Skimmer + GFO/Carbon reactor or ATS, or all 3?

Joe Lydon

Joe Lydon

New member
I've been doing a LOT of research for the last week or so. I have never run a reef setup and I want to be prepared. I was set on running a skimmer + GFO/Carbon reactor (I even built an almost 6' venturi skimmer for my setup), but I've been reading a lot about the algae turf scrubbers and they make complete and total sense in my mind. Considering corals feed off detritus, it doesn't make sense to skim it out. Once the nitrifying bacteria are balanced with the extra bio-load, you are obviously left with a whole lot of nitrates, which should be no problem for a sufficient ATS setup, right? I know there is more than one way to skin a cat. Are the ATS an end all, be all?
 
IMO, scrubbers are fuges on roids, but they also require the poop to break down much farther in order to be adsorbed by the turf scrubber, whereas the skimmer pulls it out before it has a chance to break down. This is where I find issue with scrubbers as "replacements" for skimmers.

There is NO such thing as an end all be all, there is only opinion and choice. Also, turf scrubbers require very specific circumstances that have to be JUST right in order to work. I tried and failed twice, lol, just for fun, but I wasn't willing to dump a bunch of money into.

That being said, I had a good skimmer and a diverse fuge and I never had nitrates nitrites or ammonia show up on my tests.

If I were you, I'd do both, and see how things go, because there's nothing worse than poop sitting around too long in your system just to make something work.
 
I agree with Yogoshio that it would require a very specific setup to be able to get an ATS to work. It isn't something you can mix and match.
 
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