srusso

Where are you located? Your tapwater may be exceptional - people in Atlanta have such low TDS that don't need a RO/DI system, like my friend who's tap water was 3 TDS.

The turf scrubber works. How often do you clean it, and when you do how much do you remove?

Your tank is looking nice. Thanks for sharing.

I am located in Bridgeport CT. From what I have heard the city put in a first clear water treatment facility. My turf scrubber does work very well for me. A guy who goes by SantaMonica on algaescrubber.net has put together some great instructions on how to build a successful algae scrubber. The screen is cleaned every seven days. I remove as much algae as can so about 98% of all visible algae. The screen is held on with just some simple plastic wire, haven't found a perminate solution yet, but it works for now. I have tested many times, the tank never has NO3 or PO4. The turf scrubber has some additional benefits aswell, it breeds pods by the millions daily. Now that the tank is 5 months old I have seen very large pods in my sump, yesterday during my maintenance I saw one that was about 1/4" long! I have done a random five gallon water change once in a blue moon to replace trace elements as well as help ionic balance (although I hardly understand it). So technically I have done one 10 gallon water change during the move to a new house, and one five gallon change about a month ago, just to see if I would notice a difference... I didn't.

Very cool, got very interested in the algae scrubber. I'll checkout the web pointers you mentioned. I like simple setups and it seems you have a successful simple setup.

Thanks, when it comes to simple I believe my tank takes the cake. About as simple as a tank this size can be. The algae scrubber is a great filter, my tank never has any detectable level of NO3 or PO4. That's in addition to the great pod breeding ground the turf scrubber becomes. I am highly pro-scrubber and anti-skimmer. I understand that a skimmer works for a lot of people, but the way I see it. A skimmer has as many negative effects as it has positive effects. IMHO, skimmers have become extremely over engineered and over priced. Some try to say skimmers are equated to the foaming waves of the ocean and shoreline, but I just don't see it... When you consider some reefs are located in tide pools. I will be soon putting together a tutorial on how to build a ATS with the guild lines algae scrubber.net has gathered together. All credit goes to them, I will show off my design and some others created using a bucket, etc.