algae scrubber experiences with zoas and palys

Completely agree, while the filtering capability of a scrubber is great, the amount of micro fauna breeding on the screen is staggering. I have had a couple events over the last year which have caused my polyps to close, I simply added a filter sock with carbon to the system and things open again within a couple of days.. Never considered it could be the scrubber, but it is a possibility. It's actually happening in my tank right now.
I added carbon last night and will post again in a couple of days.

Coincidentally, the last time I cleaned the screen, about a week ago I remember thinking that the color of the algae was off, and the texture was a little slimy.

 

Bud, it seems I struck a nerve there! I wanted to take the time to browse the literature before responding. I know algae scrubbers are your bread and butter, I'm not trying to derail the concept that they work in general for our purposes as filters. But there are MANY MANY nuanced facets of their use in the context of dynamic biology and ecosystems. They do in fact host much more extensive food webs and therefore a more resilient nutrient processing system, a foundation that Adey and Loveland highlight with numerous control groups and taxa surveys throughout successive stages of 5 different captive ecosystems.


These are peer reviewed studies that took many components into account, make no mistake, Dynamic Aquaria is no "Barrons" pet store publication, it is an extensive 500 page scientific catalog that explores and annotates the biochemistry, biomineralization, community structure, intra/interspecific competition, trophic structure, trophic classes, molecular metabolism and photosynthesis involved in these model ecosystems. It is probably one of the most detailed ecosystem studies TO DATE. Yes it is 20 year old information, but I highly, highly suggest the reading (to you specifically) and I would not quickly discount their findings.


Technology may change, but biological principals do not. Make no mistake, their findings do not dismiss the use of ATS, quite the contrary, and their results show great capacity for the use of ATS in home aquaria and in waste water management. They used a highly varied source of lighting which they detail extensively. This included (but not limited to) the 6700k Iwaski bulb that BUILT this industry which has been used again and again and again. Some of the scrubbers used in their estuary systems were horizontal dump buckets, but in their home reef system they used flow through screens like what is commonly used today (with the exception that they are single sided). I guess I would be interested in seeing any study that suggested that there was any difference between the two, since atmopsheric CO2 is much higher than dissolved and would only serve to improve turf growth. I must mention, the parameters of their systems were 1 sq meter per 1000gallons of water.


Additonally, I have to quote here from the literature, the species of algae they were using included systems using the following:Cyanophycota (blue-green) Anacystis aeruginos, Gomphosphaeria aponica, Porphyrosiphon kurzii, Microcoleus lyngbyaceous, Shizothrix mexicana, Schizothrix calcicola, Spirulina subsalsa, Spirulina major, Scytonema hofmanni, Arthrospira sp., Calothrix crustacea; Chlorophycota (green algae) Cladophora crystallina,. Cladophora delicatula, Enteromorpha compressa, Derbesia vaucherieformis, Derbesia marina, Derbesia lamarouxii, as well as a few red algaes (Rhodophycota and Chromophycota (brown) and many uncataloged diatoms.


Again, I HIGHLY suggest you pick it up and read it. It will add enormous amounts of complexity to your understanding of dynamic biology and will come in useful in your discussions about ATS in the future. I think the most important thing this book illustrates is that we should in general reject the notion of homogeneity in the ocean. For all general intents and purposes and in most cases (most) we can assume this for the chemical properties, but when we approch questions of biodiversity and those chemical properties most directly effected by the local flora and fauna (DO, CO3/CO2/CO, ORP, N, gasses, alleopathy etc.) we should learn to question even ocean ecosystems as homogenous systems "all built upon the same principals, rules and parameters."

 

My buddy runs a scrubber ,and a sulfer denitrater along with bio ball reactor and carbon and never had a problem

 

Andy, I didn't read any hostility or defensiveness in BUD's post.

 

If you know Bud, you know he doesn't frequently chat on the forums in essay format! lol


I don't think he's being hostile certainly, this is the place for informed debate. I was simply noting that I had perhaps piqued his interest. From the sounds of it though, it would seem he's attached some negative connotations with the findings of the aforementioned research, and has written off it's credibility without a second glance. In the scientific community "those are fightin' words!" haha The fact of the matter is that the research was conducted very methodically and extremely thoroughly and remains highly relevant to this day. In actuality this work revealed many positive aspects of using turf scrubbers.

 

Here, I erroneously quoted A&L as prescribing 1sq meter of turf/100 gallons, when in fact what I found was 1 sq meter/1000 gallons. Alleopathy is a discussion too that we could go on debating without any clear answers due to the nature of receptor sensitivity and the enzymes and pathways involved. There is likely many targets that suffer from allopathic competition secondarily, that is, not as the intended competitor. But again, these are things we cannot know without extensive spectroscopy and biochemical analysis of pKa and binding affinities. Not to mention, in the grand scheme they are probably negligible and can be handled by simple employment of GAC.


The discussion I intended to initiate though, and Bud if you could probably elaborate on this more, what of dosing things like iron which is a known rate limiting step in photosynthesis? Or potassium for that matter I guess, really any of the macro elements involved in photosynthesis are important come into play here for two reasons: 1) we can presumably get accelerated growth from turfs scrubbers by adding certain elements (thereby utilizing the scrubber to drive nutrient levels ultra low as seen with zeolite and carbon dosing regimes) 2) does the use of turfs compete (not alleopathically) but rather directly for chemical resources in the captive water body? Could we ameliorate this by dosing things (again I'm stuck here on iron as being the primary suspect).


Turf scrubbers are superior filters for a number of reasons. It came a surprise to me to hear that people have difficulty keeping zoanthids and some species of corals with them. The same is true in ULNS systems like zeovit and biopellet systems which is quickly remedied by using and checking potassium. If the same is possible with turf scrubbers then we should make the effort to fine tune these systems since they're safer to use than carbon dosing systems, and they're many times more resilient. The problem with carbon dosing systems is exactly the opposite of turf scrubbers, they have a tenancy to go toward monoculture (and each host its own unique unknown (and probably unknowable) rate limiting steps) , whereas the turf scrubbers have a tenancy to increase biodiversity, and that we can work with!

 

Some excellent and specific points there! Yes all the ATS they used were horizontal planes. Light penetration and undergrowth die off was not a factor I had considered actually. IDK if they mention or detail that in the book or not. Certainly verticle turfs are at least 2x more superior lol (probably more when you think about all the improvements this design introduces). I did look recently at the price of DA on Amazon, seems you can pick up a used hard back for 15$! I'm sure I probably paid close to 60 for mine! lol damn it.