DIY waterfall algae Scrubber

Ok so thought I'd finally throw together my build thread for this. For those who don't know, an algae scrubber in short is a device which helps to export nutrients from the water, decreasing and removing nitrates and phosphates. This removes the nutrients from the water column necessary for algae to grow. Better in the scrubber than our tanks right?

First off I had to, well wanted to switch my plumbing over to pvc. If it wasn't for this it would have been a really cheap build.

I split the return and ran one to my skimmer section and the other to my scrubber. I put the ball valve on top control the flow rate to the scrubber. In hind site I wish I would have put one on the skimmer side as I didn't have enough flow to the scrubber. Thankfully I had some odds and ends sitting around which I used to reduce and restrict the flow diverting it to the scrubber.


Sorry for the low light. Here we see the actual scrubber. All it is, is a sheet of plastic canvas from any craft shop Roughed up. A slit is cut down the length which the canvas is slid up into and held in place by zip ties. The right side is capped and a spare piece of pvc is used to help support it. On the left is a Union to allow easy removal and cleaning. I used 1" pvc, 3/4 would probably work too.


The lighting is handled by an every day shop light I had laying around which should have a cfl bulb in it. This is where you may want to do some research. Led like many other things is starting to take over. 660 nnm red has been found to provide some of the best growth rates. I just added a small compact florescent to the other side today which showed to have a decent amount of red in it. I eventually intend to light this with led if it proves to be successful.

Here is a growth shot from today which is about 3 days worth. Keep in mind that I haven't really had good lighting on it yet and they typically take a couple weeks to get going. I also had to shut the light off behind it to catch the algae.


These are super easy to start and very cheap. So far it appears to be working. I'll add growth shots and first cleaning shots when we get there.

 

very cool thanks for posting

 

Status update. Have a nice film starting to form. Couple green spots even.

 

How often on average do you have to take it apart and clean the screen?

Looks good BTW

 

Im not the OP but I clean mine every 10 days. To the OP, you may want to consider some type of splash covering. once algae starts growing in the slot, that water can spray any direction.

 

this is the first time I've ever seen something like this, very cool, I am going to think about adding this to my next build

 

Very cool and nicely built. Thanks for the write up, you've inspired me to try to build one for my tank. Let us know how it comes along.

 

While I have some current Pros on this thread, I'd like to ask if they feel it really does anything different that a PS and a large macroalgae, for me - Chaeto section in their sump/fuge?

I'm not knocking this at all- oh no. Since I"ve been in the hobby, I've read many, long threads on how good these ATS's can be. They certainly are relativley easy to make, lots of ways to do it, etc.

Nice job

Again, ya think it works even better than a PS and large Chaeto basket?
(reason why I ask- if I get convinced- I'll build one!)

 

Well as another member posted he clans about every 1.5 weeks. Song as how I'm just now hiring about a week I can't really say yet. My understanding is it will probably be a few more days at least till the first cleaning as it takes time to get going but becomes fairly efficient once it does.

I get this totally. I ran chaeto before and though I believe it helped it never really seemed to completely handle the job. I always had some algae in the dt and this was with fairly light feeding. The idea with these are that its a better, faster, more efficient form if growth taking place on the screen than algae simply sitting in a big blob in your fuge. The entire surface area of that sheet x's2 (double sided) is getting hit with light. Most of your chaeto will be shaded and only the outer layers revise light. And we all know algae likes light... time will tell. That's why I'm trying it though.

 

Yeah been thinking about it more and more as she's growing in... need to come up with a splash guard too. Getting a lot of bubble action from the return that drops into the skimmer section...