Cheap DIY enclosed algae scrubber

[lion king]

I have 5 display tanks, and I'm known to feed my fish well and have meat eating live food eating predators. I employ many algae managements tools including algae reactors, nopox, export, and refugiums. I have a problem child tank and wanted to add a algae scrubber, I didn't have the room or the patience to do one under the tank. I wanted a stand alone unit that would provide easy maintenance, but just could not bring myself to spending $400-500. I built this one for under $100(total value), I had most of the parts in my fish room, the most expensive part was the lights($65 for the pair). This light: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XBWT79K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

1st I took a Petco $10 = 10g aquarium, cut a hole for a 1" drain. Painted the thing black and used this bulkhead: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008UR9092/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
1" flex hose as drain; 3/4" flex hose for return to a fitting I found at Lowe's, it easily disconnects to allow to pull the screen out for easy maintenance. I used a couple of heater clamps screwed into the inside of the top rim of the tank to secure the spray bar.

I'm using an eheim compact plus 3000 pump dialed down to about 500gph. The screen size is 16"x10".
The last pic is after one week, so it looks like it's working.

 

[Larry L]

Wow, that's a serious scrubber! Looks good, keep us posted on how it works.

 

[tgp4274]

looks great and def a good idea!!!!!!
let know how looks down road
good job

 

[JMetaxas]

How's this going?

 

[lion king]

How's this going?

Thanks for asking, this thing works perfectly. I have friends that run 2 of the most popular manufacturered models, and this compares exactly. Want to save hundreds of hundreds, it really was an easy diy.

 

[Fr4nkthet4nk]

How many gallons is your main display?

 

[lion king]

How many gallons is your main display?

180g, it's a high load aggressive tank and I' running everything to control it. The screen is 10x15 which is larger than other scrubbers rated for 400g or more. I prefer reactors but didn't think about making a large one, I run reactors on 3 other tanks.

 

[Gary G]

Do you think this size would be over kill for a 75 gallon?

 

[lion king]

Do you think this size would be over kill for a 75 gallon?

For a 75g I'd use an algae reactor. I put together this before marine depot was selling the package: https://www.marinedepot.com/AquaMaxx_Algae_Reactor_Package_-AquaMaxx-UJ5355-FIFRAS-vi.html
I also put together this one for about $80-90: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brs-reactor-algae-reactor.319128/
Either of these reactors would be a good addition for a 75g; reactors are easy maintenance and are dead silent. In a scrubber as the algae grows the water path changes and you are always messing with water fall noise. Scrubbers can also be tricky getting the flow/drain dialed in, as well as cleaning them I find to be a pita. The reactors are easy to harvest 1/2 the macro once a month. I'm finding I may be able to get the supplies needed to make a super huge reactor for this tank, when I do I'll scrap the scrubber.
I run reactors on 2 90g and the nitrates settle around 10-15 with phosphates being undetectable.

 

[Gary G]

I think that will work better than trying to fit another big thing under the tank.

 

[tgp4274]

so how this running??

 

[lion king]

so how this running??

The thing ran great until the day I ditched it for a large algae reactor. Scrubbers no matter how great they run, are a pita.

I added 2 tweeks that made it run even better. I added a hard airline tubing into the drain, this provided venting to help dial in the flow. I built a platform out of eggcrate to support a piece of screen horizontally at the water line, this diffused the water fall noise.

 

[ReefSlice]

Sorry to bump an old thread... But did the algae reactor perform as well as the scrubber on your tank? I'm debating a reactor vs. a scrubber for a 150, and would much rather go the reactor route if I can.

 

[b4tn]

Brilliant! I have made a few DIY scrubbers and always wanted a fully enclosed one to keep the light contained. Never could come up with a good idea so ended up buying one of the expensive ones. This looks nice.

 

[QuarantinedCorals]

I have 5 display tanks, and I'm known to feed my fish well and have meat eating live food eating predators. I employ many algae managements tools including algae reactors, nopox, export, and refugiums. I have a problem child tank and wanted to add a algae scrubber, I didn't have the room or the patience to do one under the tank. I wanted a stand alone unit that would provide easy maintenance, but just could not bring myself to spending $400-500. I built this one for under $100(total value), I had most of the parts in my fish room, the most expensive part was the lights($65 for the pair). This light:

1st I took a Petco $10 = 10g aquarium, cut a hole for a 1" drain. Painted the thing black and used this bulkhead:
1" flex hose as drain; 3/4" flex hose for return to a fitting I found at Lowe's, it easily disconnects to allow to pull the screen out for easy maintenance. I used a couple of heater clamps screwed into the inside of the top rim of the tank to secure the spray bar.

I'm using an eheim compact plus 3000 pump dialed down to about 500gph. The screen size is 16"x10".
The last pic is after one week, so it looks like it's working.

I applaud you on your craftiness, looks amazing and works well! I have one question that I know will bother me if I don’t ask, what’s the screen for? I’m going to set up a 150-180 gallon display tank plus sump so I’ll have at least 180 gallons of water volume, I was thinking of just using one of my sump chambers as a refugium, this gave me the idea to make an external refugium but still have it be connected to my sump. So the way I’m thinking of doing this is, my tank will will be 6 feet long so I will have around 6 feet of sump space, this being said I want to fit a chiller and a sump under my stand and now I’d like to include this into my sump design, I was thinking of getting a 40-50 gallon sump to house my draining system, protein skimmer, refugium for chaeto and pods, and my return pump. I want to put my chiller next to my sump, next to the chiller I want to replicate what you made as a scrubber, but my question is what does the scrubber do that the refugium won’t do? Can’t I just grow all kinds of algae in the scrubber you made as well as macros? Or will they just grow over each other and make a disgusting ball of mixed algae’s? My last question is, do you think having a refugium built in one of my sump chambers plus this scrubber will be overkill? So sorry for the long message!

 

[scottedontknow]

Holy crap I’ve found my next project!!! Very, very well done!!!!!!!!

 

[Larry L]

I bet it would work even better if it was painted white instead of black, to reflect more of the light around inside.

 

[WallyB]

WOW. That is a monster of a scrubber.

How's it running.
I also built my own, but built it into my Sump. (Used blue/red leds)
It was a Algae Factor for many months. Then I guess it did it's job and barely grows any algae anymore.
DT is Algae free, but nitrates and phosphates are still up there N=25, P=0.3.
I had to use GFO to get P down to 0.1

 

[Reef-junky]

I applaud you on your craftiness, looks amazing and works well! I have one question that I know will bother me if I don’t ask, what’s the screen for? I’m going to set up a 150-180 gallon display tank plus sump so I’ll have at least 180 gallons of water volume, I was thinking of just using one of my sump chambers as a refugium, this gave me the idea to make an external refugium but still have it be connected to my sump. So the way I’m thinking of doing this is, my tank will will be 6 feet long so I will have around 6 feet of sump space, this being said I want to fit a chiller and a sump under my stand and now I’d like to include this into my sump design, I was thinking of getting a 40-50 gallon sump to house my draining system, protein skimmer, refugium for chaeto and pods, and my return pump. I want to put my chiller next to my sump, next to the chiller I want to replicate what you made as a scrubber, but my question is what does the scrubber do that the refugium won’t do? Can’t I just grow all kinds of algae in the scrubber you made as well as macros? Or will they just grow over each other and make a disgusting ball of mixed algae’s? My last question is, do you think having a refugium built in one of my sump chambers plus this scrubber will be overkill? So sorry for the long message!

The screen is what you grow the algae on. You run water over it like a water fall. It works better then a refugium.