How many run an external chaeto reactor, Leaks?

[VintageReefer]

If you want to see which is more efficient connect both to a system

That's written by Santa Monica

An expert on algae growth and nutrient control. He’s spent over 15 years just studying algae and developing devices to grow it

 

[VintageReefer]

Another good read on efficiency of scrubbers

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/41/057/41057395.pdf

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I did a dig through google scholar and found some interesting conclusions that might be helpful.

A large amount of studies are around sewage treatment which mostly use macro algae, primarily chaeto. Though this seems to absolutely be it's form factor and not that it's better.

It seems that it varies heavily which algae takes up which nutrients and they shift and adjust based on what is present in the environment, so one size will not fit all, which also means they are not mutually exclusive, so both would be great as long as your system can use the reduction.

The big thing I found is that not just with algae that naturally occur in a turf scrubber, BUT ALSO CHAETO, is that it seems more frequent harvesting. The difference between constant 2 day harvests, and longer harvests (apparently plateauing at 9 days according to the one study that mentions a plateau of nutrient uptake, is significant. Given the 7 or so I just read through on the topic, all of them make it sound like me keeping my chaeto smaller, would make it pull more, as it more quickly accumulates biomass.

Nitrogen and phosphorus uptake rates of different species from a coral reef community after a nutrient pulse - Scientific Reports

Terrestrial runoff after heavy rainfall can increase nutrient concentrations in waters overlying coral reefs that otherwise experience low nutrient levels. Field measurements during a runoff event showed a sharp increase in nitrate (75-fold), phosphate (31-fold) and ammonium concentrations...

www.nature.com

I think I will make an ATS as a fun project, we have some fresh tanks that can use it anyway, and I will increase my chaeto harvests and keep it down to a smaller volume.

Neat stuff.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Another good read on efficiency of scrubbers

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/41/057/41057395.pdf

I like that they more clearly define a turf algae as what we would consider a turf algae in this study.

Looking at the studies for sewage treatment, they consider chaetomorpha a turf, which seems silly to me. Can chaeto even attach to anything aside from being tangled onto it? lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Another good read on efficiency of scrubbers

https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/41/057/41057395.pdf

What does efficient really mean? Space? Cost to set up and run? Absolute total nutrients removed?

I’m not sure what’s wrong with an ordinary refugium instead of paying for some sort of reactor, unless space is at a premium.

 

[VintageReefer]

What does efficient really mean? Space? Cost to set up and run? Absolute total nutrients removed?

I’m not sure what’s wrong with an ordinary refugium instead of paying for some sort of reactor, unless space is at a premium.

Space, and amount of nutrients removed by an algae in a comparable space

Meaning 1 cubic foot of turf algae will be capable of containing/removing/absorbing (not sure the correct term here) more phosphate than 1 cubic foot of most other macro algaes

 

[VintageReefer]

What does efficient really mean? Space? Cost to set up and run? Absolute total nutrients removed?

I’m not sure what’s wrong with an ordinary refugium instead of paying for some sort of reactor, unless space is at a premium.

There is nothing wrong with a refugium as a tool in the belt to help with nutrient control. However, most people are using sumps with a built in refugium compartment, and while large enough to be productive, they simply aren’t large enough to have a significant effect. Especially if someone has phosphate bound rock and substrate.

To get the impact they would need, they need to scale up, and run a much larger external refugium, a reactor, or a scrubber. Scrubbers are very productive at nutrient export and can outperform the other algae systems in a smaller footprint.

My fuge chamber is 14x10x10 and was packed with healthy cheato. Harvesting weekly. It was a good system but “not enough”

I installed a scrubber with a 6x4x2 growth chamber and was blown away. The cheato all turned white and died. Then…I started getting hair algae ALL OVER in my display. It started growing out of rocks. It grew right out of my sandbed in patches. I would manually remove the best I can from all the random spots it would appear

This was in a sps reef I kept that did not have algae issues prior, but did have high phosphates and nitrates I was trying to reduce.

Now all the sudden my cheato is dead and my display has algae. Until. It didn’t. Over the course of a few months the algae stopped appearing and the phosphates and nitrates went down. Nitrate went to zero. Phosphate went to 02-.03. And the only change I made in this system was install the scrubber. It did take time. About 4-5 months total. But what I experienced was consistent with what I read about scrubbers. The small scrubber I installed was not only equal in performance to the larger cheato refugium, it was stronger and more productive, achieving what the refugium never was able to. I do believe the same results could have been obtained with an external refugium but it would have had to be considerably larger than anything I was willing to add

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There is nothing wrong with a refugium as a tool in the belt to help with nutrient control. However, most people are using sumps with a built in refugium compartment, and while large enough to be productive, they simply aren’t large enough to have a significant effect. Especially if someone has phosphate bound rock and substrate.

To get the impact they would need, they need to scale up, and run a much larger external refugium, a reactor, or a scrubber. Scrubbers are very productive at nutrient export and can outperform the other algae systems in a smaller footprint.

My fuge chamber is 14x10x10 and was packed with healthy cheato. Harvesting weekly. It was a good system but “not enough”

I installed a scrubber with a 6x4x2 growth chamber and was blown away. The cheato all turned white and died. Then…I started getting hair algae ALL OVER in my display. It started growing out of rocks. It grew right out of my sandbed in patches. I would manually remove the best I can from all the random spots it would appear

This was in a sps reef I kept that did not have algae issues prior, but did have high phosphates and nitrates I was trying to reduce.

Now all the sudden my cheating is dead and my display has algae. Until. It didn’t. Over the course of a few months the algae stopped appearing and the phosphates and nitrates went down. Nitrate went to zero. Phosphate went to 02-.03. And the only change I made in this system was install the scrubber. It did take time. About 4-5 months total. But what I experienced was consistent with what I read about scrubbers. The small scrubber I installed was not only equal in performance to the larger cheato refugium, it was stronger and more productive, achieving what the refugium never was able to. I do believe the same results could have been obtained with an external refugium but it would have had to be considerably larger than anything I was willing to add

OK, I accept the space limitation situation. In my case, electricity cost was the concern of a space unlimited refugium situation, which is why I largely went to organic carbon dosing.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

There is nothing wrong with a refugium as a tool in the belt to help with nutrient control. However, most people are using sumps with a built in refugium compartment, and while large enough to be productive, they simply aren’t large enough to have a significant effect. Especially if someone has phosphate bound rock and substrate.

To get the impact they would need, they need to scale up, and run a much larger external refugium, a reactor, or a scrubber. Scrubbers are very productive at nutrient export and can outperform the other algae systems in a smaller footprint.

My fuge chamber is 14x10x10 and was packed with healthy cheato. Harvesting weekly. It was a good system but “not enough”

I installed a scrubber with a 6x4x2 growth chamber and was blown away. The cheato all turned white and died. Then…I started getting hair algae ALL OVER in my display. It started growing out of rocks. It grew right out of my sandbed in patches. I would manually remove the best I can from all the random spots it would appear

This was in a sps reef I kept that did not have algae issues prior, but did have high phosphates and nitrates I was trying to reduce.

Now all the sudden my cheating is dead and my display has algae. Until. It didn’t. Over the course of a few months the algae stopped appearing and the phosphates and nitrates went down. Nitrate went to zero. Phosphate went to 02-.03. And the only change I made in this system was install the scrubber. It did take time. About 4-5 months total. But what I experienced was consistent with what I read about scrubbers. The small scrubber I installed was not only equal in performance to the larger cheato refugium, it was stronger and more productive, achieving what the refugium never was able to. I do believe the same results could have been obtained with an external refugium but it would have had to be considerably larger than anything I was willing to add

From what I am reading in studies this afternoon harvesting 3 times a week may significantly increase the amount of uptake by the chaeto.

This might be why there is so much variance in how well it performs. some people have to cut it back all the time to keep it spinning, others like myself harvest once every month or 2 because I have the space.

It definitely sounds counterintuitive, I always thought more biosmass means more chaeto doing more growing, but it's fairly consistent across the papers on google scholar cutting it back more makes it soak up more.

Still comes down to density, which you can't argue ATS is more focused in it's usage or space.

 

[VintageReefer]

From what I am reading in studies this afternoon harvesting 3 times a week may significantly increase the amount of uptake by the chaeto.

This might be why there is so much variance in how well it performs. some people have to cut it back all the time to keep it spinning, others like myself harvest once every month or 2 because I have the space.

This is another setback for cheato. The spinning. The dense cheato blocks light from the lower levels of cheato, and the majority of growth is on the surface level of the cheato. People aim to have it spin so all sides can get light. People use cheato reactors so the lite source comes from the core. But, the nature of cheato is a setback and cheato will block light from cheato making it inefficient compared to an algae that is thinner and more translucent. The turf scrubber uses high power leds and grows a more translucent, thinner algae, that light can penetrate better. In my scrubber all of the algae receives light. I’m blasting about 1000 par from a distance of .25-2”. It is a very efficient system in a small footprint

If I want my nutrients higher I just decease them timer on the leds. If I want nutrients lower, I increase the led time period.

Since adding the scrubber I was able to remove a gfo reactor and cheato fuge. I ran with a skimmer and scrubber for many many years. And about 12 months ago I decided to remove the skimmer and have had no negative effects in coral health or water parameters

 

[Solo McReefer]

If you want to see which is more efficient connect both to a system


An expert on algae growth and nutrient control. He’s spent over 15 years just studying algae and developing devices to grow it

I know who he is

My question is, with respect, is he you?

I don't mean I know his name etc. I know what he's invented. In a way, both you and he have similar message board posting behavior.

 

[VintageReefer]

It definitely sounds counterintuitive, I always thought more biosmass means more chaeto doing more growing, but it's fairly consistent across the papers on google scholar cutting it back more makes it soak up more.

I am never afraid to admit when I’m wrong nor scared to learn something new

Your understanding was always my belief as well, but also something I always questioned. I always thought I should wait longer to harvest because more algae would equal more “media” to absorb nutrients. However the papers show the opposite. Maybe the algae growth is exponential and faster after a harvest

Thanks for info, definitely interesting and something I’ll experiment with

 

[VintageReefer]

I know who he is

My question is, with respect, is he you?

I don't mean I know his name etc. I know what he's invented. In a way, both you and he have similar message board posting behavior.

No disrespect taken. I am not Santa Monica. He is however on the forum, and many others

Santa Monica doesn’t know me personally and we’ve never met. I don’t even think we’ve ever spoke on the phone.

But I was in communication with him when he started developing his products and his company. We have emails going back over a decade. I’ve been on other forums with him where public discussions were held. I’ve had algae and nutrient problems over the years he’s helped me solve them over email

I’m not in constant communication. I’ve reached out maybe 3 or 4 times directly over the course of a decade, he’s fixed my issues every time.

I was around before commercial scrubbers were available and when he released some, I was ready to throw in the towel. Being a younger reefer at the time, $300 was a lot for me to spend on a device. But I valued my tank and sps and considered it an investment. That $300 scrubber I bought 10 years ago is in my reef today, as my only source of filtration, algae, and nutrient control

 

[TokenReefer]

You could be onto something. Was looking for more of a non-biased view - https://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/default/files/articles/pdf/cryptogamie-algologie2005v26f4a26.pdf
This study shows the N and P in the tissue mass of the studied macros - namely chaetomorpha crassa and derbesia vaucheriaeformis. One does show more values than the other across the seasons.

I do think if the chaeto is getting thick enough to block light, it probably needs to be harvested more often; spinning or not. There's probably a lot more to consider (trace uptake, etc) in order to answer this definitively; if at all possible. Good thread

 

[VintageReefer]

growth density is definitely a factor, the term is shading

I can’t find the document but studies were done where various algaes were dried and analyzed and it was found that turf algae contained higher level of phosphates compared to other macros of an equal volume

 

[cilyjr]

I've been doing this since 2004.
It keeps the cheatomorpha alive.
See the 5 gallon buckets with the light attached.
I don't know which is more efficient vs a TAS but I will say running it like this in the bucket versus just tumbling in the sump but the grows much faster.

 

[VintageReefer]

I've been doing this since 2004.
It keeps the cheatomorpha alive.
See the 5 gallon buckets with the light attached.
I don't know which is more efficient vs a TAS but I will say running it like this in the bucket versus just tumbling in the sump but the grows much faster.

That’s a cool setup. I wonder if the combination of the strong (assuming) led light plus the white bucket is working together to reflect light all around inside

 

[BiggestE22]

I am looking at running the Tunze external chaeto reactor on my 90g
Ant thoughts of the Tunze MAR-3181
How many people experience leaks while running chaeto reactor externally

I had an external till I dropped by Pax Bellum
N18. Now it’s internal only lol.

 

[Solo McReefer]

I've been doing this since 2004.
It keeps the cheatomorpha alive.
See the 5 gallon buckets with the light attached.
I don't know which is more efficient vs a TAS but I will say running it like this in the bucket versus just tumbling in the sump but the grows much faster.

How do you prevent overflows if the line gets clogged?

 

[Solo McReefer]

Here are pics of the salt creep on the dry lid

Pic of the turf growing on the inside top

And a pic of the cheato forming "leaves". Half the cheato was "foamy" not stringy. I've not seen that before

My caulerpa is up to 5 "leaves" now. Yeah
"Come an git me, Copper!"