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

Oh, it's full again. I checked before I left before work today. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing that the algae is growing like crazy. The first picture up there was with the black cloth half on. I took it off since I was getting good growth already and it went nuts (second picture). I'm not sure if I'm cleaning it all off, either, since this stuff is wiry and hard to pull off. I keep meaning to scrub it off with a toothbrush.

My parameters, as far as I've been able to tell, have been 0 across the board for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, and phosphates with my salifert kits (the nitrates are a different kit I picked up because I needed to test and mine got destroyed by a cat). The temp in my tank is a little low, around 76-77. I'll do a full battery of tests on Monday when I have my shift in the Shedd lab and report back.

BTW! Sorry for hijacking your thread :) I was feeling lazy and didn't want to start my own. Also, want some of this algae as I pull it out? I'm pulling out at least a handful every time I open this and I do work downtown... It's beautiful turf algae, too, as far as I can tell.

Another point - some of the rock in this tank has spent some time in my big FOWLR - with the high nitrates and phosphates. I may have some leeching that the scrubber is grabbing before it can go into the water column. On another side note, I have halimeda algae going nuts. I'm going to do a water change soon to replenish the calcium for it. :D I also treated with a little bit of purple-up to help that along so we'll see.
 
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carmelpi said:
BTW! Sorry for hijacking your thread :) I was feeling lazy and didn't want to start my own. Also, want some of this algae as I pull it out? I'm pulling out at least a handful every time I open this and I do work downtown... It's beautiful turf algae, too, as far as I can tell.
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Don't be sorry, it's great to read your info and good results. If we can meet up at some point yeah I'll try some. I'm in highland.
 
entry #20:

End of week 23. No changes in lighting, iron dosing or air pump volume. Carbon dosing was increased twice to drop the no3 levels back to under 10ppm. It's now running for 110min a day on a 1.1ml doing pump where as before the no3 spike it was only 90 min daily.

nitrate 9.24ppm, 2.1 on the hach specrtophotometer
po4 .07ppm on the same meter


There hasn't been much to update. The HA from the local reefer has thinned and reduced in size after initially showing sign of growth. The other green film algae is still growing in both the hog and surf. I'm also seeing large clumps of red bubble algae gorwing in the surf. Otherwise, they still arn't producning much biomass.

The nutrient spike is the system saw several weeks ago is slowly dropping. Still not sure what caused it, as nothing visable changed or is showing any signs of change. The only thing I've noticed is the system is using more ALK since no3 spiked up to 10.56ppm.

Interstingly enough a youtuber review of a surf 2 shows what looks like the same green algea growing in his as I see in both my surf and hog. Mine are not growing the yellow algae shown in this video, but the green looks very similar if not identical.

[video=youtube;HWf9t3SHNF0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWf9t3SHNF0[/video]
 
Well, the hair algae in my tank is gone. I still have to clean the glass all the time so hopefully that will resolve as well.

I think i cleaned the scrubber a little too well last time bc it is not nearly as full. :(


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carmelpi said:
Well, the hair algae in my tank is gone. I still have to clean the glass all the time so hopefully that will resolve as well.
I think i cleaned the scrubber a little too well last time bc it is not nearly as full. :(
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That's great, no HA in the DT is a success all by itself.
 
SantaMonica said:
The fellow doing the test seems to be having the same slow growth with the waterfall.
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??? Not sure where that comes from.

It's not a comparison of scrubbers but showing what type of algea that is growing in both of my scrubbers. With 52 weeks of growth he is still growing similar algea without HA taking hold. I'm simply hoping for a solution to help grow HA.
 
The fellow in the video was not getting the hair growth he wanted from the surf2, so he got a waterfall, probably because the waterfall salesperson told him upflows don't work. Now it looks as if his waterfall is not growing hair either. So he is continuing to run both as a comparison.
 
SantaMonica said:
The fellow in the video was not getting the hair growth he wanted from the surf2, so he got a waterfall, probably because the waterfall salesperson told him upflows don't work. Now it looks as if his waterfall is not growing hair either. So he is continuing to run both as a comparison.
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I can understand and share his frustration and is more likely why he started looking at other options. The limited growth of this other green algae is a waste. It's far too slow growing and messy (everytime a scrubber is moved it comes off into the water column.)

For my tank and scrubbers even after seeding with good HA it hasn't taken off. Iron isn't the limiting factor as the experimenting shows. po4 and no3 are also present. With the varying amount of light lenght used as well as using the hog3 light cover for a very long time, lighting has been experimented with extensivly. I've toothbrushed both scrubbers completely white a couple time in hopes forming attachment points for the HA.

What's left to try?
 
SantaMonica said:
Were the rocks or sand ever exposed to any medication or copper or algaecide or cyano treatment?
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No. All material was new and dry when I setup this tank except for a few peice of live rock transfered from the last tank. I've never treated the DT with any medication or algea removal chemical.
 
Finally a good sign of something happening
36d0e9761b7b70474ea2e0d9e1d4f6c4.jpg



Tom
 
SantaMonica said:
The fellow in the video was not getting the hair growth he wanted from the surf2, so he got a waterfall, probably because the waterfall salesperson told him upflows don't work. Now it looks as if his waterfall is not growing hair either. So he is continuing to run both as a comparison.
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For the record, I didn't sell him anything (yet) and I didn't tell him that UASs don't work. That would be stupid of me to state because it's obvious that they do work for many people, so don't put words in my mouth - I'm more than happy to defend myself.

What I suggested is that he should try a waterfall scrubber to see if it works, and if it doesn't, then there is something else going on in his system that is preventing any scrubber from growing - because he's tried many things to kick-start the UAS with not much success. So there has to be a reason why it is not working for him when others have little problem growing algae in theirs. The next logical step in the process of elimination was to use a different type of scrubber because it's obvious that for him and his tank, it's not working. So I sent him an L2 and asked him to run it side by side with the SURF for a good long time and see what happens. I have hopes, but have not had pie in the sky expectations, that the L2 would work better - because I've had a few users who couldn't grow anything either, as well as a few DIYers that couldn't get a lick of algae to grow on their builds no matter what they tried, and I've never really been able to nail down what causes that. So I considered this instance an opportunity to maybe try and answer some of those questions, and who is going to turn down a scrubber on a free trial basis.
 
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