Turf scrubber with no algae

[brainreefspine]

Hi all, Just ordered a Santa Monica Surf4x algae turf scrubber to manage nitrates and phosphates. I have buildup on the glass requiring scraping once or twice a week, but I’ve never had any hair algae in the tank. Do I need to seed the scrubber with anything?
Tank is about 9mo old

 

[TX_REEF]

You can try removing the scrubber mesh and give it a roughing up with coarse sandpaper and then of course rinse off the plastic shavings. This helped me get algae to take hold in my scrubber.

 

[larreef]

So if you don’t have any sort of algae issue, why buy a scrubber???

 

[larreef]

It doesn’t miraculously grow gha

 

[brainreefspine]

So if you don’t have any sort of algae issue, why buy a scrubber???

Nitrate and phosphate control

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi all, Just ordered a Santa Monica Surf4x algae turf scrubber to manage nitrates and phosphates. I have buildup on the glass requiring scraping once or twice a week, but I’ve never had any hair algae in the tank. Do I need to seed the scrubber with anything?
Tank is about 9mo old

You can place a piece of chaeto or algae to seed it but you should not have to. Some scrubbers take a few weeks to culture algae but I was not impressed with mine and went to an Ice Cap unit

 

[brainreefspine]

It doesn’t miraculously grow gha

Right but is there a microscopic presence of gha which will take off in the scrubber or do I have to seed it?