Hey Phil nice update! I like the way you built the scrubber. I couldn't fit one in the sump I have. ;-/ I think for now I'm going to put live rock and macro algae in where they have bioballs now. A month and you already have less algae growth, that's awesome. It's amazing how people tanks look with algae scubbers in them. Can't wait till your before and after pics although I know it will take more time. ;-)
Plantguy, Actually, as you can tell from the dates on the photo's, it's been up an running for a month now. I took some photo's this afternoon that i'll add tomorrow. I've got a good coat of algae on the screens, green hair down low, with brown turf starting to appear higher up. And very encouraging, the portion submerged in the sump is starting to grow coraline. In the Display I still have a lot of brown turf growing, but only on the rocks and sand. There's no more algae, except coraline, growing on the glass and equipment. Even diatom alage has slowed way down. I used to need to clean the glass daily, now it take 3 days for visible algae to form on the glass. I just replenished my clean-up crew last Friday, so I'm hoping the display will clear up quickly now. T5FL Sorry, no before and after water tests, my nitrate and phosphate have always been near undetectable, but I've always had lots of nusiance algae of various kinds. I will dig up some old "before" photos of the display to compare with the "after" photos in a few more weeks. Marc, thanks. One other thing I would do differently would be to add unions so the screen portion could be removed separately. It's something of a pain to remove the entire apparatus for cleaning.
Very creative. I like how you connected the mesh with zipties inside of the PVC pipe. And leave it to "Plantguy" to chime in on an algae blog. hehe
If you have issues getting the algae started, Inland sells them pre-seeded. It makes the whole process go much better/faster.
Nice, youll have to post pics once the algae has established and your before and after water test results.
Hey that's awesome the Frogspawn Is coming out. Maybe whatever was happening with the Monti was effecting the Frogspawn.
That's cool!!!
yup, that's me and my miss stress.
Yes, I've got lots of pics of the build. I'll start a separate blog for that once it's done. No, I plan to keep the water level the same. This shot is in a 29 with the water level equal to my 20 gal sump. The lights will be suspended from above in the final installation.
Is that ya plane Phil?
You plan to lower the water level significantly, right Phil?
Nice! Hey ya going to have to take pics with it out of a tank. Ya ging to have it done by end of the weekend huh. I need to do a sump... darn. I think the next thing I'm going to get though is T5 HO's. I difinitely want to do turf scrubber. Keep us posted.
Be sure to change out the carbon again, so it is working at peak efficiency.
update: As of late afternoon the monti looks like it's a goner, it's completely bleached and one of my astrea snails was already eating algae off of it. The frog spawn is still fully closed up, just like first thing in the morning before the light come on. But at least it's not shedding polyps any more. Color is still dark, so I'm hopeful I can revive it. If I can figure out what's irritating it to begin with. My open brain is looking fantastic today though. The metalic greens are stunning, it's expanded out fully and just looking awesome. However, last night it was covered with what looked like a mucus layer. So I gently blew that off with a turkey baster. Toadstool leather opened up and expanded today, but only briefly and partially opened it's polyps. Doesn't look like it's generating a mucus layer though. Finger leathers look shriveled up and arn't showing any polyps, but they've been looking ill since I upgraded the lighting last year. My zoa colony looks the same as always, which has never been great. They survive but don't seem to spread at all. But they're all open and have good color right now. Mushrooms are looking healthy as always. Fish are looking great and my clowns appear to be gearing up to spawn again. I'm almost finished building an algae scrubber for this tank, I should have it finished tomorrow and running in the sump by the end of the weekend. I'll start a separate blog for that, but they're reportedly used for cleaning up industrial waste and extracting heavy metals from waterways, so I'm hopeful. But it will probably take 4 to 8 weeks before I see any real benefit from it. that's about it, water changes tomorrow. fingers crossed.
And what I don't get, is that my open brain, just a few inches away, is looking better than ever! I've got snails crawling around on the monti's skeleton now, so I guess it's finished.
Phil that stinks! I'm sorry this isn't improving. Polyp Bail-out isn't a good sign at all. This only happens in extreme cases and is an attempt to get some portion of the animal into another area where "maybe" it will survive. It's like an anemone "splitting" under extreme stress. It's a last ditch attempt to assure some portion of the species makes it to another day. If you were closer I'd come over and help and we'd frag some coral to another tank. Man that's gut wrenching bro!
well, I tested the parameters again last night: Calcium: 450 ppm Alk: 9.0 kH Mg: 1380 ppm pH: 8.3 Doesn't get much better than that, but my Monti isn't looking any better, and now my frog spawn is completely retracted and shedding polyps. Loosing the frog spawn (FS) would hurt more than the monti, I got the FS as a little 1", badly damaged colony 4 years ago, now it's skeleton is 6" across. It's as much a showpeice in my tank as Marc's toadstool is in his. I'm mixing water to do a 20% change this weekend. Thanks for the suggestions, but I've long since trained everyone not to use spray cleaners in the lobby, and there arn't any new air fresheners or anything being pumped into the air that I can find.
When I set up my work tank I had a face to face with our cleaning crew (They were very receptive) that no cleaners were to be used in my office period. They are fine with that as long as they aren't held responsible for NOT using them in my office (aka Allen is responsible for those tasks in Allen's office). On a side note... a local reefer here in the county had a total tank crash over some kind of "Plug-In" air freshener system. It was one of the "misting" kind and apparently something in it wasn't very REEF friendly! So to make a long story short she lost hundreds of $$ worth of Reef over a $10 air freshener. She was kind enough to share this information with the LFS hoping someone else might avoid the same mistake.
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