Freshwater Algae Scrubber - In need of Opinions

M

MaxximusPrime

Necturus
Jun 22, 2011
38
0
0
Manitoba
Hello all,

Just popped over from the Newbies section to ask a quick question. What is everyone's thoughts and opinions of a freshwater algae scrubber? I am currently putting together a freshwater sump with refugium and am thinking about incorporating a gravity fed screen of algae as a pre-filter just after my overflow next to the display tank. This will be for a coldwater setup and the main tank is 70 Gallons. The sump will be hopefully putting through 1000 G /Hr and will be ~ 40G in volume.

AS11.jpg
The actual unit I would design would probably look nothing like this however I used this picture to illustrate what I am eluding to.

Thanks for your input.
Maxx

AS11.jpg
 
No doubt it will work at reducing nitrates and phosphates. So will water changes. In Sw the added expense of salt makes a turf scrubber more attractive.
 
Mgamer20o0 said:
i am a fw so i am not up with the idea.... so its just a light on some material meant to grow algae to help clean the water some?
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Essentially yes.
 
jpappy789 said:
Seems like, as Subrosa put, more WC's would do the exact same thing...as would planting the main tank heavily and stuffing the refugium with some moss. Don't think it could hurt though...
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It will also provide greater gas exchange due to increasing the air water interface's surface area. Whether that increased exchange is good or bad would depend on the system in question.
 
Hi
The advantage to FW is there is a much greater choice of types of plants compared to SW "ideal" would be something that grows VERY rapidly
so absorbed nutrients can be removed Anubias ,Java moss and ferns will grow very well on the screen but are slow compared to say duckweed
water sprite . Better than WC ??? I don't know the tremendous advantage to water changes is, besides dilution you're also putting various elements back into the water than just removing or altering them. IMO nothing compares to WC the more the better as long as you have good water quality. This also would be even more true with SW IF you had a source of seawater. gary
 
garyfla said:
"ideal" would be something that grows VERY rapidly
so absorbed nutrients can be removed Anubias ,Java moss and ferns will grow very well on the screen but are slow compared to say duckweed
water sprite .
Click to expand...

I would want a local form of duckweed to keep the tank darker (less light getting to the bottom) so that sounds like the right path although I may relegate most of my flora to the refugium or at least try to.

Frequent water changes are a must, however From the few articles I have read a Algae scrubber may help lower Nitrates and Ammonia to zero (along with frequent Water changes) and keep them there. Plus it may also prevent the growth of algae in the Display tank as all access nutrients, Nitrates and ammonia would be consumed by the plants growing in the refugium and on the screen. Either way I might try it during the initial cycle to see if it would affect water chemistry significantly. Doesn't seem like there is much on FW setups but it seems straight forward. It can't hurt to have extra biological filtration.
 
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