Turf scrubber only growing slime algae?

[Miami Reef]

Won’t work

How do you know?

 

[VintageReefer]

Correction. Meant to say, Almost never works. You most likely won’t be able to use turf to seed a scrubber.

I have two tanks. One has an established scrubber. Second tank I added a scrubber. Same brand. Same internal leds. I tried to seed with turf from the edtsblished scrubber, put in the new one, it died in a few days. Tried again. Same results. Contacted Santa Monica, probably one of the most experienced out there for growing algae and scrubbers, he confirmed and said it’s highly unlikely to work and the scrubber needs to build its own colony

If all you grow is slime and you are cleaning it out to bare internals and it keeps growing slime then the scrubber is likely undersized / underpowered

Slime should be a phase and not permanent.

 

[VintageReefer]

How do you know?

Experience and consulting with experts

 

[VintageReefer]

There’s hundreds of species of turf each with their own strains. The number of variations is likely in the thousands.

Just because one grows in scrubber / tank A does not mean it will thrive in scrubber / tank b.

The scrubber will grow turf from dormant spores in your system. There are a number of ways to beat the slime phase, this is a living filter and it’s more complex at first compared to a skimmer. You have to work through the slime phase and may need to alter lighting schedule, flow, cleaning schedule etc

The slime grows faster at first and the slime prevents the turf spores from rooting. You need to remove the slime and prevent it to allow the turf to establish

Slime is also the most nutrient dense form of algae out there. It’s not a bad thing. It’s removing more nutrients than the turf would. But, it’s a pain to clean and not a chore we want long term. The turf is quick and easy to harvest and still more nutrient dense than hair or chaeto

 

[Miami Reef]

I only had my scrubber on for 2 weeks

I don’t like my results. I have nutrients, dose a lot of trace elements, have strong lights, and good flow.

Not sure what else I can do.

 

[VintageReefer]

Takes 4-6 weeks for the turf colony to form in my experience

2 weeks and you are just in the ugly stage.

 

[Miami Reef]

Takes 4-6 weeks for the turf colony to form in my experience

2 weeks and you are just in the ugly stage.

Do I scrape it at all during the 4-6 weeks or completely leave it alone?

 

[Garf]

Not sure what else I can do.

Clean the screen, rinse and restart, it can take a while;

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/sho...m-the-uk-day-one&p=29244&viewfull=1#post29244

 

[VintageReefer]

Do I scrape it at all during the 4-6 weeks or completely leave it alone?

If it’s slime you clean it off completely and see what regrows. If slime grows again, scrub clean again and repeat

Leaving slime will stall the process and prevent any advancement

 

[twentyleagues]

Correction. Meant to say, Almost never works. You most likely won’t be able to use turf to seed a scrubber.

I have two tanks. One has an established scrubber. Second tank I added a scrubber. Same brand. Same internal leds. I tried to seed with turf from the edtsblished scrubber, put in the new one, it died in a few days. Tried again. Same results. Contacted Santa Monica, probably one of the most experienced out there for growing algae and scrubbers, he confirmed and said it’s highly unlikely to work and the scrubber needs to build its own colony

If all you grow is slime and you are cleaning it out to bare internals and it keeps growing slime then the scrubber is likely undersized / underpowered

Slime should be a phase and not permanent.

This blows my mind. I mean thats how you start a fuge, Right? Take the macro you want in the tank and put it there. It doesnt always work with all macros but the majority of the time it does. I'm not saying its not true.

 

[Nor'easter Reefer]

I was only growing slime at first but followed @VintageReefer advice and have lush green turf growing now. Little bit of slime still but actively transitioning from slime to turf

 

[Garf]

I was only growing slime at first but followed @VintageReefer advice and have lush green turf growing now. Little bit of slime still but actively transitioning from slime to turf

So you scrubbed it, not scraped it?

 

[BryanM]

I’m trying again and so far it’s just the slime algae. I’m half convinced the turf needs to be introduced to the tank. I might try buying a piece of turf and gluing it to the scrubber.

It took 6, maybe 8 weeks, before I got good growth.

18hrd a day, with half the lights blocked by the cloth they sent with the unit.

 

[Nor'easter Reefer]

So you scrubbed it, not scraped it?

I had good, clean growth in a few areas and left that alone, when I did my water change i took a brush and scrubbed out the slime in a bucket of old saltwater

 

[UncommonSense]

Many years ago, I ran a DIY double lit waterfall ATS… call me crazy, but I just cleaned it by blasting off one side with a garden hose weekly for several years!

In retrospect, this seems like a horrible idea… But, my ATS consistently grew thick green turf algae…

Could there be something to this? Or was I just lucky?

 

[exnisstech]

I run two surf units and after 6 months to a year of doing great they started to produce little in the way of useful algae and was mostly some slime. At the advice of @VintageReefer I started dosing Chaetogro and they have both taken back off.
This is less than a weeks growth in the surf 2 that floats in a 40g breeder.

This is why I call it useful algae. All of my tangs love it.

 

[Garf]

Could there be something to this? Or was I just lucky?

Tap water worked well for me.

 

[kyreefville]

And here I was perfectly content growing what I now know as subpar algae. Ignorance is bliss! Not sure I can start working on trying to grow that prettier algae. My algae looks like yours. I get big mats of it and clean it every 2-3 weeks by scraping off most of it with a knife into a bucket. I then go through that mess in the bucket to find beneficial life and toss it back in tank. Thus far the ugly alge seems to be exporting nutrients out of the tank and my cuc is able to keep the rest in check.

 

[JHSteepat]

I have a Santa Monica unit that grew ugly brown/black slime for over a year and my tank was a hair/turf algae wasteland. The scrubber couldn’t compete with the display’s growth. I bought a knitting screen, attached 4 small zip tie loops at one end to hang the screen, roughed up the screen, added some Marco rock adhesive and replaced the original screen which was crumbling. Things were improving a little and then I replenished my cleanup crew.

I guess nutrients are now going mostly to the scrubber because I am getting rich macroalgae growth, with most of the algae and cyano gone from the display. Someone above had a pic of the same stuff. Not turf algae but looks more like chaeto growing on a surface.

My Tomini tang spits it out, but it eats nothing green as far as I can tell.

 

[VintageReefer]

This blows my mind. I mean thats how you start a fuge, Right? Take the macro you want in the tank and put it there. It doesnt always work with all macros but the majority of the time it does. I'm not saying its not true.

It’s crazy. And I was told it wouldn’t work. I tried anyway. And it failed both times. From same household. Same brand scrubber. Same internals just different size. And it didn’t work. The nano tank scrubber ended up growing a similar but different variation of turf. By itself

My slime phase was rough on that tank but I got through it with a bunch of repeated cleanings in the beginning