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Bluespotjawfish 
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 Topic: Turf Scrubber
Posted: November 28 2008 at 1:35pm |
I just made this out of stuff I had lying around. Slotted PVC pipe, Lee Tank Divider, and some egg crate!
I upgraded the next day to this:
And then this light crazy setup...2 days worth of growth 
**********8 DAYS OF GROWTH*********
(I cleaned it after taking the picture above on Day 8.)
This is the screen Day 12 - Side 1.
Side 2 Day 12
Edited by Bluespotjawfish - December 12 2008 at 7:55pm
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Home of the baby Picasso!
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chris.rogers
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Posted: November 28 2008 at 4:08pm |
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Watch your levels and let me know how that works out. I fear with the open air it'll be kind of like a wet/dry and boost your nitrate levels.
Looks like a real simple way to do the scrubber. I like.
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 28 2008 at 4:40pm |
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The whole purpose is to reduce nitrates, so I hope that is what it does.
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john hill
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Posted: November 28 2008 at 7:44pm |
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do you have any alge to start growing on your scrubber
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out with the large and in with the nano
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 28 2008 at 7:56pm |
Nope. My other tank gets a bit of it on the HOB filter return. Maybe next time it builds up I will scrape it off and seed it.
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bgreenlee
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Posted: November 28 2008 at 8:53pm |
Looks good. It will do exactly what you are looking for. I have run a few different scrubbers in the past with incredible results. If you can seed it you will speed up the process, but it will do it on its own. Just give it some time, and don't ever clean it too well.
How is the noise level?
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 28 2008 at 9:14pm |
It took me a while to get the water to run so it wasn't too noisy. The spray bar really helps. I'm hoping it will be even quieter after it grabs some algae.
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: November 28 2008 at 10:41pm |
My understanding of the principle of Turf Scrubbing is to grow algae as fast as possible
and harvest it regularly to remove nutrients, especially Nitrogen
compounds, from the system. It seems to me that regular harvesting of actively
growing macroalgae from a Refugium could be considered in the same
category of filtration as a Turf Scrubber.
Though Turf Scrubbers are a great method there seems to be one inherent problem. Finding an appropriate turf algae. There is a tendency over time to grow hair algae which leads to hair algae outbreaks in the display. Below is a tank in the Ogden/Roy area in 2003 that used a Turf Scrubber. Notice the very deep DSB of Utah Oolitic sand.  The Turf Scrubber is the long white glow at the top area of the stand. Sorry I didn't take an actual pic of the long raceway where the algae was growing.   The tank had a very nice growth of Halimeda.  An unidentified SPS growing on a rock on the sand!!   A nice portrait of some of the fish.  And a healthy Pipe Organ Coral that was rarely seen in those days. 
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bgreenlee
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 12:29am |
 Mark Peterson wrote:
My understanding of the principle of Turf Scrubbing is to grow algae as fast as possible and harvest it regularly to remove nutrients, especially Nitrogen compounds, from the system. It seems to me that regular harvesting of actively growing macroalgae from a Refugium could be considered in the same category of filtration as a Turf Scrubber.
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You definately want to harvest the algae, but never clean the mat completely. You want to make sure that you have algae intact so it will grow. On the two systems I ran them on that had only one mat I would scrape half of it at a time (half of it every week). When the algae mat was developing I would see hair algae, but as nutrients levels lowered it seemed to be the first thing to disappear.
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 8:09am |
My nitrates are about 50 ppm. Phosphates are like nothing, but I am currently running phosban. Should I shut down the phosban reactor to help get this started?
I clean socks twice a week, so keeping this harvested (if I can get it to grow at all) won't be too bad. I like the idea of 1/2 at a time. I took off the socks in the sump when I installed this. The drain from the display to the sump doesn't filter over the top of this, but is right next to it. Should I keep a sock on or off of that? I have a large live rock underneath the scrubber, and I will probably add some rubble around that too. I do have a sponge I could use in the area before the return pump that would keep stuff from going back in the display or clogging the pump itself. With the socks, I didn't need to use it.
The tank is well established at this point and I have a good CUC in the display and lots of flow. Hopefully that will help prevent algae in there. Currently, there isn't any algae on the rocks. I allow a bit of film on the glass to help keep the CUC fed.
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 8:13am |
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BTW, I had a very nice short mat growing on one of the walls in the fuge about 6 months ago (when my nitrates were 0). I couldn't harvest it, but the bugs loved it. For some reason it bothered me, so I cleaned it off one day (silly me).
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bgreenlee
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 9:26am |
I would keep the phosban reactor going personally. Do you run phosban in it, or another brand?
I would leave the sock in place at least until you have your scrubber up and running with a good mat on it. After that I would run it off and on to improve water clarity and get some of the larger particulate matter out of the water column.
One other questions, what are you using to light this up? You need a good light source around 6500k or so to get a good growth rate on the scrubber.
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Shane H
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 9:35am |
In case anyone was interested, the tank Mark is referring to belongs to Ferrel Spackman. He lives in Harrisville (which is just north of Ogden). I'm haven't seen or talked to him for a long while, but his tank was amazing at the time. He was certainly a proponent of the turf scrubber filter.
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 9:54am |
I'm running two daisy chained chambers, one with AC, the other with Phosban.
I have a quad PC light over the fuge that I have shifted so that it lights both compartments. I currently get coraline algae growing in the sump and my skimmer from this light and I have shifted it over more. I plan to replace that with the clamp on version, but I haven't figured out a good way to clamp one on to my system so it doesn't fall in.
I'm not really looking to have this scrubber do all my filtering, I still have a skimmer and DBS in the fuge. I'm just trying to cut down on the need for WCs to control the nitrates.
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 11:40am |
I'm starting to rethink if I did this right. Currently, if the pump is off (power outage, cleaning), there isn't any water going over this and I think the top half would dry out quickly. Would it work better to set this up flat at the same level as the top of my water (maybe I could build some type of acrylic tray or shelf for it to sit on so that water sheet flows off of it and into the sump? If the power goes out or if I am cleaning, water would go into the sump and raise the level of the water in the sump an inch or two.
I think I am over complicating this...
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tazman1982
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 12:11pm |
IMO. if the top half dries out then that is the side u cleaned that week!
"On the two systems I ran them on that had only one mat I would scrape half of it at a time (half of it every week). "
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 12:21pm |
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Do you have a pic of the ones you used to run?
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Jake Pehrson
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 12:34pm |
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I agree with what Mark said. With Chaetomorpha now commonly available and being a fast growing algae I think a refugium can work as a great "Algae/Turf Scrubber".
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Bluespotjawfish
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 12:37pm |
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Oh, I have chaeto that has been sitting in the fuge! I still have nitrates at 50 with the chaeto.
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tazman1982
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Posted: November 29 2008 at 12:42pm |
bgreenlee is who I quoted, mabey send them a pm.
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