After reading a series of posts on MASC (Walter White) and the other forums (Santa Monica), I decided to make my own algae upflow scrubber. Background: I have a small 24 gallon Current Aquapod tank. The tank is now 9 months old and have performed 5 gallon water changes every two weeks. Filtration consists of 20lbs of live rock 15lbs of live sand, 1 mechanical filter and 1 bag of Seachem Purigen. Livestock consists of 4 fish, 10 snails, 5 hermits, 1 shrimp and 30 corals. My numbers are consistently 1.024 salinity, 8.2 ph, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate, 10-30ppm nitrate (varies depending on water changes), and 0.25ppm phosphate. The phosphate and nitrate have been climbing over the last 2 months and I have decided that I needed to work on a nutrient export strategy so I don't have to increase my water changes. Because my nano has very small compartments in back I don't have space for a media reactor, skimmer or refugium. I do have space for an upflow algae scrubber...so here we go!
Parts List:
cross-stich mat, plastic sheet from Michaels, $0.70
air pump (4 liter/min) from Petco $20
air tube, included in air pump
plastic dish from Thai food take out ($8 for pad thai....mmmm good!)
super glue gel
light (mine is led, special thanks to Kris, aka Walter White)
timer
Step 1: Preparing the mat. You need to make the mat as rough as possible. I started with a belt sander, using 40 grit sand paper. This roughened the entire mat, cutting small grooves into the mat.
After the first sanding, I then used my small hole saw to roughen the mat further. Holding it in my had, I scraped it side to side and in circles. I tried using a drill, but did not work nearly as well as using by hand.
From all I have read, you'll want the mat to be as rough as possible to give the algae something to grab onto.
Step 2: Preparing the plastic dish: the soon to be UAS. Following Santa Monica's design; I put holes 2 large holes on the top (1/4", 1 for air tube and 1 for air release), 7 smaller holes (1/8") on each side for water outflow, and 11 small holes on the bottom for water inflow. To make the holes cleanly and precise, I melted them using a torch and drill bit. You will need good ventilation.
Parts List:
cross-stich mat, plastic sheet from Michaels, $0.70
air pump (4 liter/min) from Petco $20
air tube, included in air pump
plastic dish from Thai food take out ($8 for pad thai....mmmm good!)
super glue gel
light (mine is led, special thanks to Kris, aka Walter White)
timer
Step 1: Preparing the mat. You need to make the mat as rough as possible. I started with a belt sander, using 40 grit sand paper. This roughened the entire mat, cutting small grooves into the mat.
After the first sanding, I then used my small hole saw to roughen the mat further. Holding it in my had, I scraped it side to side and in circles. I tried using a drill, but did not work nearly as well as using by hand.
From all I have read, you'll want the mat to be as rough as possible to give the algae something to grab onto.
Step 2: Preparing the plastic dish: the soon to be UAS. Following Santa Monica's design; I put holes 2 large holes on the top (1/4", 1 for air tube and 1 for air release), 7 smaller holes (1/8") on each side for water outflow, and 11 small holes on the bottom for water inflow. To make the holes cleanly and precise, I melted them using a torch and drill bit. You will need good ventilation.
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