Mega-powerful Nitrate And Phosphate Remover Replaces Skimmer, Refugium

[rabbut]

As a marine "newbie" myself, in the process of setting up my first marine tank, I feel I would be the type of person you claim to be targeting with this idea, and TBH what started as looking like a good idea to me at the start of your OP was quickly overwelmed by a feeling of being pressure sold the idea arround half way down... It might well be an idea to go back to your OP and edit it to remove some "false truths" in it and re-word certain sections to avoid alianating some readers Change the tone a bit to one of a DIY project rather than a sales pitch

Back to the idea though....

It looks like it could work to me, though I'm strugling to see how it can be as efficient as claimed You're telling me that I only need 15 inches square of this turf algea to filter a 15g?... That does not sound enough to me (not though I know a great deal on this subject...) and these claims were where I started to become sceptical of the idea. I still heven't yet got my tank together yet, but if the other members need a "guinea pg" to test the idea on, I'm happy to step foreward, if everyone else can wait about 1-2months for my system to get off the ground. I already have the parts for this, but I haven't ordered the glass for the tank, or the lights for it yet, much less built the tank or fitted to lights to my cabinet All other equipment is now in place though, excluding the skimmer that you claim I can run a tank without using this method. To be fare, mebe I should test that be along side the idea

Being in-experienced with marines though, I'd like other members opinions on the likelyhood of this idea working before I try it with any livestock

All the best
Rabbut

 

[SantaMonica]

rabbut: Please state what false truth you found (copy and paste if you can), and I'll edit it. Yes, 15 square inches, lit brightly on both sides, with good flow (preferabley on-off-on), is more than enough.

johnny: I think i understand the type of reply/information you are looking for, and while my original post is not supposed to be technical (it's supposed to be readable by beginners), I can direct you to:

Dynamic Aquaria: Building Living Ecosystems, by Walter Aday and Karen Loveland, 1992
http/www.amazon.com/Dynamic-Aquaria-Buil...s/dp/0120437929

Crossland C. J. 1983.
Dissolved Nutrients In Coral Reef Waters. In: Perspectives on Coral Reefs, Barnes D. J., ed.

Algal Turf Scrubber, United States Patent 4333263:
http/www.freepatentsonline.com/4333263.html

Algal Turf Scrubber used in commercial/industrial applications:
http/www.hydromentia.com/Products-Servic...bber/index.html

Effects of Water Velocity on Phosphate Uptake in Coral Reef-Flat Communities, by M. J. Atkinson and R. W. Bilger, 1992 American Society of Limnology and Oceanography:

I only did secondary research of the above, not primary, so I cannot point you to exact passages. Here, however, are exact passages, comments, and personal experiences:

RC posts of research and personal use:
http/www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...64#post13102164

 

[andywg]

Algae turf scrubbers have been around a while, but I recall to get them to work to their best they should be a screen which has water tipped across the screen periodically via a tilting bucket filling up from the sump return. If you do this then the scrubber will use algae to pull out ammonia (and probably same as above) which will prevent nitrite and nitrate forming.

Diana Walsted's book has a number of details IIRC.

 

[rabbut]

If anybody has not yet hooked up their refugium or skimmer, or was just looking get rid of these things, then you might want to try one of these mega-powerful filters that I built. You build it with stuff laying around, and it can take as little as a few minutes, or up to a day. It will replace (or keep you from needing) a skimmer, refugium, phosphate removers, nitrate removers, carbon, filtersocks, and possibly even waterchanges.

The way I understand it is, that if you remove a Fudge, removal resins and/or skimmer or skim less, you need to up waterchanges to compensate. This algea removes Phosphate and Nitrate from what you are saying, but I remember someone saying it does not remove disolved organics in similar quantities to these other two chemicals? If this is the case, how can this thing eliminate waterchanges? Shurely one or other will build up to dangerous levels as they aren't being removed sufficiently quickly

Waterchanges themselves aren't always used for Nitrate and Phosphate removal are they? As mentioned a couple of times, they can also (more likely to be used for this apparently than the latter removal of Nitrate and Phosphate) be used to top-up menerals in the system that corals e.t.c remove over time? Again, how can this algea compensate for this mineral replacement when the algea itself has to use some other nutrients shorly?

I know there are mineral supliments available on the market, but are these realy any good for using instead of waterchanges? If so, why aren't they more commonly used to avoid waterchanges in the many tanks where Nitrate and Phosphate aren't an issue? Is cost a factor, or more that they don't always cover all the nutrients required

Three points of scepticsisum produced from your opening paragraph. The rest to me I am sceptical of, as the claims made in the rest seem to be a little too good to be true, and IME when things seem too good to be true, they usualy are.

If you can find ways arround my newbie secpticisum without another near-flame thread from other members reading your statements, I'll gather together the bits I need after my one week break (starting tomorrow) and I'll try this in a FOWLR tank for a few months (once it's built ), without using a skimmer to put your claims to the test. If all goes well, I'll try soft coral in there after that, followed by nems and possibly hard coral in that order See how things go with it so to speak

Again, any members that see any major flaws that put livestock at risk, feel free to shoot. I'm a newbie to marines, and may well miss something that is obvious to more experienced marine aquarists. I'm sure it's a newbie error of judgement comming from a freshwater member with just enough marine knowlage to be dangerous (to himself and his prospective new pets)

This idea is potentially good t me though, as I whish to keep manderins, that I understand to need lots of pods. If this bucket filter is a pod factory, it may work to my advantage, with my filtration becoming a "fast food restraunt" for any manderin that finds it's way into my tank, as well as clearing "rubbish" from the watercolum.

Anyhow, signing off for now
Rabbut

 

[SantaMonica]

andywg: That tilting and dumping design is the patented one, and is very difficult to build. And impossible to buy. That's why my bucket design came to be

rabbu:

The way I understand it is, that if you remove a Fudge, removal resins and/or skimmer or skim less, you need to up waterchanges to compensate. This algea removes Phosphate and Nitrate from what you are saying, but I remember someone saying it does not remove disolved organics in similar quantities to these other two chemicals

Turf does not remove organics, true. What it does is wait for the disolved organics to be decomposed by bacteria into N and P, which it does remove. You have to remember that there are thousands of skimmerless tanks that have been running for years with just algae to remove nutrients. It does not "crash". It stabilizes with more DOC's, but zero N and P, and allows food particles to be free-floating until they are consumed, or decomposed.

Waterchanges themselves aren't always used for Nitrate and Phosphate removal are they?

Of course not. That's why I say "IF the purpose is to reduce N and P". You can water change for any reason, like poisioning. But IF the reason is to reduce N and P, they won't be needed. I don't get into supplements; any reefer should be testing for the basics and handling it they way they want to.

Ok here are the results of the 5 gal nano test. First, here is the tank, which has 3 pounds LR, a SSB, along with a purple lobster, a starfish, and a clown:

The tank has been on an office worker's desk (his first tank), with no water changes for about four months. The last change was done only to get nitrate down (a result of overfeeding of course), in order to keep the animals happy. Phosphate was not a concern since there were no corals, and thus there was no phosphate removal system in place.

As you can see, the light and most of the hood were removed, as was the little sponge filter. The remaining part of the hood has a compartment for the sponge filter, which is 2 X 3 inches, and it has a little built in pump to move water across this compartment. I started out by taking some tank-divider material and cutting it to a tight fit into the compartment:

Then I sanded it very rough on the top, and I "seeded" it by taking some green hair algea and rubbing the algae HARD into the sanded side. Then I pushed the screen into the sponge filter compartment:

The screen is only 6 square inches, single sided, and thus not enough for this tank according to the rule of thumb of one square inch per gallon (double sided), or two square inches per gallon (single sided). Thus for this 5 gal tank single-sided I should have 10 square inches instead of 6, but of course for simplicity I just used the compartment size.

Since we had already removed the original tank light, we were going to just use the light for the screen as the new tank light too. So I just took one of the same bulbs that I used in the bucket, a 23 Watt, 5100K compact fluorescents "full-spectrum" (125W output equivalent):

http/www.buylighting.com/23-Watt-R40-Com...p1r4023-51k.htm


...and set it directly on the plastic hood, which put it only a half inch from the flowing water:

Thankfully these CFL's run very cool, and you can put your hand right on them without burning. Of course if you try this light placement yourself, you'd want to test it carefully so that you don't melt anything, and won't knock the bulb over. I thought that the light might heat up the water, but it does not seem to. The light is on an 18-hour-on timer, and provides the tank itself with much more light than the original hood light did.



Results: Here are the measurements (Salifert) and pics taken over a period of days:


....................N...........P
.
day 0..........*............*...............not measured
day 1........(50)........( .5 )
day 2..........*............*...............not measured
day 3..........*............*...............not measured
day 4..........*............*...............not measured
day 5........(50)........( .5 )
day 6........(25)........( .25 )
day 7........(15)........( .13 ).........screen full
day 8........(15)........(1.0)...........screen full
day 9........(10)........(1.0)...........whole screen cleaned (mistake)
day 10......(10)........(1.0)...........growing back
day 11......(8)..........(1.0)...........growing back more
day 12......(8)..........(1.0)...........half cleaned
day 13......(8)..........( .5 )
day 14......(5)..........( .25 ).........other half cleaned
day 15......(8)..........( .13 )
day 16......(3)..........( .13 ).........other half cleaned; housing cleaned
day 17......( 2.5 ).....( .05 )
day 18......( .5 ).......( .05 )
day 19......( .2 ).......( .05 ).........other half cleaned (not much there)
day 20......(0)..........( .015 ).......green growing back over brown



Day 2:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay02screen.jpg

Day 3:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay03screen.jpg

Day 7:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay07screen.jpg

Day 9, before complete cleaning:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDa...reScrapeDay.jpg

Day 9, After complete cleaning (mistake)

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDa...AfterScrape.jpg

Day 12, half cleaned:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay12halfScrape.jpg

Day 16:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay16screen.jpg

Day 17:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay17screen.jpg

Day 18:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay18screen.jpg

Day 19, in tank:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay19screenIn.jpg

Day 19, removed:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDa...enOutBefore.jpg

Day 19, after cleaning top half:

Hi Res: http/www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDa...eenOutAfter.jpg


You'll see on day 7 that the screen filled up. However I had never seen it full before, so I did not know what "full" looked like. So I left it to see how full it would get. Day 8 the screen looked the same, but there was a big increase in P, and I surmised that the screen had filled up and some strands of algae were shadowing others, causing the others to detach and flow into the tank and die (not enough light in the tank to survive). So I waited one more day to be sure (day 9), and sure enough the P was still very high.

So on Day 9 I cleaned (mistakenly) the whole screen, whereas I should have only cleaned half. Thus, I had no filtering, and it took a few day to fill in again. By day 14, nitrate and phosphate were at reasonable levels, and I was doing half-screen cleanings properly. By day 18 the nitrate and phosphate were bottoming out and staying constant, and nitrate eventually got to zero at day 20.


So the things learned:

1) A small screen size, even one sided, can do a tremendous job of filtering. (Phosphate from .5 to .015, and Nitrate from 50 to 0, in three weeks).

2) It can do this filtering with a constant flow of water (no pulsing), although a timer on the little pump would be easy to add and try out.

3) It can do this filtering with regular green algae; it has not had time to form true red/brown turf, although it was starting to feel like some was growing.

4) It all can be done in the nano's hood, with a standard light, for free.


Ok, now it's seriously time for you nano folks to try this!

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Well you seem to have only had it going for about a month in your tank, if it had been going for 6 months and doing all your filtering I would be a lot more inclined to take it more seriously. Your size ideas for the turf mat are still very suspect as shown in your RC posts(which you shouldn't link directly to on this forum,think its against rules) where someone else has posted picks of a 53"x12" screen(flood and drain type setup) which you calculate to do 720gallons and they say no 200 gallons.
Looking elsewhere on the subject alot of people using these(flood and drain not your bucket version) suggest using a skimmer also as such its only working as a refugium.(few sources found by googling)

Why not report back on this page with your water stats, say each month for a while(providing your turf filter is the only type of filtration/water cleansing your are using) and most importantly stop BSing about stuff(or as you oddly call it marketing and readable by beginners) and just accept that people now how things work, then we can all take your posts and experimenting much more seriously.

One months operation really isn't long enough to prove your idea,lets see it stable for a long period of time.

 

[superman]

Who uses carbon to reduce nitrate(I assume you mean nitrate by N and not nitrogen which is of course a gas)

Just to clear up any confusion on this statement, Nitrate is a form of Nitrogen, that is why they call Ammonia-Nitrite-Nitrate "The Nitrogen Cycle"

The algae turf filters are a good way of reducing Nitrogen and Phosphate, but no better than a thriving colony of coral, coralline algae, or anything else that conducts photsynthesis. Algae turf scrubbers are a pretty efficient way of doing things, but do require a consistant maintenance schedule that can be hard to keep up with if you go on a vacation or simply don't have time to constantly be removing portions of your turf algae that is accumulated. I really would not rely on a turf scrubber to replace a protein skimmer because a turf scrubber relies on factors that can easily slip out of our control in order to work consistantly these factors include

Light bulbs holding their spectrum and intensity
Chemical warfare from other algaes, bacteria, and corals
Power outages that are long enough to dry out the algae, which can put it days behind consuming Nitrogen and Phosphates
And unforseen emergencies that keep us from harvesting the algae to make sure that it doesn't start to shade its self.


These are just a few of the factors that can slip out of our control quite easily that can hurt the efficiency of turf scrubbers that are meant to replace protein skimmers. Working in conjunction with a protein skimmer, algae turf scrubbers can really work quite well as a key component and have been working quite well for years. I happen to live near an aquarium maintenance company that patented their own air driven algae turf scubber. They installed them on many local aquariums as the one and only filtration, no protein skimmer at all. I make good money rebuilding these systems and taking these turf scrubbers off, since they don't get the job by themselves in 90% of aquariums they were installed on. Just my 2 cents.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Who uses carbon to reduce nitrate(I assume you mean nitrate by N and not nitrogen which is of course a gas)

Just to clear up any confusion on this statement, Nitrate is a form of Nitrogen, that is why they call Ammonia-Nitrite-Nitrate "The Nitrogen Cycle"

Not being argumentative old chap but Nitrogen is an element which makes up 80%ish of the atmosphere and is a gas, nitrates are compounds containing nitrogen and oxygen NO3(one nitrogen atom surrounded by 3 oxygen atoms) therefore nitrates are not a form of nitrogen but compounds containing it along with oxygen. Hence why the symbol N is for nitrogen and N03 is for nitrate. The 'nitrogen cycle' is called so because the ammonia,nitrite and nitrates are all compounds involing nitrogen ,they are not just forms of it.(chemists feel free to correct me ) The OP said carbon reduced N and P,which means Nitrogen and Phosphorus not nitrate and phosphate which is what he meant(carbon doesn't do this by the way)

 

[SantaMonica]

johnny: The rule of thumb for screen size was not from me, it was from the owner of the patent for the algae turf scrubber. A "flood and drain" type setup is one-sided, not two. And if they are only growning green (not red/brown), then I can see why they need a larger size. The folks you found suggesting a skimmer are the ones that are not growing red/brown. Most folks running scrubbers up until about 2005 did it this way; knowing how to scrub weekkly, and scrape monthly, is a new development to allow true red/brown stiff turf to develop. And I've been reporting stats almost daily on RC.

fish addict:

Algae turf scrubbers are a pretty efficient way of doing things, but do require a consistant maintenance schedule that can be hard to keep up with if you go on a vacation or simply don't have time to constantly be removing portions of your turf algae that is accumulated.

What do you do with your skimmer if you are on vacation?

Light bulbs holding their spectrum and intensity

Correct about intesity, but spectrum changes work in favor of algae, not agaist. Also, what do you do about intensity and spectrum changes in your display? The bulb I used in the bucket cost $10 USD.

Chemical warfare from other algaes, bacteria, and corals

Good point. However I believe you would want the turf to out-battle any other algae, isn't that the purpose? And there is no warfare with bacteria, only a fight for nutrients, which again is the purpose. And for corals, I have no data on that, but I have not heard of corals dieing of chemical poisoning from turf.

Power outages that are long enough to dry out the algae, which can put it days behind consuming Nitrogen and Phosphates

Probably the only real "risk" of this device, provided we are talking about the bucket version. I had an "wrong button outage" of 6 hours which did dry some of the outer layers. Was back to normal in a few days. The sump version, however, gets flow if the tank is getting flow. For some tanks, 6 hours might do the whole tank in. Regardless, I keep my skimmer on the shelf and can hook it up in two minutes.

And unforseen emergencies that keep us from harvesting the algae to make sure that it doesn't start to shade its self.

What do you do with your skimmer during these un-attended weeks? A screen can go a full week until it needs cleaning.

Can you post pics of your friends' patented scrubbers?

 

[superman]

Who uses carbon to reduce nitrate(I assume you mean nitrate by N and not nitrogen which is of course a gas)

Just to clear up any confusion on this statement, Nitrate is a form of Nitrogen, that is why they call Ammonia-Nitrite-Nitrate "The Nitrogen Cycle"

Not being argumentative old chap but Nitrogen is an element which makes up 80%ish of the atmosphere and is a gas, nitrates are compounds containing nitrogen and oxygen NO3(one nitrogen atom surrounded by 3 oxygen atoms) therefore nitrates are not a form of nitrogen but compounds containing it along with oxygen. Hence why the symbol N is for nitrogen and N03 is for nitrate. The 'nitrogen cycle' is called so because the ammonia,nitrite and nitrates are all compounds involing nitrogen ,they are not just forms of it.(chemists feel free to correct me ) The OP said carbon reduced N and P,which means Nitrogen and Phosphorus not nitrate and phosphate which is what he meant(carbon doesn't do this by the way)

Which is why I stated that it is a form of nitrogen, just didn't want any newbies to think that Nitrate had nothing to do with nitrogen. Of course carbon doesn't reduce nitrogen or phophate, I don't think this has ever been considered truth.
I wasn't trying to say you were wrong, just wanted to clarify for those the would be confused by the statement...and I'm not an "old chap"

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Why the angry face I didn't suggest you thought carbon reduced nitrates or phosphates, that was the OP!
You just clarified my earlier statement for everyone by saying something incorrect. Nitrates contrain nitrogen they are NOT a form of nitrogen. I dont think that saying something correct confuses anyone. Old chap is a saying us rather well to do british gentry say, so don't have a cow man.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

SantaMonica, Just show us how well your design works over the comming months as I said after only one month on your tank you can't say hand on heart how well it will perform, your water stats over time with your turf only filtration will speak for themselves. Will you post your stats on here periodically for us?

 

[superman]

johnny: The rule of thumb for screen size was not from me, it was from the owner of the patent for the algae turf scrubber. A "flood and drain" type setup is one-sided, not two. And if they are only growning green (not red/brown), then I can see why they need a larger size. The folks you found suggesting a skimmer are the ones that are not growing red/brown. Most folks running scrubbers up until about 2005 did it this way; knowing how to scrub weekkly, and scrape monthly, is a new development to allow true red/brown stiff turf to develop. And I've been reporting stats almost daily on RC.

fish addict:

Algae turf scrubbers are a pretty efficient way of doing things, but do require a consistant maintenance schedule that can be hard to keep up with if you go on a vacation or simply don't have time to constantly be removing portions of your turf algae that is accumulated.

What do you do with your skimmer if you are on vacation?

Light bulbs holding their spectrum and intensity

Correct about intesity, but spectrum changes work in favor of algae, not agaist. Also, what do you do about intensity and spectrum changes in your display? The bulb I used in the bucket cost $10 USD.

Chemical warfare from other algaes, bacteria, and corals

Good point. However I believe you would want the turf to out-battle any other algae, isn't that the purpose? And there is no warfare with bacteria, only a fight for nutrients, which again is the purpose. And for corals, I have no data on that, but I have not heard of corals dieing of chemical poisoning from turf.

Power outages that are long enough to dry out the algae, which can put it days behind consuming Nitrogen and Phosphates

Probably the only real "risk" of this device, provided we are talking about the bucket version. I had an "wrong button outage" of 6 hours which did dry some of the outer layers. Was back to normal in a few days. The sump version, however, gets flow if the tank is getting flow. For some tanks, 6 hours might do the whole tank in. Regardless, I keep my skimmer on the shelf and can hook it up in two minutes.

And unforseen emergencies that keep us from harvesting the algae to make sure that it doesn't start to shade its self.

What do you do with your skimmer during these un-attended weeks? A screen can go a full week until it needs cleaning.

Can you post pics of your friends' patented scrubbers?

Here is the pitiful ecowheel that I love so much (because I gotta replace them!) http/eco-wheel.com/ It would work ok if it was used in conjunction with a protein skimmer, however the tanks it is usually installed on leave no room for a sump and retrofitting a protein skimmer is difficult at best.
It is a little harder to convince my neighbor to scrape turf algae compared to having a someone simply empty out a skimmer collection cup when I am on vacation. I wasn't saying that the turf algae could release toxins to compete with corals, but that the toxins from the corals may or may not have some limiting effect on the turf algae. Cyanobacteria may be able to release toxins to compete with other photosynthetic organisms, though I do not have data to prove this. But in a most basic sense, it is much more easy to rely on a mechanical means of filtration (protein skimmer) as the heart of your filtration method than it is to rely on an organic means of filtration. It is more difficult to know exactly what is going on in a plant than it is to simply inspect your protein skimmer and see that it isn't working properly. I would advocate using these two methods together, but definitely not use the turf scrubber by its self. A good protein skimmer can effectively get your butt out of a bind in the case of a spawning event which dumps loads of nutrients into the water. Or in the case of accidental foreign chemical addition it may be able to pull the chemical out (depending on the chemical) A protein skimmer improves the oxygen exchange between the air and water... an algae turf scrubber does none of these things, and in some circumstances can die off and leach previously stored chemicals back into your tank.

 

[superman]

Why the angry face I didn't suggest you thought carbon reduced nitrates or phosphates, that was the OP!
You just clarified my earlier statement for everyone by saying something incorrect. Nitrates contrain nitrogen they are NOT a form of nitrogen. I dont think that saying something correct confuses anyone. Old chap is a saying us rather well to do british gentry say, so don't have a cow man.

Your agressive behavior is not appreciated, you're now just arguing sematics whic his pretty pointless. Maybe instead of saying that nitrate is "a form" of nitrogen I should have said "contains nitrogen" Relax and read over your posts before posting so that you don't come across as overly aggressive and arguementative. This is a kind community of aquarists that I have been part of for a very long time, lets keep things calm.

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Your agressive behavior is not appreciated, you're now just arguing sematics whic his pretty pointless. Maybe instead of saying that nitrate is "a form" of nitrogen I should have said "contains nitrogen" Relax and read over your posts before posting so that you don't come across as overly aggressive and arguementative. This is a kind community of aquarists that I have been part of for a very long time.

Look I don't see where your comming from. I most certainly have not been aggressive to you, what on earth gives you that impression? You corrected a statement by me by saying something that was wrong. My point in the first place to the OP was to stop any confusion when nitrates and phosphates were refered to by the chemical symbols N and P when they are N03 and P04 . If I seemed annoyed at him it was because he was using lies to promote his idea which helps no one. You sent the angry face to me, I really dont want to argue with you. I'm sorry my saying old chap offended you ,I put it light heartedly and I guess you took it differently. But don't make me out to be agressive when I have not been, and even using words like agressive is the sort of thing that gets posts closed.