner to bottom corner) measurement of approximatley 52 inches. The verticle is 24 inches. So surface area is greater in a horizontal design even if you double the verticle. I think there is some cofusion here with regards what is meant by a horizontal design. I will totally agree that a true horizontal design would have poor flow. When we are saying horizontal I mean with an incline but no more than 45 degrees.

The area my sump allows for a horizontal screen is 22in x 12 in. That gives me a surface area (one side only) of 264 sq inches. Which in my case ( allowing 1sq inch per gallon) gives me an excess of 144 sq inches of screen, or 2.2 sq inches of screen processing per gallon!

Far from being put off from the horizontal design I will continue with an 'Open' approach to design and appreciate any constructive comments like yours on both verticle and horizontal designs. At the end of the day I doubt very much that there is any significant performance difference between the two options. If the nutrient levels are not detectable or very minimal you have achieved what you set out to do....Scrub!

Kind regards,
The Pisces

[kcress]

There is a huge difference, when things like algae-blocking or screen-waviness occur, which re-directs all the flow once a little growth occurs.

I'm not against horizontal... I posted builds of them, and we even made the worlds first horizontal nano scrubber right here in the office. But I have to make sure that the average person who builds a scrubber will have strong filtering and good success with their display. So I only recommend what get's reported to me as successful. The horizontal designs are touchy, and over half of the time, they don't work at all due to the operator. And, they take up the whole top of the sump. Verticals, however, work every time as long as you can cut the slot in the pipe (I don't recommend drilled holes). Remember, hundreds of people have reported their builds on my threads alone, and I hear all the stories. Horizontals just have much more problems (for the average person) than verticals. It is possible to get a horizontal working properly, but it takes more skill, and more coverage of the sump.

As for success of one vs. the other, you will never know unless you build one, use it for a year, then remove it and use the other for a year. If you only build a horizontal, and your display algae or nutrients never go away, then you won't know if a vertical would have done better (for the SAME gph, watts, and space). The purpose of my reporting the results of other builders is to show what happened to hundreds of others when THEY tried it. Many have tried horizontals, but only a few kept them. Building and operating a horizontal simply leaves less room for errors.

I can not deny, there are certainly aspects of horizontals that need to be worked out. Hopefully something solid will shake out to allow that format for those needing it.

[ThePisces]

Yes indeed, I think it was Thomas Edison who nearly gave up on his development of the domestic light bulb so with him in mind I'm going to endeavour in the building and development of the horizontal ATS for those with limited space or those who have space but prefer that design and try to iron out these problems if they occure.

My current design (actual scrubbing/functional area) is 13.5 inches long and 12 inches wide and less than 5 inches high so quite compact. That incorporates all the lighting ( upto 5 x CFT in a slashproof housing, screen, slipway and outlet pipe.This has been designed for those with a sump or are able to sit it on a small external tank. May do a few little tweeks here and there but looking promising so far.

"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

Thomas Edison