Ace's ATS Build

Jstdv8 said:
you can dip it in freshwater to kill the pods on it, but leave the algae growth you have for now to help build more.
The purpose of cleaning it every week is if you go much beyond that the zillions of little spec pods will start eating holes in your algae which isn't helping anything. and then those pods end up back in the tanka dn you havn't exported any of the nutrients out of the tank, plus it won't be as efficient without the algae they ate off of the screen.
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That's the purpose of rinsing in fresh water, not necessarily cleaning it. By lightly cleaning it, you are also pre-selecting certain species and types of algae, as well. That's up to you, though, and everyone's mileage may vary. I cleaned mine weekly from the start and I got to the point where razor blades and hard-bristled scrub brushes wouldn't even faze the algae growing on the screen.
 
I'm 11 weeks in on mine and its finally starting to take off pretty good. But the algae that's on mine at the present time is very week. when I clean one side it easily comes off with a light brush from my fingernails and some of the algae even falls off the side I'm not even cleaning.
I can't wait to have a nice mat down there to work with.
 
I honestly don't think I can make the screen any rougher without it just starting to rip apart I spent about 45 minutes per side with a hole saw rubbing on it. it's pretty rough.
I wasn't even growing anything hardly at all except really thin red stuff (cyano?) until about 4 weeks ago.
my nitrates and phosphates have been 0 since then even witht eh screens not producing very well. and my phos level was .5 before this. so it's working, just not quite as advertised.
I added an extra light on one side 4-5 days ago and that seemed to really help.
I also shortend the length of the upper tube from 12-10" for more flow. and I doubled my feedings of both regualr fish food (my homemade stuff we were talking about in the other thread) and my coral food. I also added 2 more fish this past week. I'm up to a whopping 4 now :)
It looks like things are starting to pick up now though. We'll see how it goes in the next couple weeks.
I tried leaving the screen without cleaning for 2 weeks to let it fill in more on one side and the pods ate the crap out of a few areas on the screen just like SM said they would.
Honestly I'm pretty satisfied with it even though its not going as I had planned, I have loads of pods, my PH is good, my nitrates and phospahtes are 0. not really much more I can ask for. especially considering I jsut ahd my water tested this week and my TDS is 62. Waaaay past time to change my RO/DI filters O.0
 
Well I cleaned both screens last night with a quick rinse and gentle rub with fingers... more stuff came off in the sink than I was expecting, although nothing like SM's "7 day cleaning" video, but I highly doubt his video was meant to show 7 days from setup, just 7 days between cleaning an established screen.
 
Ok, some good news. Wow this thing is working faster than I expected.

Nitrates on my tests done July 4th, day I installed the scrubber, were around 5-10. I have been feeding 4 frozen cubes of food a day soaked in Vita-Chem and Garlic Guard, so I am putting A LOT of food into the tank every day. Today, without doing any water changes since July 2nd, my Nitrates are now 0.

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Unfortunately I can't say the same for Phosphates, they still seem the same. First test was .04, todays test .05. Hanna Meters have an error of +/- .04 so I will just say the Phosphates have remained the same. To be fair, I wasn't expecting any change this quickly anyway so no surprises here.

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Give it some more time. You'll be able to feed even more as time goes on. I had about 0.01 PO4 and undetectable nitrate when I had proper scrubber setup. I actually had to add more food to make nitrate to reduce phosphate :D. With my pseudo-scrubber and all, I'm managing about 2 full cubes of food daily, not counting coral food and pellets.
 
Pic I took today of it in action.. thought the pic came out good. I am using velcro instead of zip ties to hold the screen. It makes it much easier to remove and put back on.

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hey ace, any chance we could get a shot of what it looks like where the velcor attaches? like from the side, or underneath?
Thanks
 
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