The L3 ATS journey begins

Hiya all....Really new to this algae scrubber lark,but not to marines......Recently set up upgrade from a 48x24x24 to a 66x24x24 complete with ceramic rock,with around 15k of live rock in the sump....Everything was going fine for the 1st 3 months or so, until I decided to treat the tank to a 10% water change,and then the problems started... Within 1 day after the change the algae/cyno problem started...And then for the next 4 months I was battling against it ...

Anyway finally got rid of the brown cyno with shed loads of rowerphos but the GHA stayed behind, although the nitrate and phosphate tests were very low like-
0.5 Nitrate and 0.008 phosphate,DD and elos test kits...

Still using rowerphos like it was going out of fashion,the GHA is still growing,not like mad but growing...I have read a lot on the turf scrubbers,but mainly they are a bit of a diy project over here in the UK... Although I'm an Engineer by trade, I really didn't have the time for a load of hit and miss trails,as my weekends are tied up with work and my son playing football (soccer) all over the south east of England..

After reading through one of our UK based forums I came across one of the lads from the UK who had an L2 scrubber brought from Bud...After a few pm's I decide to give Bud a shout to inquire about getting one sent over..After a few emails I decided to go for a L3 scrubber,Bud did recommend and L4 if I was going to use it for my main source of filtration,or an L2 if I was going to use it in conjunction with a skimmer and phosphate reactor...So the L3 was ordered as not looking to get rid of the skimmer as its useful in getting 02 into the water column,but getting rid of the reactor and the constant use of rowerphos wound be a great.....

After about 3 weeks on a Friday the L3 arrived,i was busting to get it all set up but my son had a football match in London on the Saturday and another game on the Sunday,so that weekend was going to be a right off ..


Anyway must be boring you lot ...All set up now,and has been running for 2 days now,I have decided to run it for 9 hours straight off,coming on at midnight and off at 9.00 am for a start,and we will see where we go...Here is a few piccys of the said scrubber and my tank,even after 2 days of running there is growth already..Which I hope is a good thing....














Thanks for looking and hope for some advice as soon as I need it,which will be soon..


Cheers Maverick (Clive)

 

Yes mate,I did manage to do that.....

 

Hi all...I little update as the scrubber has been running for around 7 days...So here's the growth so far...



The scrubber lighting period is 9 hours straight off....So are we going in the right direction????Any input from you guys would be great...

Nitrate is 0.75 DD kit
Phosphate is between 0.024-0.046 Elos HR

Cheers Clive

 

Hi all... Now its nearly been 14 days of running......And here is the screen after 14 ish days




Anything I need to do????


Cheers Clive

 

Hi all...Just an update...3 weeks of running and this is what we have so far...Done a little clean last weekend,and it looks to be starting to go green...Which I hope is all good..

 

A little update lads and lasses...I forgot take a photo of the 4 weeks of running...But I did give the screen a clean at the weekend to take the brown slim off and tried to keep as much as the green as I could....

And also took the scrubber box out of the sump and gave it a good clean out,because their was a lot of algae at the false bottom and it did start to restrict the outflow....

The test results as from Monday Night

Nitrate 0 Salifert and DD test Kit
Phosphate below 0.03 Elos high res

Some things I have noticed over the weeks of running the scrubber,on week 2-4 the glass has not needed to be cleaned on the main tank..The algae growth on the DT glass as reduced considerably,like there it hardly anything on the glass after 7 days...

But the green algae is still growing in the main display,it has slowed down a lot but it still growing..
So I have upped the flow to the scrubber and increased the lighting period to 11 hours straight off..

Anyway here's a piccy of screen as from Wednesday 3rd April ..



Hope you all like...Cheers Clive

 

Hiya everyone...Well here's a pic from another week on



Anything I need to be doing or looking at......

 

Hi all...Right after another two weeks....I cleaned the screen totally two weeks ago...And this this what the latest two weeks growth is....




All I can say is the algae is is going at a alarming rate in the display tank.... Nitrate @ O Phosphate @00.3 ....

 

Hiya...Sorry for the confusion lol.....Right what I was trying to say is the algae in the display tank is starting to die off at an alarming rate.....I will just show you a few pics on how the tank looked before the scrubber was installed...



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And now this is what it looks like as from today...To be really fair the pictures above doesn't do the algae justice as it was really bad and all over the tank
And the tank now






Yes there is a few bits of algae hanging around,but if you saw the tank before the scrubber you would say it 1000% better.....Well I would anyway

All I can say its going in the right direction and i'm starting to like the tank again...As at one stage I was falling out of love with it.....

Algae scrubbers are the way forward in this hobby

 

Hiya Bud...Just thought i would pop in and say hi on yer new site.......This is the tank as it was around 2 weeks ago...The tank is running great and the scrubber is doing was its supposed to do.....




A little algae/cyno in the extremes edges of the tank,but i think this is down to the light, as it's a little small for the size of the tank ...And the flow needs a little tweek,but apart form that, not a bit green algae to be seen in the main tank...Only in the scrubber !!!

Cheers Clive