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Problems with my DIY ATS

Discussion in 'Algae Scrubber DIY' started by Jason Lee, Apr 18, 2015.

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  1. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    That's good because you had mentioned a problem algae growth before, i assume that is gone now?
     
  2. Jason Lee

    Jason Lee New Member

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    Eventually got some success. The algae turns green for the first time. This was after the termination of the Dinoflagellates with 10 days full black out of the tanks wrapping up with carton box sheet and use of DinoXal additives. The bubble algae that I quoted in my earlier thread was in fact Dinoflagellates which is nasty algae.
     

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  3. Jason Lee

    Jason Lee New Member

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    China
    the live rock are getting much cleaner now. No more covered by Dino.
     

    Attached Files:

  4. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    How many hours/day are you running the scrubber lights?
     
  5. Jason Lee

    Jason Lee New Member

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    China
    I am now running at 10 hours a day x 7 days . The flow is driven by an a Aquabee 3000 pump.
     
  6. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    I had asked earlier in the thread if those were air bubbles, then we went down another track and I forgot to get back to that - that was my suspicion, I should have said so in that post! I usually don't go for the blackout technique because it can be stressful on the tank, and usually doesn't completely solve the problem. It dump the nutrients into the water but having the scrubber at a somewhat mature stage prior to doing this was good, and I think that's why you are seeing some good growth finally. But the problem might still be there, so you will want to keep an eye out for it in case it returns. Dinos usually are a stage, and they will pop up and last for about 2-3 weeks, which usually coincides with the amount of time that all the various techniques take to get rid of them. This has led me to form the opinion that dinos are something that will eventually go away on their own, you can only mitigate the damage they cause by removing them manually and doing things like running carbon, purigen, GFO, etc for a short term.

    They usually come on at some point in the first 6 months, or 2-4 weeks after you make drastic rock placement or flow changes, which trigger a bacterial colony change.

    Either way, what I would do at this point is up your light photoperiod a bit to start sucking out the nutrients. Bump it up to 12 or 14 hours/day and keep an eye on it. Let it grow for as long as you can. With your enclosed scrubber, you can let it grow until it nearly fills up the box with water, as long as you are there to check it every day.

    This is pretty safe to do as long as you are checking it. With the side drain, I've found that this will help you feel better about not overflowing the unit, but it doesn't totally prevent it. I let my personal L2 scrubber fill up until the water is within 1" of the slot pipe, then I back off the flow just a bit until it lowers down a slight amount, and let it continue growing for several more days. It's kind of nerve racking at first but since you also have a false bottom, the algae will not clog the drain and restrict flow - at least, this will not happen suddenly (unless you have a huge detachment), which is why you can do this. If you didn't have the false bottom, then the algae could easily block the flow through the drain. Also the presence of the false bottom causes the water to "build up" and suspend the algae in the box, which releases the tension cause by downward water flow and prevents detachment.

    The only thing that throws up a bit of a flag for me is that in this pic above (I didn't catch this before) it looks like you bonded the acrylic together with silicone? If this is the case, this is not a structural bond and the acrylic panels might actually fly apart under a few inches of water pressure. "might" is actually not the correct term, "eventually will" is the correct term. I would solvent weld these in place. If they are solvent welded and then you used the silicone to create a seal - then you're fine.
     
  7. Jason Lee

    Jason Lee New Member

    15
    0
    China
    Thanks for the detailed advice. I thought I had killed them all with the blackout method. Thanks for alerting me it will return. I will keep an eye on it and will keep the nutrient as low as possible with the ATS and using DINOXAL occationslly. Yes, I will turn up the lighting hours.

    The acrylic were weld with solvent and I only use silicone to seal it up .
     
  8. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    I wouldn't say that they will "for sure" return, just that you will want to watch for it.

    Perfect!
     

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