Algae scrubber when space is limited

[jattinella]

My under-cabinet space was limited and didn't have room for an algae scrubber situated above my sump. I made a scrubber that mounts in the pump and uses an air pump to carry water across it. It has been working well. I 3D printed the enclosure, used some strong magnets to hold it to the sump glass, some silicone air tubing, and plastic mesh to hold the growing algae. This takes up minimal space in my sump and is easy to clean. I do have a spash guard on top of the sump in that area since there is some salt creep due to the air bubbles breaking the surface of the sump water.

 

[Fish Fan]

Nice build!

 

[SantaMonica]

Good DIY. The purpose of the bubbles is not really to move water though, it's to give a turbulent air/water interface on the screen. You can test this by using a water pump instead of bubbles, and the growth will be very slow.

 

[jattinella]

Good DIY. The purpose of the bubbles is not really to move water though, it's to give a turbulent air/water interface on the screen. You can test this by using a water pump instead of bubbles, and the growth will be very slow.

Thanks for the additional info. I will not bother testing it; I will take you word for it. :)

 

[guiwood]

Hi, how is this working? Can you tell me how you protected the magnets to be underwater? And which air pump did you use?

 

[jattinella]

Hi, how is this working? Can you tell me how you protected the magnets to be underwater? And which air pump did you use?

I am using an Eheim 100 air pump, but I would suspect most any air pump would work. I put epoxy in the "socket" area for the magnets before setting them in and I made sure to coat to top of the magnets with a layer of epoxy. I have been using it for months now and no signs of rust. In addition to the algae growing on the mesh, some also grows on the sump glass where the light shines through. I clean that when I clean the scrubber mesh. It's not a lot that grows on the glass. It is working well; the following picture I took today, after 10 days of growth. I am not having any significant algae problems in my display tank. I do get an occasional clump of hair algae appear in the display tank I remove it before it spreads.

BTW I have a separate thread talking about my battle with Dinos. They are not in my display tank any longer, but when I look at that brown algae in the scrubber under a microscope, I still see Dinos, but the are dead and there are lots of smaller organisms swimming all around them. They must be still breeding but not living long. I am not sure when and if I will ever see then completely disappear, however at least they are not causing a problem in my display tank.

 

[guiwood]

Great, thanks! I think I will try doing something similar. I guess the lights leak a little bit on the sump glass, right? And did you upload the stls anywhere?

What about sound? Does the bubbling sound bother you?

 

[jattinella]

Great, thanks! I think I will try doing something similar. I guess the lights leak a little bit on the sump glass, right? And did you upload the stls anywhere?

What about sound? Does the bubbling sound bother you?

Yes, the lights leak on the sump glass but that does not seem to cause any problem. Yes, I do hear the bubbles which is noticeable but not too distracting. The cabinet is in my TV/family room. I do have sound-proofing foam pads on the inside of the cabinet which helps quite a bit. I just uploaded the stl files to my Aquarium Monitor github project under the folder /Print3D/AquariumStuff . Not really related to the aquarium monitor but it's a convenient place for me to store them. There is just one file for the enclosure, and one for the rods that hold the mesh in place. I included the FreeCad "source" files in case you want to modify them (and if you know how to use FreeCad). FYI the light I am using was purchased on amazon: Grow Light

 

[strich]

Curious, given the size, if just having a light over the whole sump and some macro algae wouldn't do a lot better job?

 

[PPBlimpy]

very nice! looks like it is working nicely!!

I just started running one I recently designed and printed. Mounts on top of my 10G sump.

Like your tank, space was limited

 

[jattinella]

Curious, given the size, if just having a light over the whole sump and some macro algae wouldn't do a lot better job?

In a previous sump, I did have macro algae and I light over a chamber devoted to the refugium (and that worked fairly well). This sump has much less room mainly since I am using a filter roller now and before I used filter socks. The scrubber currently fits in the chamber that has my protein skimmer. I don't want a light over the entire sump since that would allow algae to grow on my equipment. If my sump was bigger and had more chambers I would consider macro algae. The following show my sump and the size constraints.

 

[exnisstech]

I run a Santa Monica surf 4x that grows tang food. It used an air pump similar to your diy. I wanted to run a cryptic zone so I needed one that didn't have much light spill so the floating surf scrubber fit the bill
Tangs eat this stuff like spaghetti