I just wanted to share a new experience I'm going through with my latest tank. This one doesn't have an ATS but it does have a bio-pellet reactor and macro algae. With the old tank, I had a large ATS and I could dump massive amounts of food into the water on a daily basis. I even had a small freezer with frozen DIY fish food auto feeding my tank once every three hours. Sometimes I would over feed to the point that I could cause an ammonia spike to around .5. Within 24 hours my ATS would pull that ammonia out of the water and my reading would drop right back down to 0 by the next day. I didn't think much of it but my water quality was usually great. Fast forward a year later to my new tank with GFO and bio-pellets. I wanted to go mainstream right? My Instant Ocean salt has some organics in it and as a result my salt water mix has about a .5 ammonia reading. I add that mixed water to my new tank and the ammonia shows up in my tank at that .5 level. I think, no big deal, it will be gone within 24 hours. Well, what a surprise to learn that a healthy amount of matured bio pellets and the bacteria they produce aren't really able to consume that ammonia nearly as fast as that old ATS did. I even have some macro algae growing in my fuge and that apparently isn't able to consume the ammonia within 24 hours either. Oh well, I think I was spoiled with my old ATS. I may have to add one back to this new system just to get back that safety net. Go Turbo!
Very interesting. Good perspective. I'm glad that you tried this - it is something that I'm betting many have not done, gone from a scrubber-based tank and seen how it performs, then go to a non-scrubber based tank and compare the two. What I would be interested in is how an algae scrubber performs on this new system of yours, along with the current filtration. That is, don't remove anything, just add the scrubber and see what happens - how it grows, how well it complements your current system.
That's a great idea. As a before/after test, I still have plenty of this ammonia laden salt mix and from what I've read by Seachem, ammonia in salt mix is the industry's dirty little secret. I also have a bottle of Prime hanging around that I can use to keep everything safe. With a measured amount of ammonia introduced into the system each time, I could get a better comparison and could repeat the test a few times for consistency. An ATS takes some maintenance to keep the screen clean but I always loved how my ATS was self regulating. That is, it could not "over clean" my water with the ATS. The algae growth rate would just slow down when the water was very clean but the SPS and LPS were always happy. This bio-pellet reactor looks cool but I realize I will have to be very careful with it or it can over clean the system. ReefKeeper64
Subscribing as I'm interested to read your findings. I've been struggling for the last 4 months with a few ATS's. One tank has a Bio-wheel the other is a Zeo tank. The Zeo tank grows algae on the "rocks" great!..
