DIY Scrubber

yogoshio

yogoshio

New member
As many of you know, I'm in the uphill struggle against algae, lol, so I decided I'd try an algae scrubber. My tank is 55 gallons, so it didn't need to be huge, thank God....

Screen in 5 1/2" by 12" exposed to waterfall. Light on one side is old coralife from my 20 gallon, other side is JBJ fuge glow. My old maxijet is doing the trick for a pump. If I measured right, flow is a tad low, but I don't even have an inch more room in my sump area.

Here we go!
 
scotty

scotty

Member
Pro - great nutrient export

Con- need to be the size of a wall to really make any real dent.

Good in theory.....j
 
yogoshio

yogoshio

New member
It's a roughed up screen with water flowing to promote the growth of nuisance algae basically. You let it all grow on the screen, clean it about once a week, and hang it back up.

And going off of the calculations, this should be more than adequate for my tank. I'm not looking to make this a cure-all, just another part of my system, with my skimmer, carbon, phosguard, purigen, etc.

If it will grow algae there rather than in my dt, it's done its job. Especially considering how cheap it was.
 
yogoshio

yogoshio

New member
Knowing several people who run these themselves, using the same calculations, there skimmer (while still useful) takes 3 times longer to fill up.
 
fit

fit

Member
I built a scrubber in my 55G about 2 weeks ago. I have a bad algae problem. Mostly due to the fact that I don't use RO or DI (I really need one I know). I have algae growing on the screen, but not enough to harvest yet. I might not be doing everything by the book and that may be why it isn't working. I did cut down to only 8 hours of dt lights (but I want to see everything all the time **** it!) and I got three emerald green, another three hermits (I only had two) and a small tuxedo urchin (today). That's all I have as a CUC: namely five hermits, three emerald greens, a small urchin, oh and two peppermint shrimp. And I did also get a lawnmower blenny about a week ago.

Results:
Anyway, algae growth on the glass surfaces is very little now. A 10 X 10 area on the back glass that I left completely alone is thinning out considerably, and slowly disappearing. This happened I believe due to the fact that I am using a small filter that does contain a little DI action. The lawnmower is avoiding the thick area on the glass area (for the most part) for some reason and prefers to munch on the algae on the rocks or the new growth on the glass.

I did get flecks on my screen after about 10 minutes of use. It was just flecks from the dt that the crabs and blenny had chomped off and made it through my sponge in my overflow.

Can I put more CUC members in this tank? If so what and how many? Snails?
 
yogoshio

yogoshio

New member
Depending on algae growth, you might want to be careful not to starve your cuc. Also, I don't have any cuc, save for three hermits, which I seriously doubt would have made as much as whats on my scrubber by now.

Anyway, snails are always a good idea. Just don't get too crazy.
 
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