How often or more precise how much should we harvest from our ATS at any one time? My Atlantis 2 grows algae at a phenomenal rate so much so the screen is well overladen with algae well within 7 days, in fact, I am thinking harvesting every5 days may be more appropriate.Many people clean the screen hard back to the screen as I have often done but I am thinking trimming the algae like a haircut with scissors might be a better option, in fact, I have done both, that is harvested every 5 days and gave the algae a hair cut. My thinking is my water quality would be more stable as removing algae back to the screen would slowly increase nutrient wise until the algae grew back sufficiently to deal with the nutrient build up. Removing say 80% of the algae would leave enough behind to continue to take up nutrients and given I feed a lot and often then this would be no bad thing at all. I have not taken any water tests to prove or otherwise the above however so it's all just theory. Does anybody have any views on this?
I use a scraper, but not like a "chisel". I just "drag" it across the screen. Usually, I expose most of the canvas, but if you don't chisel at the screen really hard, you will leave a fair amount behind for re-growth. You never want to scrub the active growth area of the screen with a stiff brush. Maybe a swipe with a soft-bristled toothbrush, but that's about the max. The exception is when you get some tough red algae. As far as the ulva goes, that stuff you generally do need to clean off more often, because it seems to grow faster, and seems to be more weakly attached. Either that, or it offers a higher resistance to flow (which makes sense due to it's ribbon-band shape) and thus it more easily tears off the screen. At least, that has been the type of feedback I've received about that type of growth. But that might have been the user, possible too high of a flow rate causing detachment...
I just pull it away and enough is left behind to continue. I have just harvested over 400g of Ulva in a week. I have also been distributing it to other UK reefers to seed their ATS's and fuge's
