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Thread: Various upflow growth pictures

  1. #131
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    This customer in the UK has growth that almost looks like green candy in this SURF2 or 2x or 2xx. This scrubber is probably only a few weeks old, because the white Green Grabber rock walls have no growth on them yet. But they will.

    This type of Surf growth is very rare, but the beauty of scrubbers is that they grow what they need to grow based on conditions. This one will probably start getting some brown slime on the Green Grabber rock walls, and then on the bottom underneath the green. If more food is given to the tank, the bright green will darken up to consume more of the nutrients (darker growth has more nutrients).

    Also very neat with Surf models with this growth, is that you can just reach in and get a handful. Then just set the light back on it, and you are done. Of course if you are getting dark slime because of very high nutrients in the water, you'll still need to take it to your sink for a brushing.

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  2. #132
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    Another photo of two SURF2 or 2x or 2xx scrubbers from the UK customer above. Here you can see the white edges of the Green Grabber rock surfaces are much more covered in growth, which is the normal process because algae eventually covers all rough surfaces that have the proper light and air/water interface turbulence.

    Of more importance here, is the fact that there are two scrubbers instead of one. Two smaller scrubbers is always preferred over one larger one, because scrubbers actually remove nutrients from the water, but do so mostly when they are growing thick hair or thick slime algae. When you clean a scrubber all the way down to the white reflective surfaces, you don't have any more thick growth for a few days, and you will see the difference in how long your display glass stays clean and other ways. So by having a second scrubber that you clean on alternating schedules (one every 5 days, for example), you always have the other one growing thick and filtering.

    Other aquarium filters, however, such as protein skimmers, filter socks, etc, don't remove any nutrients at all, and thus it doesn't matter if you only have one of them because cleaning it won't change anything.

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  3. #133
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    Slime! Only the Green Grabber® white rock surfaces can hold onto slime really well, like this customer's HOG1 scrubber®...

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    Sometimes people see lots of pictures of green-hair-algae packed scrubbers, and then worry when their own scrubber is only growing slime. Well, here is some good news: slime pulls out more nutrients from the water than GHA does! And this goes for dark, and especially black, colors of slime.

    Now this may sound the opposite of what you thought. But think about it: Scrubbers usually start off growing slime first. Why? Because nutrients in the water are usually higher when a scrubber is first installed on a "problem" tank. So, slime can handle larger amounts of nutrients at one time. This slime starts off first, coating the surfaces, and quickly pulling nutrients out of the water. If nutrients in the water are higher, the slime is darker, which is even more dense with nutrients. As nutrients in the water come down, the slime then grows less dark. Interestingly, the slime coating also prevents GHA from attaching. Slime is king! So why then does everyone get lots of GHA, if slime works so well?

    Because slime can't hold on. Slime is all about holding nutrients; not holding onto surfaces. Holding onto surfaces requires growing cellulose root structures that can hold on better. Cellulose structures like the roots and branches of trees don't do any filtering of air, but hold on great! The leaves of course do all the filtering of the air. But leaves can't hold on to the ground, so the roots do that instead.

    In algae, the softer structures like slime do the filtering, but can't hold on. So GHA evolved a more solid structure to be able to hang on. Bryopsis takes this even further with "roots" that dig into rocks to get nutrients from inside them. Even GHA has the ability to use enzymes to dissolve into silica rock as a way to anchor itself. But slime just has trouble holding on, because again, all it's structure is for absorbing nutrients, not for mechanical attachment.

    Slime holds on best to rocky flat surfaces, like our Green Grabber rocky textures. Slime does not hold on that well to plastic screens like those used in waterfalls. So rocky texture scrubbers will pull nutrients out faster, and stay covered in slime longer, thus providing better filtering in high nutrient water.

    But all slime washes away if not harvested soon enough, such as every 3 to 5 days. So to get the benefits of slime, especially black slime, harvest as soon as the surfaces are covered. This usually involves brushing under running tap water. This will pull nutrients out of the water so that GHA may subsequently attach and grow.

    Slime is good.

  4. #134
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    Customer's HOG3 or 3x or 3xx scrubber® in saltwater showing green hair algae attachment to the Green Grabber® strings. Sometimes growth attaches more to the Green Grabber® rocks (slime does this) and sometimes attaches more to the strings, like this one. One note about this particular growth, is that it is very light green color, meaning it needs more iron (just like spinach). So you could feed more nori seaweed, or dose some iron, or just double your feeding.

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  5. #135
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    Here is a customer's DROP.6 on an early installation, probably just a few days. Can't tell if it's fresh or saltwater though, because the growth is very black slime which grows this way in very high nutrients anywhere.

    More important is to see how the growth follows the LED red light pattern, from the LED on the right, towards the left, as it widens.

    This 1-LED small scrubber may not be enough for the very high nutrients in this tank, but if the black slime is toothbrushed off in a sink often (like every 3 days), then nutrients may eventually come down in the water enough so that the the growth may turn into green hair.

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  6. #136
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    Our super rough Green Grabber® white rocky surface holds on to slime better than anything else, include screens. When nutrients are very high, you will always get dark or black slime growth because dark slime absorbs the most nutrients, the fastest. But dark slime is slippery, so you won't see much dark slime on waterfall screens (not even our RAIN screen) because the slime lets go. But as shown here on this customers HOG1.3 the slime holds on well, waiting for you to take it to the sink for brushing clean. Or, just let the fish and snails in for a free live feeding:

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  7. #137
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    Time to harvest! This customer's HOG3 or 3x or 3xx (all of these have the strings shown) in saltwater is full of dark green hair algae and slime. Cleaning this requires taking it to your sink and running tap water over it while you brush out all the Green Grabber® strings and white rocky surfaces.

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  8. #138
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    This customer's HOG1 or 1x in saltwater has a very thick clump of Ulva Fasciata, which can probably just be pulled out by hand instead of taking it to a sink. Or of course, just give it to the tangs and snails. If the main purpose is for feeding instead of filtering, then this growth will just flow out of the holes in the case, and the tangs will help by pulling it out. You could make the holes larger for this, just don't make them big enough for any animals to get inside:

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  9. #139
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    Here is a good example of dark growth that has pulled out a lot of nutrients out of the water. It needs to be brushed out in a sink with running water, because it's too slimey to grab with your fingers. Not sure if this is fresh or saltwater, because this dark growth is similar in both, but since this model is a DROP1.4 it is probably saltwater.


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  10. #140
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    Our DROP.2 scrubber® is the smallest in the world, about the size of a flip phone. It fits into the back of any and every nano compartment there it. Also of course it could just drop into the display, or even a fish bowl, if the fish are not small enough to get into the circulation holes.

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