labas39
Active member
I doubled my water volume and my acros lost a lot of color. I even lost a few colonies. I started to read up on Algae Turf Scrubbers, ATS, and decided to pull the plug and build one.
From my research, I've found three versions: horizontal, vertical and upflow. For me, the vertical made the most sense.
Then comes the sizing. I have approximately 100 gallons but the new way of sizing an ATS is by how many cubes of frozen food you feed per day and I feed one cube per day. Off the top of my head, they're 12 square inches lighting the screen on both sides for 1 cube. I'm lighting on one side because I want to hang the ATS on the wall so I need 24 square inches.
Next comes the lighting. They say 24 watts of CFL per cube per side. LED's supposedly can be 1/5 that amount. Red LED's in the 660 nm range is supposed to be the best.
I read that you DON'T want to go less than the required amount but I haven't seem much about going larger.
With that in mind, I decided to build a 36 square inch ATS. Mine is 6" x 6". I ordered 3 3 watt red LED from www.ledlight.com. They're 6 inches in length which should be perfect. I have no clue if they'll work but I'm willing to try. Since they'll only arrive on Thursday, I'm using an old shop light and a new soft white 23 watt CFL from Home Depot.
I bought the container from the Container Store today. It's like 7.5 x 7.5 by 3 inches. It's totally clear so I shouldn't have any loss of PAR.
I'm feeding the ATS with an old RIO 2100 that I had. I put a 1/2 bulkhead in the side of that Container Store container. I made sure I made the hold VERY SLOWLY. This thing isn't acrylic so it's fragile. I used tubing from the pump to the 90 degree barbed male end.
The drain is 1". Again, I drilled that hold very slowly and put a 1 inch bulkhead in there. I used PVC to dump back into the sump.
I bought the screen today from Hobby Lobby. It's 7 count. I scratched it up using a hole drill so that the algae can root. I used my table saw to make cut down the 1/2 PVC pipe, shoved the screen up there and used zip ties to keep it secure. That was my second option after my first one, which I thought would be easier to clean the screen, was bust because of how the water flowed.
After driving back and forth to Home Depot a few times after changing my mind, the final result is up and running.]
The light schedule is 18 on and 6 off. They'll be on during the night to theoretically keep the pH more stable.
I ended up hacking some wood pieces to keep light out of my display tank but if this works, it's really only a prototype. I plan on making this all out of black and clear acrylic.
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From my research, I've found three versions: horizontal, vertical and upflow. For me, the vertical made the most sense.
Then comes the sizing. I have approximately 100 gallons but the new way of sizing an ATS is by how many cubes of frozen food you feed per day and I feed one cube per day. Off the top of my head, they're 12 square inches lighting the screen on both sides for 1 cube. I'm lighting on one side because I want to hang the ATS on the wall so I need 24 square inches.
Next comes the lighting. They say 24 watts of CFL per cube per side. LED's supposedly can be 1/5 that amount. Red LED's in the 660 nm range is supposed to be the best.
I read that you DON'T want to go less than the required amount but I haven't seem much about going larger.
With that in mind, I decided to build a 36 square inch ATS. Mine is 6" x 6". I ordered 3 3 watt red LED from www.ledlight.com. They're 6 inches in length which should be perfect. I have no clue if they'll work but I'm willing to try. Since they'll only arrive on Thursday, I'm using an old shop light and a new soft white 23 watt CFL from Home Depot.
I bought the container from the Container Store today. It's like 7.5 x 7.5 by 3 inches. It's totally clear so I shouldn't have any loss of PAR.
I'm feeding the ATS with an old RIO 2100 that I had. I put a 1/2 bulkhead in the side of that Container Store container. I made sure I made the hold VERY SLOWLY. This thing isn't acrylic so it's fragile. I used tubing from the pump to the 90 degree barbed male end.
The drain is 1". Again, I drilled that hold very slowly and put a 1 inch bulkhead in there. I used PVC to dump back into the sump.
I bought the screen today from Hobby Lobby. It's 7 count. I scratched it up using a hole drill so that the algae can root. I used my table saw to make cut down the 1/2 PVC pipe, shoved the screen up there and used zip ties to keep it secure. That was my second option after my first one, which I thought would be easier to clean the screen, was bust because of how the water flowed.
After driving back and forth to Home Depot a few times after changing my mind, the final result is up and running.]
The light schedule is 18 on and 6 off. They'll be on during the night to theoretically keep the pH more stable.
I ended up hacking some wood pieces to keep light out of my display tank but if this works, it's really only a prototype. I plan on making this all out of black and clear acrylic.
View attachment 3731
View attachment 3732
View attachment 3733
