Introducing the new Turbo Algae Scrubber! (Rev 4)

[c-horse]

I received mine and have it setted up. Here is a picture of it sitting over my sump.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Light fixtures are upside down!! The cords need to all come out of the bottom. The LED boards are off-center vertically so you can't flip them over.

Edit: well....you CAN....

 

[Joshky]

Can't wait to get mine. Hope you had a great trip!

 

[Jlentz]

Got my rio1100 pump and it's all good to go now. I'm going to put a ball valve in the feed side to tune it back a little bit but other than that it's good to go. I'll try to post up some growth shots as it progresses.

 

[abinder]

Got my rio1100 pump and it's all good to go now. I'm going to put a ball valve in the feed side to tune it back a little bit but other than that it's good to go. I'll try to post up some growth shots as it progresses.

Do you notice much noise coming from it?


Allen

 

[Jlentz]

It's a bit louder than I'd hoped but way less annoying than the air pump and bubbles on my drop scrubber.

I'm also ocd about noise.

It sounds like a little waterfall, I'm running a rio 1100 on it with no valve, I'm going to get one to cut back the flow a bit this weekend. After tuning the output valve it's really pretty quiet.

 

[abinder]

It's a bit louder than I'd hoped but way less annoying than the air pump and bubbles on my drop scrubber.

I'm also ocd about noise.

It sounds like a little waterfall, I'm running a rio 1100 on it with no valve, I'm going to get one to cut back the flow a bit this weekend. After tuning the output valve it's really pretty quiet.

Now if I could only figure out where to put it in my stand and over my sump.


Allen

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

@abinder got a pic of your sump/stand area?

 

[abinder]

Here are some photos of the sump.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Whew, yeah that's a busy one. Not much room in there

 

[Lowell Lemon]

Love the scrubber and the development! Wishing you well on the launch! You may need to hire in the near future...the price of success.

 

[abinder]

Whew, yeah that's a busy one. Not much room in there

Yea.
That's why I was asking if it had to be higher than the sump. I have about a 15" x 14" area available under the stand to the right of the sump. (That's where I use to have my chiller before I put it outside the stand.)


Allen

 

[cono]

So how is the list going I was sure I was in the first round

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

You are, I just haven't gotten to the last half of the first 25 units yet. However the good news is that the next 2 evenings and all weekend are actually, really and totally clear for me to work on scrubbers. So you'll be getting an email from me soon @cono!

 

[c-horse]

Thanks Bud! I have corrected it.

Light fixtures are upside down!! The cords need to all come out of the bottom. The LED boards are off-center vertically so you can't flip them over.

Edit: well....you CAN....

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

I revised this statement below to add L8 and L16 into the offer, and clarify the details a bit, any revisions/updates will be kept up to date here:

https://support.turbosaquatics.com/...cles/special-offer-for-l4-l8-and-l16-waitlist

Notice to everyone on the L4 list:

The molds are going to take longer to make than I anticipated - I was shooting for mid-april release, but the molds are large enough and complex enough (I guess) that it is going to take almost another month to make them compared to what it took to make the L2 molds. I didn't expect that. So now I'm looking at a late May release date, and I'll leave the possibility of early June on the table so that I don't have to make this kind of announcement again.

Because of that, I'm considering an alternative offer to those who don't want to (or can't) wait that long.

Turbo L2 Performance Guarantee (L4 Waitlist)

Condition 1: You must be in the CONUS (Lower 48 states of the US). If you are international, I can still ship you the L2 but I can't offer the swap out due to the expense of shipping (both for you and me, unless you're really OK with that); for international, you would have to sell the L2 yourself and buy the L4 (but I would work with you on the shipping)

Condition 2: You have to currently be on the L4 waiting list, but I'm a little flexible on this. If you are not "officially" on the list, or are just reading this, and were really thinking about/wanting an L4 or I would recommend or have recommended an L4 based on your tank setup, I'll take care of you. This also applies to anyone to whom I have already said "I think you might need an L4 but might be able to get away with an L2" etc...

The Guarantee:

If you purchase an L2 (Rev 4 only) it will come with a performance guarantee that says basically if you don't feel it is quite "cutting the mustard" for you after 3 to 6 months of use, I'll credit you back the full purchase price (not including shipping) and apply that towards an L4. You would just have to pay for the difference (in this case, that's $549 - $399 = $150, no additional shipping for the L4) and then pay to ship the L2 back to me.

Any of my existing customers can tell you that when it comes to service, I try to bend over backwards. When it comes to deficiencies, I'm like a frickin gymnast. For example, when I first started making these, I sold Eheim Compact 1000 pumps to about 25 people that turned out to not be good enough (long term head loss was horrible) so I shipped everyone who purchased one of those a Rio 1100 on my dime (free pump, free shipping). When I realized that the Schedule 40 PVC pipe was translucent enough to allow algae to grow inside the pipe (not a problem with CFL or T5) I replaced everyone's pipes with electrical Sched 40 (then switched to Schedule 80 for better resistance to slot pinching). More recently, the power supply I had selected for use with my custom LED driver turned out to be a super cheap piece of junk so I replaced ~30 power supplies with a Meanwell on my dime (no cost, no shipping, even international). Bottom line is that I take care of my customers. It might take me a while, but I do it.

This is my goal with this Performance Guarantee - to take care of my customers. If you take me up on this offer, you may find that the L2 does just fine in their systems, which will result in you saving money!

Please post or PM if you are interested in taking me up on this. If you are on the L4 waitlist, I'll be contacting you directly via PM or email.

Thanks
Bud

 

[fab]

What do you expect this will mean for us L8 and L16 holdouts?

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

The way I had the part designed, the L8 and L16 will only have 2 different parts: The J-channels (that hold/guide the light fixtures) and the removable end caps. So those are not complex, but so far all the effort has gone into the design of the growth chamber which is distinctly different. So that's a non answer!

The L8 and L16 specific parts will be quick to model and manufacture so I expect those 2 units to be right behind the L4, just a few weeks behind. The killer there is that due to a flub up on the part of my heat sink manufacturer, who threw away 40+ feet of perfectly good heat sinks by accident (ones that were supposed to be cut into 4' lengths for me to have on hand for larger unit prototypes) still requires a 1000 lb minimum run otherwise the costs are ridiculous, so I have to pop for that as well, but as it turns out, that's what I kind of need anyways, and the timing of the two actually lines up. So I expect the L8 and L16 to be available in the beginning of June.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

...but if you were referring to the Performance Guarantee (that just dawned on me)...if you want an L8 or L16 I'm about 95% sure that an L2 is not going to cut it for you, but I'm good with the same deal except for the shipping - I can't say for sure but worst case I would split that with you so if it normally would be $60, it would be $30, etc (you pay the cost difference + 50% shipping for L8/16, and pay to ship L2 back to me)

 

[Steve Maxwell]

Any word on instructions that can be printed out...for us old-timers