Diy algea scrubber

I run one on my system.

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Then when I had to clean the screen like crazy

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Now when I haven’t touched it in weeks

Nitrates: Undetectable with a salifert test but still there as my coral is colorful and is still growing quickly.

Phosphates: Undetectable on Salifert and Red Sea Pro high-resolution tests. Again, It’s still probably there in very small trace amounts because the algae on my scrubber is still alive.

I’m currently lightly feeding my tank residents 1 cube of frozen mysis per day. When the scrubber was initially established, I fed the tank 4 cubes per day. Nitrates never rose above 2ppm.

Here’s how I do it:

Ignore all of the sizing and flow guides you see on forums about them.

Don’t make your scrubber screen wide, make it long. It takes far less flow to fill the slot in the pipe and get that laminar water flow you’re looking for with a narrower slot. Unless you have a table saw and a fine-toothed blade (what I use in my builds), using a dremel or similar to cut a slot in pvc will work, but you’ll probably need more flow because the slot won’t be as even as it really needs to be. This makes a very big difference in flow requirements, which affects how much splashing and noise the scrubber makes.

With my scrubber, I’m only pushing around 100 gph over the screen. That’s it and this is on a system with 130 gallons total. I get absolutely zero splashing and algae growth is great. I originally ran it off of one of my drains but changed it because that water wasn’t draining into a filter sock and my sump was getting too dirty for my taste. Now it runs off of a manifold supplied by my return pump.

If you have high nitrates and phosphates, expect your algae growth to be very dark. You want to clean that stuff off every few days. You want your algae to eventually be emerald green-yellowish.

When cleaning the screen, do not remove algae from the little squares that make up the screen. You just want to scrape the surface of the screen of excess algae. It’s probably best to do one side one day and the other side a few days later.

You don’t want the thick mats of algae everyone posts pics of. As algae grows on the screen, it covers itself up, causing algae at the base to die and release everything it’s absorbed back into the water. If you have high nitrates and phosphates, clean algae from the screen once it reaches 1/4” in length. This could mean cleaning every few days.

Which leads me to my last point. Start with low nitrates and phosphates before setting up a scrubber. It’s far easier to do it this way than to constantly harvest algae until your nutrient levels fall. I see my scrubber as a constant nitrate and phosphate remover that will reduce those levels until the algae on the screen cannot grow anymore. In my system the algae length is very short because it has reached that point. It’s also much brighter in color probably due to being on the edge of starvation, but still being ready and willing to suck up any excess nutrients while being so short that my lighting can reach every bit of it.

If anyone here wants a scrubber, I can design and build one that will fit your current setup.