Lowest cost and easiest way to eliminate green hair, bubble, turf and slime algae from your aquarium

[SantaMonica]

Great to hear you like the info and the concepts

I don't have a category forum, but I do have my sponsor forum here:
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/santa-monica.695/

 

[SantaMonica]

Wow the last couple posts got their years mixed up, and the last 3 years of ideas posts seems to be missing. Anyway, the basic categories are waterfall, upflow, and horizontal river. Probably will depend on your space available, and your desired method of harvesting.

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

What is Periphyton?

Periphyton is what turns your rocks different colors. You know... the white rocks you started with in SW, or the grey rocks (or brown wood) you started with in FW. After several months or years, the rocks become a variety of different colors and textures. Why? Because the periphyton that has grown on it is a mix of different living things, of different colors, and thicknesses. And the important part is: It is LIVING.

That's right: The colored stuff that has coated your rocks is all living organisms. Sponges, microbes, algae, cyano, biofilms, and of course coralline. After all, "peri" means "around the outside", and "phyto" means "plant". Ever slipped in a slippery puddle? That's probably periphyton that made it slippery. It's a very thin coating on the rocks, sometimes paper thin.

There is a lot of photosynthetic organisms in periphyton, and this of course means that they need light; but they need nutrients too (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate). And as you might figure, they will be on the lighted portions of the rocks. And they will grow to intercept food particles in the water, based on the water flow. Just think about how sponges orient their holes for water flow; the micro sponges in periphyton do it too but on a tiny scale.

What about under the rocks, in the dark areas? Well these periphyton don't get light, so they are primarily filter feeders. So they REALLY grow and position themselves to be able to intercept food particles. And they don't really need to fight off algae, because algae does not grow in the dark, so they have no need for anti-algae tactics like plants in illuminated areas have.

Reef studies have shown that at certain depths, more of the filtering of the water comes from periphyton and benthic algae than comes from the phytoplankton which filters the deeper water. And in streams, almost all the filtering is done by periphyton. So, what you have on rocks that are "mature" or "established" is a well-developed layer of periphyton; and all the things that comes from it.

This is why mandarin fish can eat directly off the rocks of an "established" tank (tons of pods grow in the periphyton), but not on the rocks of a new tank. Or why some animals can lay their eggs on established rocks, but not new ones. Or why established tanks seem to "yo-yo" less than new ones. Even tangs can eat periphyton directly when it's thick enough. Yes periphyton can also develop on the sand, but since the sand is moved around so much, the periphyton does not get visible like it does on rocks. So thick periphyton on established rocks is your friend. And totally natural too. Keep in mind though I'm not referring to nuisance algae on rocks; I'm only referring to the very-thin layer of coloring that coats the rocks.

But what happens when you "scrape the stuff off your rocks"? Well you remove some of the periphyton, which means you remove some of your natural filter and food producer. What if you take the rocks out and scrub them? Well now you not only remove more of your natural filter and food producer, but the air is going to kill even more of the microscopic sponges in it. And what if you bleach the rocks? Well, goodbye all filtering and food producing for another year. It's an instant reduction of the natural filtering that the periphyton was providing.

However, what if you just re-arrange the rocks? Well, some of the periphyton that was in the light, now will be in the dark; so this part will die. And some of the periphyton that was in the dark will now be in the light, so it will not be able to out-compete photosynthetic growth and thus will be covered and die too. And even if the light stays the same, the direction and amount of water flow (and food particles) will change; sponges that were oriented to get food particles from one direction will now starve. So since the light and food supply is cut off, the filtering that the periphyton was providing stops almost immediately, due only to the re-arranging of the rocks.

Starvation takes a little longer. The periphyton organisms won't die immediately, since they have some energy saved up; but instead, they will wither away over several weeks. So on top of the instant reduction in filtering that you get by just moving the rocks, you get a somewhat stretched-out period of nutrients going back into the water. And after all this, it takes another long period of time for the periphyton to build up to the levels it was at before: 1 to 2 years. Even changing the direction of a powerhead will affect the food particle supply in the area it used to be pointed at.

So a good idea is to try to keep everything the same. Pick your lighting, flow, layout, and try to never move or change anything. It's a different way of thinking, but you should have a stronger natural filter and food producer because of it.

 

[SantaMonica]

Here are some upflow layout designs to give you DIY ideas of what might fit your tank or ability to better. As you can see it is fairly easy to work with air bubbles, compared to water flow. But of course you will still need lights, one way or another.

The screens are shown as roughed-up plastic canvas, but can also be epoxied gravel.


Simple upflow screen:

Attach to glass:

Bubble remover:

Attach to glass, with compartment:

Attach to glass, small:

Hang on back:

Collector:

Floating:

 

[knukles55]

question for you guys Im currently going through a GHA problem in my display. that said ive tried macro algaes before and have never succeeded keeping them alive. this said should I try an algae scrubber even if I cant keep macros alive in my sump . should the scrubber keep the display clean of GHA. I currently have a air pump and screen I can experiment with thank you all for your input.

 

[SantaMonica]

Here are some scrubber results I collected:

"[Scrubber] is working incredible well. Went from constant algae outbreaks (3-4 per year), to no algae at all. 10 yr old 250 gal reef tank, started developing blooms at year 7. Nothing else worked, even breakdown and rebuilds." -- Joe Lopez

"I recent removed bio-pellets, GFO, and trimmed off a lot of macro algae. Oh yeah, overfeeding now to try and bring up my phosphates. Since removing a bunch of nutrient exporting systems like bio-pellets, GFO, and a second algae scrubber, my [scrubber] has been growing nuts. It's been less then 7 days and I have to remove more. People are surprised when I open up the [scrubber] and show them what I pull out with one hand" -- ReeferEric on the R2R site. pics:

"I pull a handful out every week" -- Choff on the R2R site.

"Everything is working great, got two of them on my system" -- Kenneth Salomon

Dan Budz:

"The [scrubber] is working well" -- JT Powell

"All I can say about the [scrubber] is WoW. It completely wiped out my severe case of Cyano Bacteria in 4 weeks, it is working like a champ. I was a little skeptical that it would work at first because it's very compact, but I am completely amazed on how great it's working." -- John Quezada

"My [scrubber] is working great" -- Stefan Kolev

"Happy to report that the [scrubber] is growing lots of hair algae" -- Kidtango on the R2R site

"[Scrubber] is growing thick and fast" -- Carl Knowles

"Boom... 7 days growth from my [scrubber]" -- rdevoe11, pic:

Other pics:

Matthew Coulthard:

Nicolay Oganesian:

Yuppy Suhandinata:

 

[SantaMonica]

Your macros maybe did not have enough light, or flow. Tumbling it would help too.

Several posts ago there was a DIY video... try that one.

 

[SantaMonica]

Coming in 2016:
Waterfall algae scrubber
Version 2

After I invented the waterfall scrubber in 2008, it's great that so many people got to DIY it, and it's also great that lots of builders/sellers used it as their design up until the current day. It's had over 7 years to gather hobbyists.

2012 was a good year though, when I introduced the upflow scrubber. It's only had 3 years to gather hobbyists, but offers them what they did not have before: a compact place where they can put a scrubber that does not spill over when it fills up.

Now that the upflows are established, it's time to do some more work on the waterfalls. They've been unchanged since 2008, and almost every part of them can be improved. So over the next year or two I'll post up the improvements piece by piece. Hopefully the improvements will be useful to all.

 

[ss95003]

Did something stop you from selling "your design from 2008"? I've seen you post that exact statement many times. If you choose not to sell it I don't see why that statement needs to be made over and over. But I do wish you luck in your two year upgrade.

 

[knukles55]

O nice...

 

[SantaMonica]

I did sell many of them for two years.

 

[SantaMonicaHelp]

Cleaning Off Slime On New Scrubbers

When scrubbers are new, they will almost always first develop a slimey first layer of growth. This is because diatoms and dino's, which make up most of the slime, are the quickest to be able to "colonize" a new surface, sort of like weeds in a new garden.

This slime layer will not get any thicker, however, because slime cannot attach well (it has no "roots") to the growth surfaces of the scrubber, and thus will get washed away when it gets thick, Also, it prevents green hair algae from attaching because of the slippery texture of the slime.

So when your scrubber is new, be sure to take it to the sink and use a toothbrush to clean all the slime off of the growth surfaces so you can see all white surfaces again. You could clean it while still in your tank if you don't mind the slime particles floating around, but most people would probably do better to take it to the sink (or outside; slime makes great fertilizer). Slime, especially when dark or black, is also an indicator that you can use more watts or hours of light.

Once you have cleaned off the slime for one or more growth periods, you should start seeing green hair algae take hold.

~SF

 

[whatchamacallit]

I'm looking to get one of your scrubbers, kinda confused on which one to get though. My tank is under 40 gallons and a mixed reef with at max 5 fish when I get to that point. What do you recommend?

 

[SantaMonica]

The short answer is probably a HOG1 or SURF2 or DROP1.2

Main difference is how you want to clean. Here is more size info:
http://www.santa-monica.cc/Which-one_p_63.html

 

[SantaMonica]

PowerPoint presentation for clubs, schools, etc., to learn the basics of scrubbers:

http://www.algaescrubber.net/AlgaeScrubbers.pps