Ace's ATS Build

Also,
I have a success story with mine for the first time.
after I think 12-13 weeks now I finally got a serious amount of growth on the cleaned side. It was very thick green and about a full handfull of it.
In addition the stuff on the other side did not fall off for the first time ever.
I think I"m really getting somewhere finally.
I think I'll post this on SM's thread too :)
 
Good idea with the velcro, I might switch my zip ties out for those....on a 4' long scrubber, its a serious pain trying to slide the screens all the way down.
 
Same way zip ties attach, I just had to cut one of the squares to make it 2 squares big to fit the velcro through. This is the best shot I have of the velcro in place. Seriously though, it makes it sooooo much easier to remove/install than zip ties. One hand/2 fingers to pull the velcro off (I have 2 pieces, one on each end) and the screen just drops right out. Putting it back on is even better, get one side in and get the vecro holding it and the other side goes in real easy. With zip ties you sit there fiddling with the first one just to get the screen to stay put.

This is the velcro I used. I cut both ends off of a strip then cut the strip down the middle long ways to make it thinner. Got a pack of these for $2.97 at WalMart in the crafts area.
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Left Side
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Right Side
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Tests yesterday came back the same as the previous week, 0 nitrates, .05 phosphates. Did my cleaning, did a 10% water change, and called it a day until next week. :) I know it is going to take a little time to build up before it works at its peak effeciency.
 
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Day 24 update.. screens are finally starting to look like an ATS screen. Yeah!!! Week 3 was the worst. Very nasty brown slime algae took over both screens and my sump, making me take out most my equipment in the sump and wipe it all down. Just a week later and the slime algae is all gone and now it is looking good. As of last week still no noticable change in levels even though I keep feeding more and more. Since I installed the ATS I have been running my skimmer without the collection cup and just letting it overflow into the sump (using it just for aeration). My corals have REALLY colored up in the last month since taking my skimmer offline. I really think I was overskimming my tank to the point it was doing a lot of harm and has really changed my opinion on skimmers in general, mainly that people should NOT buy a skimmer over rated for their setup. If your going to buy a skimmer, get one that is rated for your tank size, not 2x or more. My original setup, which did fantastic, was running an AquaC Remora (rated up to 75G) and I never had any problems. Since replacing it with one that is about 2x rated for my tank (120G-150G) my corals lost all their color to the point of being completely white.

Here is a week 3 shot of the screen before I cleaned it... nasty stuff.
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Day 24, almost 4 weeks now. Getting some nice green "turf" algae that doesn't come off the screen when you clean it.... good stuff.
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Glad to see it finally kicking in. I love the fact that you can continue dumping food in these sorts of setups and not get any appreciable rise in anything. Granted I'm not running a scrubber proper, per se, but the algal growth I have is allowing me to feed more than I fed my 40 or 75g tanks.
 
Ya, all this feeding and not stripping it out with the skimmer right away has really helped my bleached out corals. At week 3 my "Seasons Greetings Montipora" had gotten about 50% of its color back, green base and red polyps.. 4 days later it is now about 75% color. Really starting to color up more and more each day now.

I still can't seem to get my nitrates to rise though.. still 0. I am trying to get it to go up by feeding 6 cubes of frozen food soaked in Vita-Chem + teaspoon of OysterFeast and RotiFeast + big pinch of dried cyclopeeze and a couple pinches of small pellets, all mixed into the food cup. I also put in a 4"x1" sheet of seaweed each day. Do I still need to put MORE food in?

I also set my Reefkeeper to use the standby mode. My skimmer turns off for 30 minutes and my GFO/Carbon reactors turn off for 1 hour just by the push of 1 button. Not that I needed to skimmer to turn off since I don't have the cup on it.. but I was just trying to setup the controller to see how it works.
 
wow, and I thought I was feeding alot
What kind of clean up crew do you have to get the big stuff the fish and overflow don't get?
 
I have one GIANT mexican turbo snail, about a dozen astrea snails, and a dozen nassarius snails... thats it for my CUC. No crabs but I have well over 100x turnover on my flow now so not much settles.
 
Here is a video of me cleaning the backside of the screen on Week 4. I cleaned both sides but didn't think of filming it until after I cleaned one side already. I am very lightly scrubbing with the toothbrush. I have 2 screens doubled up so I can clean both sides.. plus I am running 2 sets of double screens.

Turn your speakers DOWN, it is kind of loud... I hate the Mic on my old camera.. way to sensitive.
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I just thought about this from the skimmer thread, but I meant to ask how this is working out for you? I haven't really heard anything negative yet, so I imagine it is doing its job well... I loved mine--I just don't need one right now with all the seagrasses.
 
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