Algae Scrubber Not Working

[bigjon38]

I came across your site about two months ago and decided to make a scrubber. I have green hair algae running rampant all over my tank. The algae is growing on my screen but it doesn't seem to be much to harvest like I have seen with other diy scrubbers. I took out my sump and put in a 10 gallon tank (my sump was smaller) connected the scrubber to the connection from my overflow box which drains and feeds my return pump. I think this may be a mistake because the algae is being return to the display tank via the pump.



When I check my tank levels, everything is doing fine and is within accepable tank parameters and I know this is because of the algae everywhere. But I am becoming frustrated with the way my tank looks. Please tell me how I can fix my algae scrubber.

Thanks for any suggestions

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

Well your rocks are for sure full of phosphate. Looks to be 18 to 24 months old. But the tops are white... have you been scraping the algae off of them? Or, did they come from another tank?

Do you have a reflector on that bulb? What is the power, and hours?

[bigjon38]

Thanks for the welcome.

My tank is 1 year old. I did scrape off the rocks because I was having everyone over for Thanksgiving. In addition to that I bought a carpet anemone that required a lot of light. Needless to say I had an algae bloom and the anemone didn't make it. You can probably tell what side of the tank the anemone was on.

I couldn't fit a reflector on the side of the stand. I hooked some daylight bulbs that I believe are 23W (100W equivalent) 5000k. I had them on from 6 AM to 2 AM. I realized that this may have been a bit much so I changed it to 8 AM to 12 AM.

[bigjon38]

quick question. I don't have a way to catch the algae that gets sucked into the sump. Would you recommend me putting the sponge back into the overflow box? I was trying to think of a way to connect my old sump with my ATS for this reason but I couldn't come up with anything. Any recommendations?

[SantaMonica]

Since you removed a lot of rock algae, the nutrients in the water should rise and the screen will grow darker, probably filing in the bald spot. So go to 18 hours of light, and get a drop-down utility light with a reflector that fits, or something else to get all the light to the screen.

As the growth gets more GHA, it will attach better and not let go as much, so you might not need a filter.

[natureAddict]

perhaps u could use aluminium foil n 'tailor' it to fit. i use clothes peg to make the aluminium foil stay