Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!

exhumed07

Superstar Fish
Apr 30, 2006
1,774
0
36
Illinois
my screen is 7.5" wide by 10" long. i did not build a large screen since my tank is not very large and it takes about 3 days to notice any green on it and about a week before it's covered. and about 2-3 weeks before i need to scrape it clean. my API test kits say nearly 0ppm of phosphate and nitrate. so either i don't have much in my tanks and the algea grows slow or there is something wrong with my scrubber setup. not sure which.
 

KcMopar

Superstar Fish
Those results are good!! Does the algae grow real thick, as in off the screen. Mine was getting about 1/4" thick, maybe a hair more?? The screen should be sized to the amount you feed. Take for instance the frozen brine shrimp you can buy. They are in what looks like Ice cube trays. Imagine if you filled those with food you feed daily, how many cubes would you feed a day. I am only feeding about 2-3 of those per day so I re-did my screen to support 3 cubes. Each cube takes 12" of screen. So one cube would need a screen 3"x4" lighted on both sided. I made mine for 3 cubes which is 36", so I built it 6x6. If you are using a one sided it needs to be a little bigger then 12" per cube, maybe almost double-ish and lit very well. Mine was 9+"x6" which was way over kill and not a real thick green growth. I had good water tests the other way, my readings where always about zero.
 

exhumed07

Superstar Fish
Apr 30, 2006
1,774
0
36
Illinois
it's dark green but it's pretty thin and not stringy alge, it's like that slimy stuff u see in the bottom of a puddle thats been there for a long time.. i'll make the screen smaller and try that. now i know water flow is a big deal but if say i reduce the size and basicly fill the cut so that all the water flows over the screen could it be to much?
 

KcMopar

Superstar Fish
Ideally your water flow should be at least 35 gph per inch of slot. I think mine is a bit more so I put in a valve so I can slow it down until the flow looks even and fast. I cut mine down to 6x6 and think I might go smaller. I am gong to give it about 3 more cleanings and see how it looks then, its much greener and thinker now but there might be room for improvement algae was like mine. Cutting down my screen made a big improvement and has more of the medium green algae now and the water tests are still as good if not a bit better.
 

cyno is covering my scrubber now too. or at least i think it's cyno. dense mat of a brown/purple color.
This is from very weak light.

i took one of my rocks into my lfs and they said it is red slime algae and there is only one way to remove it.
When your scrubber is running correctly, the slime/cyano/etc on your rocks will go away. There is never any need to boil rocks; that just kills the living oranisms inside, which puts even more nutrients in your water when you put them back in. You want the stuff in your rocks to stay alive.

about 2-3 weeks before i need to scrape it clean.
14 days max. Any longer and the roots are dead.

i'd say a 1/4 of one of those cubes a day.
Since you are feeding so little, all the nutrients will be coming out of your rocks, which eventually, will start growing GHA on them, ans the algae eat the phosphate coming out of the rocks.

I bet you would have great success with a screen that is about 3"x4"-ish.
This is true if you can get all the light onto the screen. All of it. Problem is, most bulbs, and most reflectors, are way bigger than this unless you build a custom reflector. The best bulb for such a small screen is a CFL spotlight:

Cutting down my screen made a big improvement and has more of the medium green algae now and the water tests are still as good if not a bit better.
!!!
 

Feb 26, 2012
1
0
0
What happened to the idea of sandwiching two screens together to add a better bonding surface for algae growth.
Obviously still Cactus Roughing the canvas.

No Longer an excepted practice

Pros or Cons
 

KcMopar

Superstar Fish
Here is a pic of my latest algae scrapping, its better here then in my display!! And yes I DO FEED A LOT!!!! and have no nutrients when I test.
Pic of screen pulled from Scrubber sump. Notice the credit card beside the pics for size comparison.

Pic of the side scrapped.

Pic of the bottom scrapped to separate huge amount of algae hanging off the screen!!!!
 

KcMopar

Superstar Fish
Here is pics of the UAS scrubber
Well I have 3D brown growth?! I am cutting it back to just one screen as of today so it should be filling in green in a week I hope.


Here is a pic of my 10G SW screen. No luck with this at all!!
This is after a rinse but there was really nothing to rinse off.