algae turf scrubber verses protein skimmer

[carnavor]

Compareing a skimmer to a algae turf scrubber, set up to a exsiting filtration system.

ats removes: nutrients, ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, heavy metals.
ats maintenance: screen scraping once a week.
ats: doe's not remove vitamins,trace elements, minerals near as much as a skimmer.
ats: produces lots of food in the water column, reef flora (worms, copepods, amphipods, sponges and microalgae to name a few) food for the reef, corals and fish.
ats: only electric is for compact fluorescent lighting ,very low watt consumption.
only reason ats have not been the alternative to protein skimming is people like sprung and other authors have bad mouthed them, and look at them a a sole filtration system, when a ats is set up like a protein skimmers (add on to exsiting filtration system) .a skimmer does't even compair to a ats.

feed back please

[KodiakBear]

Hmmm... I tried a DIY ats about 6 months ago. It took nearly a full month to get a good amount of growth on it, and it took up a lot of space in my sump. I tried a few different designs, and really wasn't pleased with the results of any of them. All in all, it seemed like a better idea on paper than in operation.
If you've got a design that's working well for you, I'd be excited to see how you built it.

[KodiakBear]

About folk like Sprung bad-mouthing them... Like just about everything else in this hobby, even the experts are still learning. Different things show varying degrees of success for different people. The ats designs I used worked great for the folk that gave me the building plans... They just didn't work out so well for my system. Similarly, things I've been doing that work fabulously for my system won't work in others.
My advice: never rely on one sole person's advice. (interested coincidence of redundancy there).

[hng]

The problem with an algae scrubber is that it takes a LOT of room to create one that's worth anything and you will need strong lights to promote algae growth. It's also a technologically difficult thing to design for a typical home aquarium. Protein skimmers, on the other hand, are fairly compact, pretty much plug and play, and only require one outlet for the pump. It's a matter of convenience more than anything else I think.

BTW, I'm not sure if an algae scrubber removes detritus before it decomposes (like a skimmer would). That's another big benefit of having a skimmer.