Adaptive Reef Blade Hybrid Refugium & Algae Turf Reactor 16 - Testing & Thoughts

[SrNapp]

Bump for any progress? Still in use? Nitrates went down?

Sorry for delay, rarely check this since it's a one and done deal in terms of filtration.

Here's two three week example of algae growth. Yes it's still in use, it's a very low maintenance piece.

After over a year of use I think I can point out one (very small) flaw. I noticed my water output for the waterfall is not as strong as before meaning flow rate was reduced significantly. I suspect there's debris such as small strands of hair algae stick inside the assembly where the dozens of holes are which I can't get inside of. It might be possible to flush it out by using a sink and rushing water down from the top of the holes but require removing the whole assembly out which is extremely hard in the sump.

I'll try to use a plastic micro brush, something you use to clean small ports to see if I can twist and pull up anything.

Other than that it's all good. Once a month I pull the algae out , clean the black acrylic assembly to make it nice looking from the outside and clean the glass layer from the led top since it has salt creep on it like any other scrubber gets.

To this day it's still one of my lowest maintnance filtrations that simply works as is.

Here's a the progress of it today.
So much growth and there's actual signs of photosynthesis occuring with hundreds of micro bubbles manifesting from inside the algae.

 

[joshwaggs]

Still no response. I’ve left comments on videos, here on r2r, and on Facebook. I’ve left reviews mentioning it and I’ve used the customer service email they have. Nothing.

I just need to replace the plastic basket that the algae grows on. Having to flex it every time I pull it out has cracked it and now it is a serious pain to get it out, because it gets caught on the little nub hooks.

This thing is way too expensive to not get any support when needed.

 

[SrNapp]

Still no response. I’ve left comments on videos, here on r2r, and on Facebook. I’ve left reviews mentioning it and I’ve used the customer service email they have. Nothing.

I just need to replace the plastic basket that the algae grows on. Having to flex it every time I pull it out has cracked it and now it is a serious pain to get it out, because it gets caught on the little nub hooks.

This thing is way too expensive to not get any support when needed.

I heard about this, the company is pretty sketchy, they got rid of most of the CW scrubbers when they bought them out but the team behind it still makes them and even offer replacement parts and lamps.

For a $700 product it works great but def not worth

The santamonica guy offered to custom make a basket I'm not sure if he has done it for anyone else since last time he offered it here was over a year ago.

 

[SrNapp]

Measured my nitrates, its flat 0 with phosphates hovering at .5ppm meaning its overconsuming nitrates, I underestimated the nitrate export from this in a 90g total volume tank. Starting to regret not getting the 10 inch version especially since its shorter making it easier to pullout the basket and overall clean/scrape.

Turning it down to a less aggressive schedule of 10hrs based on a Sinusoidal of a max output of 75% on the V/RB/R LEDs

 

[SrNapp]

Haha that tank was at or near zero nitrates for years!! I didn’t do water changes for several years once the algae scrubber was up and running well; it did all my nutrient control for me!

The algae scrubber was run on a reverse photoperiod from my DT; 12hrs a day minimum, 18hrs a day max (once broken in)! It also helps that it was fed directly by my return pump in a three tank cascade!

Been a while, my nitrates pretty much hit near 0 as well and my xenia coral stop growing that I lowered my time to 10hrs reverse photoperiod to the DT. Since I also don't do water changes I rely on Sea Lab Nutrient Blocks, do you dose anything for trace elements specifically and do you dose nitrates as well.

 

[PPBlimpy]

Great write up! Just read thru your thread.
I switched from a macro algea chamber to an ATS years ago. Can't beat them. I can't justify the cash for an off the shelf unit so I made my own. like yours it works well.

Recently I have decided to revamp my sump / filtration
Go to be running a DIY fleece roller with 100 micron fleece, then back to running the First chamber in my sump as a Xenia refugium, They do a great job cleaning up the water, then ATS, then Skimmer and UV on one of the return lines.

 

[SrNapp]

Wanted to give an update that I forgot to mention, while my nitrates are bottom 0, over the last few months I noticed a large amount of cotton sized green hair algae appearing on my sand bed now, they grow in patches and unlike like a carpet. None are in the rockwork. I suspect the patches are absorbing mass amounts of phosphates slowly releasing from the sand bed.

Gonna dose Nitrate to see if i can boost the ppm of it slightly to absorb my phosphates at a steady pace. Phosphates are near .5ppm while nitrates are 0, highly suspect my scrubber did too much of a good job its stalling now. I reduced it to 12hrs and half the light and still seeing 0.

while yes I could use phosguard if the sand bed is slowly releasing phosphates I need a more natural solution to take care of it.

If anyone with a "Lazy" reef has experience dosing nitrates to combat phosphates and hair algae I'll appreciate advice.

 

[SrNapp]

Dosing nitrates at around little less than 1~ppm per day by hand before I plug it into my doser.morning and night doses one 5ml cap dose each im noticing my xenia corals are extending its branches a near inch longer now and the pom pom green hair algae bushes that resemble cotton balls slowly fading from the sand bed which is good. Every week I plan on ramping it up to get a 3ppm range and see how much I can reduce the scrubber from there. For a 90g volume tank what is the average daily dosing do you do with NeoNitro, I know that every tank is different due to bioload but what is the sweetspot for dosing and lowering the scrubber. My algae scrubber is set to 12hrs using a parabolic ramp up down schedule so it only sees peak red/blue light output for around 4hrs a day. I might set the parabolic to 10hrs but i'd like to know the average dosing before I ramp it down. Daily testing i'm still 0 nitrates but my phosphates dropped down to .3-.4 ranges over the week meaning the dosing is showing progress.