SantaMonica
Well-known member
Micro-Small Algae Remover System for Nano's: Free!
It's called a Turf Algae Filter, and it works in salt or freshwater. Takes just a few minutes to install into your nano, and best of all, it's free! It starts reducing your nitrate and phosphate within the first week, and after a few weeks they usually hit zero. This of course means your algae in your tank starts melting away!
A Turf Algae Filter is simply a "screen" that you put into your nano's hood, where water will flow across it. You then add a bright light, and you are done. Here is the 5 gal nano that I used as the test (I did not care how ugly it was)...
Here is the screen:
You put the screen in the nano's hood, where water will flow across it:
You add a light that shines on the screen, and you're done!...
In case your nano's hood is closed on the top, you might have to cut open a small square hatch so you can get the light real close to the screen (strong light is the most important requirement for this filter.)
The most powerful feature of a Turf Algae Filter is that it leaves food particles in the tank so the corals can feed, yet it removes nitrates and phosphates (which cause algae), most of the time down to zero! This is the OPPOSITE of what a skimmer does; a skimmer removes food particles (so corals starve) and then leaves the nitrate and phosphate in the water so you have to use other methods to get the nitrate and phosphate out. And how about all that gunk that skimmers pull out? Well, half of it is food that you just fed, and your corals wanted to eat it. What about the other half, the waste? Well, that's food too! Of course with nano's, size is a huge concern, and skimmers are just too big. A Turf Algae Filter actually fits into the hood you already have.
The process of using turf algae to filter aquariums has been around for decades, but the contraptions were just too huge and expensive, and for some reason nobody thought to make a simple one in a nano hood. It's simple enough (and free) that you should try one on your system even if you have no intention of eliminating your skimmer, etc. The principal is very simple: You have a screen; light is aimed at the screen, and tank water is streamed over the screen. What happens is that algae starts growing on the screen, and this algae eats almost all the nitrate and phosphate in the water flowing over it (and so the algae in your tank will not have anything to eat!). However, the turf does NOT eat the food/pods/plankton in the water, so this food will stay in the water for the corals to eat. This is the OPPOSITE of a skimmer, which takes out the food/pods/plankton (so corals starve), but leaves in the nitrate and phosphate that you have to then get out using other means. What about fish waste that skimmers normally pull out? Well that's food too, for somebody! Only after waste decomposes completely into nitrate and phosphate is it no longer "food", and at that point the turf zaps it! After all, what do you think the green algae on your rocks and glass are eating? Food? No. Nitrate and phosphate!
You might ask why you have not heard of turf algae filters before. Well turf algae is actually used quite a bit in commercial/industrial areas to clean lakes and rivers, but the units that were built for aquariums were just too big (as big as a 200 gal tank) and expensive ($3,000+). So they never caught on. But all they do is move water across a screen, and have a light. So putting a turf screen directly in your nano hood works just fine.
The only thing you need to decide is how big your screen needs to be. The basic rule for a one-sided screen (like nano's use) is two square inches of screen for each gallon of tank water. Thus a 12 gal nano tank needs just 24 square inches (4 X 6 inches) in the hood! This small thing replaces the skimmer, refugium, phosphate removers, nitrate removers, carbon, filtersocks, and possibly even waterchanges, if the purpose these things is to reduce nitrate and phosphate.
My example 5 gal version took about 5 minutes to build. I can feed the tank as much food as I did before, and anything not eaten eventually ends up as algae on the screen. The difference is that the nitrate and phosphate are WAY WAY low! Here's how a turf algae filter compares to other nano filtering options:
o Will eventually remove most algae growth in the display, since nitrate and phosphate will be LOW.
o Allows you to feed higher amounts without causing nuisance algae growth in the display.
o Will finally allow coralline to grow, since the phosphate will be too low stop it.
o Does not skim out coralline spores like a skimmer does.
o Can replace waterchanges, if the purpose of the waterchange is to reduce nitrate or
phosphate or algae growth.
o High removal of nitrate and phosphate, low removal of foods (the OPPOSITE of a skimmer).
o Can entirely replace a refugium, skimmer, DSB, carbon, phosban, polyfilters and any other
device you may use to reduce nitrate and phosphate (although you can certainly keep
these items around if you want.)
o Grows copepods and amphipods that will drain right down into your display.
o Removes both nitrate and phosphate, unlike rock/sand (which removes only nitrate), or
phosban (which removes only phosphate).
o Increases pH.
o Increases oxygen.
o Easy to clean; just lift the screen up and "scrape" (i.e., "harvest") it.
o Traps no food like a refugium or DSB/gravel does; food flows right past the screen.
o There is no odor from the turf.
o Will NOT start growing algae in the tank; instead it REMOVES algae from the tank.
o No filter pads (or any mechanical filter) needed, since you want all the food in the
water to continue circulating until eaten by the fish or corals.
o You do not have to turn a skimmer off when feeding, because a skimmer is not running in
the first place.
o Works in saltwater or freshwater nano's.
Start by getting your screen. The screen pictured below is a plastic tank divider (get the biggest one, and cut it down), but almost any stiff material with holes will do, as long as it holds its shape:
http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/2/Tank-Dividers/tank divider/0
If you usa a tank-divider like this, you need to sand one side of it to make it rough, so that the algae will stick to it better. Window screen won't work, because it will not hold its shape. What does work good is knitting backing material. Whatever screen material you use, get enough to make THREE full screens, because you are probably going to mess up at least one the first time.
Now find a place in your nano's hood where the water is flowing horizontally (usually where a filter is located, which you just remove), and size the screen to fit snug in there. The whole screen needs to be under water when the water is flowing across it. Also, and this is probably the only hard part, you need to be able to add a very strong light that shines directly onto the screen. My example light in the pic above is only a half inch away from the water. Use the brightest light that you can tolerate/afford/deal with. You can't have too much light. My example nano uses a 23 Watt, 5100K compact fluorescent "full-spectrum" (125W output equivalent):
http://www.buylighting.com/23-Watt-R40-Compact-Fluorescent-Flood-5100K-p/tcp1r4023-51k.htm
Now put the screen and light in, and go! If you can get some green algae from your tank, and rub it onto the screen, this will help it start faster. You should start seeing algae in two days if you do this. The screen usually starts out in a few days with brown specs:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay02screen.jpg
Then it gets thicker, with some green strands starting:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay03screen.jpg
In a week or so, it just about covers the screen completely:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay07screen.jpg
...then you take the screen out and clean off half of it and put it back in:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay12halfScrape.jpg
Dont' clean it down the the bare screen, though; leave a little behind so it does not have to start from scratch again. After the cleaned part has grown a little, take it out and clean the other half. Continue doing this half-screen cleaning of the green algae whenever it starts looking this thick, or at the longest, once a week.
After a few weeks, the algae will start getting to be a darker green, and then brown:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay09screenBeforeScrape.jpg
This is what you want. Darker algae absorbs more nitrate and phosphate than green algae does. So when you start seeing the brown stuff, continue to remove the green stuff, but try to leave the brown stuff. So, the general procedure is: When the green is starting to shade the brown (or once a week), take the screen out and rub the green stuff off of HALF the screen under some tap water, leaving the darker stuff. After the brown stuff starts covering the screen, then start removing it too, but always leaving some on the screen afterwards. And always, one HALF the screen at a time.
Always throw the scraped material away; this is the nitrate and phosphate that was taken out of your tank! You never want to put it back (or feed it) to your tank. Also, always use tap water (fresh water) to do your screen washings/scrapings, because the fresh water will kill any pods living in the turf (pods will eat the turf.) Lastly, to make the turf grow even faster, you can try adding Kent's Iron liquid to the tank water, per instructions.
If you already have a skimmer or refugium or other devices, just add your new turf algae filter to your system. Then you can start reducing or turning off your other filters one by one. Just be sure to test for nitrate and phosphate daily as you do this. And do post your pics and stories!
Here are some additional pointers: Time the turf light to be on for 18 hours, and off for 6 hours. This is easy if you use a separate light from your tank light. You can also use metal halide or sodium plant-grow lights; the more light the better, and the lower their K rating (more "red") the better. Don't melt your plastic parts though. CFL's work good too.
Mysterious rock algae: After your Turf Algae Filter gets going, and your nitrate and phosphate start measuring very low levels, you may start seeing spots of algae on some parts of your live rock, but not on other rocks right next to it. And this will happen at the same time that you are getting less green algae on your glass. So what is happening?
Phosphate is coming out of your rocks, that's what's happening. When phosphate get really low in the water (which you can test for), the higher phosphate levels in the rocks start flowing out into the water. And as soon as this phosphate from the rock hits the water, algae eats it and starts growing right there on the rock. Some of your rock will have lots of phosphate stored in it, and other rock will have none. That's why only some part of the rock will have algae develop on it, and others won't. Eventually (months), all the phosphate from all the rock will be removed, and all the algae will disappear. However your glass will starting clearing up the first week!
Lastly, if your tank is 36 gallons or more, you might consider building a full size and fully functional turf-in-a-bucket, which sits outside the tank, or on the sump:
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37964
That's it! I hope some folks give it a try! Do post your pics and stories...
It's called a Turf Algae Filter, and it works in salt or freshwater. Takes just a few minutes to install into your nano, and best of all, it's free! It starts reducing your nitrate and phosphate within the first week, and after a few weeks they usually hit zero. This of course means your algae in your tank starts melting away!
A Turf Algae Filter is simply a "screen" that you put into your nano's hood, where water will flow across it. You then add a bright light, and you are done. Here is the 5 gal nano that I used as the test (I did not care how ugly it was)...
Here is the screen:
You put the screen in the nano's hood, where water will flow across it:
You add a light that shines on the screen, and you're done!...
In case your nano's hood is closed on the top, you might have to cut open a small square hatch so you can get the light real close to the screen (strong light is the most important requirement for this filter.)
The most powerful feature of a Turf Algae Filter is that it leaves food particles in the tank so the corals can feed, yet it removes nitrates and phosphates (which cause algae), most of the time down to zero! This is the OPPOSITE of what a skimmer does; a skimmer removes food particles (so corals starve) and then leaves the nitrate and phosphate in the water so you have to use other methods to get the nitrate and phosphate out. And how about all that gunk that skimmers pull out? Well, half of it is food that you just fed, and your corals wanted to eat it. What about the other half, the waste? Well, that's food too! Of course with nano's, size is a huge concern, and skimmers are just too big. A Turf Algae Filter actually fits into the hood you already have.
The process of using turf algae to filter aquariums has been around for decades, but the contraptions were just too huge and expensive, and for some reason nobody thought to make a simple one in a nano hood. It's simple enough (and free) that you should try one on your system even if you have no intention of eliminating your skimmer, etc. The principal is very simple: You have a screen; light is aimed at the screen, and tank water is streamed over the screen. What happens is that algae starts growing on the screen, and this algae eats almost all the nitrate and phosphate in the water flowing over it (and so the algae in your tank will not have anything to eat!). However, the turf does NOT eat the food/pods/plankton in the water, so this food will stay in the water for the corals to eat. This is the OPPOSITE of a skimmer, which takes out the food/pods/plankton (so corals starve), but leaves in the nitrate and phosphate that you have to then get out using other means. What about fish waste that skimmers normally pull out? Well that's food too, for somebody! Only after waste decomposes completely into nitrate and phosphate is it no longer "food", and at that point the turf zaps it! After all, what do you think the green algae on your rocks and glass are eating? Food? No. Nitrate and phosphate!
You might ask why you have not heard of turf algae filters before. Well turf algae is actually used quite a bit in commercial/industrial areas to clean lakes and rivers, but the units that were built for aquariums were just too big (as big as a 200 gal tank) and expensive ($3,000+). So they never caught on. But all they do is move water across a screen, and have a light. So putting a turf screen directly in your nano hood works just fine.
The only thing you need to decide is how big your screen needs to be. The basic rule for a one-sided screen (like nano's use) is two square inches of screen for each gallon of tank water. Thus a 12 gal nano tank needs just 24 square inches (4 X 6 inches) in the hood! This small thing replaces the skimmer, refugium, phosphate removers, nitrate removers, carbon, filtersocks, and possibly even waterchanges, if the purpose these things is to reduce nitrate and phosphate.
My example 5 gal version took about 5 minutes to build. I can feed the tank as much food as I did before, and anything not eaten eventually ends up as algae on the screen. The difference is that the nitrate and phosphate are WAY WAY low! Here's how a turf algae filter compares to other nano filtering options:
o Will eventually remove most algae growth in the display, since nitrate and phosphate will be LOW.
o Allows you to feed higher amounts without causing nuisance algae growth in the display.
o Will finally allow coralline to grow, since the phosphate will be too low stop it.
o Does not skim out coralline spores like a skimmer does.
o Can replace waterchanges, if the purpose of the waterchange is to reduce nitrate or
phosphate or algae growth.
o High removal of nitrate and phosphate, low removal of foods (the OPPOSITE of a skimmer).
o Can entirely replace a refugium, skimmer, DSB, carbon, phosban, polyfilters and any other
device you may use to reduce nitrate and phosphate (although you can certainly keep
these items around if you want.)
o Grows copepods and amphipods that will drain right down into your display.
o Removes both nitrate and phosphate, unlike rock/sand (which removes only nitrate), or
phosban (which removes only phosphate).
o Increases pH.
o Increases oxygen.
o Easy to clean; just lift the screen up and "scrape" (i.e., "harvest") it.
o Traps no food like a refugium or DSB/gravel does; food flows right past the screen.
o There is no odor from the turf.
o Will NOT start growing algae in the tank; instead it REMOVES algae from the tank.
o No filter pads (or any mechanical filter) needed, since you want all the food in the
water to continue circulating until eaten by the fish or corals.
o You do not have to turn a skimmer off when feeding, because a skimmer is not running in
the first place.
o Works in saltwater or freshwater nano's.
Start by getting your screen. The screen pictured below is a plastic tank divider (get the biggest one, and cut it down), but almost any stiff material with holes will do, as long as it holds its shape:
http://www.aquaticeco.com/subcategories/2/Tank-Dividers/tank divider/0
If you usa a tank-divider like this, you need to sand one side of it to make it rough, so that the algae will stick to it better. Window screen won't work, because it will not hold its shape. What does work good is knitting backing material. Whatever screen material you use, get enough to make THREE full screens, because you are probably going to mess up at least one the first time.
Now find a place in your nano's hood where the water is flowing horizontally (usually where a filter is located, which you just remove), and size the screen to fit snug in there. The whole screen needs to be under water when the water is flowing across it. Also, and this is probably the only hard part, you need to be able to add a very strong light that shines directly onto the screen. My example light in the pic above is only a half inch away from the water. Use the brightest light that you can tolerate/afford/deal with. You can't have too much light. My example nano uses a 23 Watt, 5100K compact fluorescent "full-spectrum" (125W output equivalent):
http://www.buylighting.com/23-Watt-R40-Compact-Fluorescent-Flood-5100K-p/tcp1r4023-51k.htm
Now put the screen and light in, and go! If you can get some green algae from your tank, and rub it onto the screen, this will help it start faster. You should start seeing algae in two days if you do this. The screen usually starts out in a few days with brown specs:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay02screen.jpg
Then it gets thicker, with some green strands starting:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay03screen.jpg
In a week or so, it just about covers the screen completely:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay07screen.jpg
...then you take the screen out and clean off half of it and put it back in:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay12halfScrape.jpg
Dont' clean it down the the bare screen, though; leave a little behind so it does not have to start from scratch again. After the cleaned part has grown a little, take it out and clean the other half. Continue doing this half-screen cleaning of the green algae whenever it starts looking this thick, or at the longest, once a week.
After a few weeks, the algae will start getting to be a darker green, and then brown:
Hi-Res: http://www.radio-media.com/fish/5galNanoDay09screenBeforeScrape.jpg
This is what you want. Darker algae absorbs more nitrate and phosphate than green algae does. So when you start seeing the brown stuff, continue to remove the green stuff, but try to leave the brown stuff. So, the general procedure is: When the green is starting to shade the brown (or once a week), take the screen out and rub the green stuff off of HALF the screen under some tap water, leaving the darker stuff. After the brown stuff starts covering the screen, then start removing it too, but always leaving some on the screen afterwards. And always, one HALF the screen at a time.
Always throw the scraped material away; this is the nitrate and phosphate that was taken out of your tank! You never want to put it back (or feed it) to your tank. Also, always use tap water (fresh water) to do your screen washings/scrapings, because the fresh water will kill any pods living in the turf (pods will eat the turf.) Lastly, to make the turf grow even faster, you can try adding Kent's Iron liquid to the tank water, per instructions.
If you already have a skimmer or refugium or other devices, just add your new turf algae filter to your system. Then you can start reducing or turning off your other filters one by one. Just be sure to test for nitrate and phosphate daily as you do this. And do post your pics and stories!
Here are some additional pointers: Time the turf light to be on for 18 hours, and off for 6 hours. This is easy if you use a separate light from your tank light. You can also use metal halide or sodium plant-grow lights; the more light the better, and the lower their K rating (more "red") the better. Don't melt your plastic parts though. CFL's work good too.
Mysterious rock algae: After your Turf Algae Filter gets going, and your nitrate and phosphate start measuring very low levels, you may start seeing spots of algae on some parts of your live rock, but not on other rocks right next to it. And this will happen at the same time that you are getting less green algae on your glass. So what is happening?
Phosphate is coming out of your rocks, that's what's happening. When phosphate get really low in the water (which you can test for), the higher phosphate levels in the rocks start flowing out into the water. And as soon as this phosphate from the rock hits the water, algae eats it and starts growing right there on the rock. Some of your rock will have lots of phosphate stored in it, and other rock will have none. That's why only some part of the rock will have algae develop on it, and others won't. Eventually (months), all the phosphate from all the rock will be removed, and all the algae will disappear. However your glass will starting clearing up the first week!
Lastly, if your tank is 36 gallons or more, you might consider building a full size and fully functional turf-in-a-bucket, which sits outside the tank, or on the sump:
http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37964
That's it! I hope some folks give it a try! Do post your pics and stories...
