Santa Monica UAS ATS Turf Scrubber review - hog and surf - EPIC FAILURE

entry #16:

End of week thirteen. No changes in lighting, carbon dosing, iron dosing or air pump volume. Nitrates appear to have stabilized with the new fish load, so no carbon changes expected in the near future.

nitrate 7.04ppm, 1.7 on the hach specrtophotometer
po4 .03ppm on the same meter


The hog3 was harvested and cleaned. It was a the point of good growth, but the aglae wasn't attached well. Whenever the scrubber was moved the algae ended up in the DT. After harvesting I toothbrushed all the other forms of aglae pretty well. The surf4 still looks the same as it did before, nothing worth taking photos of.

View attachment 10190
 
Best thing to do is keep the side walls brushed so the white will reflect more light. And of course keep the light clean. Once hair growth floats to the top, it will be right in front of the light.

Not sure how much light the wire in front of the LED is blocking.
 
entry #17:

End of week fourteen. No changes in lighting, carbon dosing, iron dosing or air pump volume.

nitrate 7.04ppm, 1.7 on the hach specrtophotometer
po4 .05ppm on the same meter


The hog3 didn't have much growth over the week, but that may be due to how much algae grew on the sump "glass" blocking the light. Cleaned the sump and will wait for next week. Surf4 is again similar to previous photos. Nothing worth wild to photograph in either scrubber.
 
SantaMonica said:
Best thing to do is keep the side walls brushed so the white will reflect more light. And of course keep the light clean. Once hair growth floats to the top, it will be right in front of the light.

Not sure how much light the wire in front of the LED is blocking.
Click to expand...

I check the light weekly and to date not much has built up to block the light. It stay short stranded and clings to the strands and sides, so it doesn't have much ability to block the light.
 
entry #18:

End of week sixteen. No changes in lighting, carbon dosing, iron dosing or air pump volume.

nitrate 7.04ppm, 1.6 on the hach specrtophotometer
po4 .04ppm on the same meter


The hog3 had some growth over the last 2 weeks and I harvested everything possible yesterday. Surf4 is again similar to previous photos. Nothing worth wild to photograph in either scrubber. With several weeks of high iron dosing (compared to recommendation) I can be pretty sure the macro algae is NOT iron growth limited. Very little to any noticeable change has been observed since starting dosing.

Good news. I'll be getting some good light green HA from a local reefer in the near future to seed both scrubbers! Let's hope that get em started.
 
entry #19:

End of week eighteen. No changes in lighting, carbon dosing, iron dosing or air pump volume.

nitrate 8.8ppm, 2.0 on the hach specrtophotometer
po4 .10ppm on the same meter


Good news! I picked up some light green HA from a local reefer. I put the entire chunk in the hog3 and it's grown nicely. The surf4 looks like it has for many weeks. When doing WC I'm using the hose to suck the surf4 clean removing all the loose algae weekly. Once the hog3 needs harvesting the excess will go into the surf4.

Photos to come next week when the hog3 should be full it it keeps up the same growth rate.

As for the parameters, they spiked this week for an unknown reason. I'll keep an eye on it and change GFO.
 
I have had mine in for two weeks now and i would have to say success!!

My tank didn't even really cycle (est rock + live sand helps immensely in that regard) except for a little cyano bloom.

My mantis is in her new home and I'm preparing to add some corals, mangroves, and more rock / macro to my tank. :). Nh3, no2, and no3 are all reading 0.
0a935dd4f48523dd9515e232f71219d1.jpg



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Okay, so this is ridiculous. Four days after posting the picture above and I notice algae escaping out of the edge of the box. Open it up and this is what I see:

5c97a3f27dd2e85ad9124b81b078bc6b.jpg


I have no detectable nitrates or phosphates (I'll be taking a water sample to the Shedd monday for more accurate testing). I also have several kinds of macro i am trying to grow. :). No skimmer, just a mantis shrimp and a couple of snails and hermits.




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That's pretty nice looking seeing mine as been on for 4-5 weeks and still looks new , how long are you LEDs on for ?


Tom
 
weeeeell... my boyfriend (ever so helpful :frusty:) actually took it off the timer (taking up too much room on the power strip) so it's been on 24/7. I still have some hair algae in my tank but that's starting to clear up a little bit. The only creature I feed in my tank is the mantis and she gets a small piece of octopus/shrimp/clam/fish a day (only one of those - I rotate it because she gets tired of the same thing every day). I do have some clams on the top that don't seem to be doing well (not tridacnid) and I think I may need to start feeding them, as well.
 
I think that's the most growth I've seen yet in one of those HOGs.

For Tom, sounds like the black cloth needs to be covering 3/4 of the LEDs.
 
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