Algae Turf Scrubber

Lurchin

Well-Known Member
BRS Member
Hello all,
Getting back into reefing after a 10 year hiatus. I have my 75 mixed reef set-up for about 5 months now, with a RO 130 skimmer, and DSB, but I still have algae on my rocks and walls. Its no longer actively spreading/growing, so it seems to have stabilized, but would be nice to not have any in the display tank. I don't have a fuge, as there is no separate compartment in the sump for it.

What are people doing to reduce nutrients? Dosing, refugium with chaeto, algae reactors, algae turf scrubbers? I'm reading up on the scrubbers, and would like some opinions or thoughts on this. TIA
 
Chaeto on 2 tanks. No algae in either display. Chaeto was in a fruit basket inside of the sump on one of the two until recently. IM20 is skimmer-less. New tank is still new and ugly :D with no chaeto or scrubber.

I recently saw a video of someone with a DIY chaeto fuge using a 5 gallon bucket and Kessil light. This is pretty awesome.
 
Chaeto strips nutrients out very fast. I had to reduce the lighting period and intensity to have some nutrients. It is a love and hate relationship with chaeto.
 
Thanks for the link. Does chaeto need to be a certain size to be effective? How hard is it to dial in?
 
I found chaeto to be pretty hard to dial in. Chaeto adds another, living variable to deal with. Basically, let the chaeto grow and frequently test for nitrate and phosphate, remove some chaeto and keep periodically testing for nitrate and phosphate, repeat this until you figure out how to lower nitrates and phosphate without starving your corals while wondering if you need to add iron or other elements due to the chaeto consuming them. :oops:

This isn’t so much of a problem with a small tank and small sump with a cheap fuge light. With a H160 Flora and a Sicce powerhead the chaeto grew fast and easily stripped out all nitrates and phosphates. This would probably be a benefit for softie tanks or fowler tanks. To keep nutrients in the tank I ended up with setting the H160 intensity to less than 50% and photoperiod to 4 hours a night. The chaeto grows very slow now, but that is what works for that particular tank.
 
Thanks for the link. Does chaeto need to be a certain size to be effective? How hard is it to dial in?
The size of the chaeto is relative to the size of the tank and other variables such as number and size of fish, number size and type of corals, how much feeding by products, etc... In the other half’s tank, ~40 gal, there was a small quart sized fruit basket full of chaeto and a cheap Home Depot clip on light fixture with a cheap daylight LED bulb. The chaeto grows no problem and keeps the display algae free. That size can also fully strip out the nutrients if left to grow. Keeping the chaeto trimmed down to around a loose racket ball is enough for that tank. Water changes keeps up with replenishing elements. That tank has two 3” gobies, one 3” tiger pistol shrimp, one 4” blenny, one 4” wrasse, two 3” clowns, and misc inverts.
 
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