Hi all, I have been reading information on this site for the past week. When I first found the site, I was actually just browsing the web looking for remedies for bryopsis/hair algae. I found this thread viewtopic.php?f=9&t=68 and I read the entire thing lol. I was actually up till around 4 am reading about it.
Any way, a little about myself/setup. I live in Philadelphia and operate a forum with a few locals which has grown to about 1500 people (hopefully someone can hop over there and give some info ). I have been in the hobby for around 3 years now. Started with a 55g reef, then upgraded to a 75g reef. I tried a frag tank when I had the 55g tank set up, and failed due to extremely high HA. I then had to break that down. Taking care of two individual systems is rough when you work full time and come home beat -_-. Any way, I digress.
My latest frag tank is a 40g (30x24x12) with a 20g long and a 29g sump. It has been plagued with HA/bryopsis for a while. Since it was bare bottom I would get a crazy amount of algae growing on the bottom and sides. It got to a point where I almost broke down the tank.
Any way I scraped it all, tried running Seachem Phosguard. Algae seemed to turn grey. I started feeding again for the frags in there, and the algae is already on its way back and bright green. This seems to be my last option, since a few of my frags are infested, I have them separated before they infect the rest of the other frags, but with the frags sitting on the bottom, I see them getting creeped up again.
So here is my area to work with, I have a couple options so I am debating on how I will set it up.
(please try to ignore the ginormous firehazard.... I kind of have it rigged that way because of a new LED fixture I have with cables that are too short.) The ATO is on the bottom right (lip of the bucket)
One option would be to take the overflow pipe, and convert it to the ATS. It would work, I could get a good 13" out of it width wise, and around 7" height, but it would most likely be one sided. (here is the one pic of how it could work) My only thing is that I have a Mag5 (500gph, split between two tanks. My guess is I am getting maybe 150gph out of the return, which wouldn't be enough I think.
Another option, is to do the bucket method, but I am kind of stuck since I can't put it anywhere above the tank. An option would be to use a Mag5 pump (500gph) to build an in sump ATS, probably one sided. Finally I could man up and build a box lol... But my skills/money is a problem lol.
So guys, any input would be great.