Is this a macro/mangrove/ATS-friendly forum?

[davelin315]

Some report that the water gets discolored from all of the algae that is there and it can smell pretty bad. No experience here with one, but have toyed with the idea after failed attempts with nitrate absorption resins, RDSB, and refugiums that can't grow chaeto - potentially due to the overuse of GFO.

[Decadence]

In my experience, discoloration only comes from waiting too long to harvest or harvesting while it is still in the system. I remove mine, scrape the algae and then spray it with the shower head. The smell is only there when you are harvesting unless you don't have enough flow. If there is enough flow, all of the algae will be coated in water and the smell will not be present under the stand.

 

As far as chaeto goes, I had some stop growing in my tank so we took it out and put it in a bucket with three gallons of the same tank water with a huge pump and powerful light. Within a week it filled the whole bucket to the point where it was growing out of the water. This same water was growing SPS fine. I think chaeto is often under-rated simply because the limiting factors to growth aren't nitrate or phosphate but rather photosynthesis or too much dwell time.

[jimlin]

so far i had pretty good luck with chaeto which i will credit to good 6500 leds with high flow going through them.

[jimlin]

just having chaeto did not prevent algae from growing in the display for me though.

[zygote2k]

Why are you using GFO when you are trying to grow algae? Why not remove the skimmer and see if the algae scrubber can manage the nutrient loads by itself? What you have is more or less the same as anyone growing chaeto in a small fuge.

The ATS if setup correctly, will handle all of the nutrient load.

Ask Paul B about his Algae Trough.

[Decadence]

Why are you using GFO when you are trying to grow algae? Why not remove the skimmer and see if the algae scrubber can manage the nutrient loads by itself? What you have is more or less the same as anyone growing chaeto in a small fuge.

The ATS if setup correctly, will handle all of the nutrient load.

Ask Paul B about his Algae Trough.

 

This is the reply which a lot of people have given me on the other forums. The idea in my heads is that an ATS is great in that it turns the inorganic phosphate back into organic phosphate which is harmless. The problem with this is that it isn't 100% efficient in that some small amount of organic are released back into the water column to break down. The skimmer can't pick up inorganic phosphate efficiently but it can pick up the organic matter which makes the pair compliment each other well. The only drawback is that if there is more phosphate available than nitrate, the excess phosphate is still going to build as nutrients will be taken up set in the Redfield ratio. The likelihood of having a perfectly balanced amount of nitrate and phosphate to where both are brought down to the level of limitation for algae growth is extremely slim. Running a small amount of GFO gives me the ability to ensure that phosphate is the limiting factor which means it will be as low as a scrubber can possibly make it.

 

The way I see it, the components work well together and if something goes wrong I have that much greater a buffering capacity for both organic and inorganic nutrients and a better chance of not losing more livestock. The other day I had an explosion of algae on the screen and I searched around the tank to find out the cause. I found a dead turbo snail which looked like it had died a couple days prior and was beginning to rot. This could have been catastrophic in a lot of tanks but you would never know something was wrong in mine without opening the cabinet.

[zygote2k]

One dead turbo snail wouldn't cause a blip on any of the water parameters in most any tank unless it's a very small tank.

 

If you run a true ATS, then you would be scraping the algae, drying it, then feeding it back to the fish. Doing it this way will certainly control the amounts of phosphate in the water. If you truly want to claim that your ATS does what you say it does, turn off the skimmer and remove the sock and GFO. If the screen is sized appropriately, then you should be able to maintain a balance of nutrient vs. nutrient out.

 

Dynamic Aquaria is the best book on the subject and I recommend that you read it if you haven't yet.

[Decadence]

These are the type of responses which I'm used to. By these standards, if you don't take off your protein skimmer, mechanical filters, DSB or whatever else then doing water changes isn't doing what you think they are doing. Why would I remove things that are working well with a sound theory of why it works well? Each component has its part which only that one component can achieve:

 

Skimmer - removes organics

ATS - binds inorganic nutrients as organic for easy removal manually or through skimming

GFO - binds inorganic phosphate independent of the Redfield ratio

[jimlin]

i will give it a try. multi prone attack may create a more stable system and may also create a safety net if one was to fail.

[Matt LeBaron]

I have to agree with Decadence here, if there were any easy one and done solution to maintaining good water chemistry, everyone would be doing it.

 

I think people need to experiment a bit with what works best for them and how their tank runs.

[zygote2k]

These are the type of responses which I'm used to. By these standards, if you don't take off your protein skimmer, mechanical filters, DSB or whatever else then doing water changes isn't doing what you think they are doing. Why would I remove things that are working well with a sound theory of why it works well? Each component has its part which only that one component can achieve:

 

Skimmer - removes organics

ATS - binds inorganic nutrients as organic for easy removal manually or through skimming

GFO - binds inorganic phosphate independent of the Redfield ratio

I'm not putting your efforts down but merely suggesting that your system is very similar to anyone elses berlin system with a 'fuge. It's hard to say with any proof that the 'ATS' that you are using really does what you say it does simply because it's so small. I'm merely suggesting that if you want to actually prove your theory that you should let the tank run on the ATS alone.

 

FWIW, I was the first person in the greater metro area to have a reef tank in a retail store completely powered by an ATS. (1992)

My colleague and I made dump bucket turf scrubbers for several tanks back then and had very good success with them. We subscribed to the use of the scraped algae as the sole food source for the herbivorous fish that we kept. GFO didn't exist back then and protein skimmers were comical.

Even in recent times on this forum, I proved that SPS could be grown using only a refugium and a DSB without a skimmer.

In answer to your original question; yes, this an ATS friendly forum.

Have you read Dynamic Aquaria?

[Sharkey18]

Thanks for the book suggestion Rob. I just ordered it, but um, pricey!!

[AlanM]

We subscribed to the use of the scraped algae as the sole food source for the herbivorous fish that we kept.

 

Do they readily eat dried hair algae that grows on the turf scrubber? I thought they were pickier and liked to eat more macro-algae type stuff like nori, ulva, gracillaria, etc.

[Packman@90]

Hi all, just my two cents. I run an ATS system and I can say that it has helped. I have an L2 scrubber (4 weeks now) and before that I had a DIY one with LEDs, I also use a skimmer because to help. I will take some pictures and post some time.

[zygote2k]

Do they readily eat dried hair algae that grows on the turf scrubber? I thought they were pickier and liked to eat more macro-algae type stuff like nori, ulva, gracillaria, etc.

The ATS that we used back in the day floated just under the water. A dump bucket provided the water flowing across the screen in a surge like fashion. The screen was lit by a 250mh and grew fantastic amounts of algae. The algae was also home to millions of pods. When scraped off the screen, the pods and algae were then dried out, pounded into flake like consistency and then fed right back to the Tangs and Angels. Best natural food ever.

[Origami]

The ATS that we used back in the day floated just under the water. A dump bucket provided the water flowing across the screen in a surge like fashion. The screen was lit by a 250mh and grew fantastic amounts of algae. The algae was also home to millions of pods. When scraped off the screen, the pods and algae were then dried out, pounded into flake like consistency and then fed right back to the Tangs and Angels. Best natural food ever.

Cool. Circle of life. They don't even know it's hair algae.

 

Of course, then again, they have no idea that the spirulina flake they're eating comes from a species of cyanobacteria.

[Sharkey18]

I will definitely try that with the Ulva. I also drop in some fresh every time I clean the egg crate.

[Decadence]

Sadly, my herbavores don't eat hair algae so my scrubber has to be cleaned into the trash :-/

 

FWIW, I'm on day three without the skimmer/GFO right now as I'm treating with prazipro. Growth on the ATS has exploded but nothing else seams affected thus far. I will be treating for a little over two weeks with a large water change and a three day rest period between the two separate weeks of treatment.

[zygote2k]

Sadly, my herbavores don't eat hair algae so my scrubber has to be cleaned into the trash :-/

they may not eat growing hair algae, but if you dry it out and pulverize it, they'll probably eat it.

[Steve175]

There is a great thread on ATS stickied to the top of the "Advanced" forum at RC (took me ~4h to get through the whole thing). I considered setting one up (mostly because I like the challenge of builiding stuff like this) but haven't needed it: with GFO, RDSB, reasonable feeding, and an oversized skimmer, my phosphate is 0.0 and no algae. I would not hesitate to set one up if I needed more export.