Steve's L2 Algae Scrubber (1 Viewer)

[data_loss]

Week 4. 7 days growth. Just starting to fill in. I think the better flow is helping. Upon inspection today it is clear growth is clogging the slot a bit.

Nitrates @ 5-10
Phosphates @ .01

Will be doing a water change tonight, hope to slow down on these soon. Will make sure to feed 2 cube equivalent of food each day this week.

I'm thinking about spreading out the lighting cycle a bit more to try to encourage growth to come in better where the lights are stronger.

 

[Adam G]

Getting better every week. Parameters are startng to look good as well.

 

[odie]

I haven't seen that recommendation anywhere, though it sounds like it makes sense to me. I'll go searching to see what I can find.

I am not sure if he mentions it in his thread or not but via email instructions he mentions it. Not sure if it was in the PDF file he sent but it is in his email instructions.

Copied from it.

8)Initially, I recommend 6-8 hour photoperiod per day, split up into 2 or 3 blocks of time. The center will fill in last. I have added a black dot on the diffuser right in front of the blue LED, this is to knock down the intensity directly in front of this LED and allow the screen to fill in faster. I recommend leaving it there for at least the first 3 months.

 

[data_loss]

Week 5.

14 days growth, I didn't clean after last weeks update other than clearing the slot out. Lights ran 3 hours on 3 hours off for 3 cycles this week.

While I'm no where near lush green 3d growth the algae seems to have taken hold. I needed to actually scrape to clean the screen today. I can't wait to start seeing growth with this like DG's pictures :beerchug:

Nitrates @ 6
Phosphates @ 0

Feeding well to make sure I don't leave the system phosphate starved. Thinking I'll do a 30 gallon water change sometime this week to try to bring the nitrates down more. I'm starting to wonder if it is time to ditch the big ball of cheato in the refugium?

Screen after cleaning today:

 

[David Grigor]

If the chaeto is growing and you can havest/export some periodically, I'd leave it. If it's just there but not really growing then may be time to ditch it.


Have you upped the flow yet ?

 

[data_loss]

I haven't harvested the cheato in quite a while, its is pretty hard to tell if there has been growth because it takes up pretty much the whole fuge. I'll harvest a large portion of it today so it is easier to tell if it is still growing.

Yes I upped the flow to as high as I could get it without a ton of bubbles getting pushed through to the sump. I could push it higher if need be I'd just have to create some sort of bubble trap which wouldn't be hard to do.

 

[David Grigor]

You should put a gate valve on the drain and adjust it just like you would a herbie. It looks like you have an emergency drain on the side. That would produce 0 bubbles and add as must flow as you wanted. The only downside is it would add some water level in your ATS, I would think about 2" of water level in the ATS would be required to get bubble free.


Yes, export some chaeto and start harvesting regularly.

 

[data_loss]

I do have it setup like a herbie, it is no longer above the fuge like this but the valve is still setup the same.

I have the flow set as high as I could get it without bubbles forcing through the herbie setup, but I didn't raise the water level as I didn't think that would be good with the screen only being 4 inches tall.

I'm going to see how it does this week and tweak some more next Sunday if I'm not happy with how it is progressing.

Thanks for the feedback :beerchug:

 

[data_loss]

Week 6 (7 days growth)

Bottom plate had some pretty good growth on it, this is the first time its been cleaned though.

Looking for advice on how to kick this thing into high gear, or am I just getting impatient? I haven't cleaned the screen yet. Wondering if I should let it fill in more first?

Crappy video trying to show flow:

[youtube]CIoX5F5r2Rc[/youtube]

Didn't test water tonight. Will run tests first thing tomorrow morning.

Green slime algae growing in display and frag tank is easily blown off but covering everything. Have to clean algae off glass daily on both tanks. Small ball of cheato left in refugium after harvest last week seems to have grown a bit.


Read and Win Question 4: Let's crash some other sites and not ours like last night. I am sending you out. Well I have a 90 gallon tank but my levels are a little low. I always buy the BRS 2 part for dosing and using their calculator help me how much calcium I have to dose to get the level from 400 to 425ppm and my alk from 9 dKH to 11 dKH. Need the dosing in ml. !! oh and btw... I need some new lights. I think Fragtastic Reef has a real good price on their " ATI PowerModule 6x24W T5 High output" fixture. How much is it? Post all the answers in the thread....

 

[Taklu]

The pic above is what I saw tonight in my ATS.. better growth on the bottom of the box... wondering if somehow there is too much "direct" light or the flows too fast down the screen (although that would be the same with T5 based ATS)...switched the LEDs on one side of the ATS to 1W'ers will see how that goes

 

[data_loss]

I had really upped the flow this week to the point where I thought it might be too fast. Interesting to see you think the same.

Would you clean a screen that looks like mine or let it grow a bit more?

 

[Taklu]

Would you clean a screen that looks like mine or let it grow a bit more?

clean it if you want.. I dont see any downside to cleaning it as beyond the two'ish week point the alage appears to move towards the end of its growth cycle meaning ready to let go of the ghost and release the nutrients back...

I would offer an alternate view... if you are open to the idea and have the room... keep your current intensity but move the leds away from the screen.. the screen shows burn spots and I think its too much light and from my previous post too much "direct" light.. maybe add a diffuser at some point.

Honestly everyone running LEDs on the scrubber on TCMAS at the moment appears to not having a great run of success so for me its a shot in the dark and hopefully its the right shot.

Really curious... this Floyd guy must've sold quite a few units by now... how are others fairing?

 

[data_loss]

There are diffusers already in place, but I could back the LED's off just a bit more.

There are a number of people with better established screens running this same scrubber that post very great growth pics and have been very happy with the results.

Really good results a customer is posting:
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?2199-L2-Scrubber-on-my-150-gallon-reef

Floyd running one on a tank he maintains
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/sho...-144-125-Rimless&p=24223&viewfull=1#post24223

Not a whole thread but this guy posted a picture with good growth:
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/sho...y-Algae-Scrubber&p=25232&viewfull=1#post25232

Freshwater thread (I admit I didn't read this whole thread, its freshwater ) I did notice this guy uploaded some videos and his flow is a lot lower than where I have mine now.
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?2097-Freshwater-Scubber

Not sure if there are more threads of just the L2 version, but there are definitely other threads that talk about LED scrubbers.

 

[data_loss]

After watching his videos again I'm convinced I should turn my flow down a bit :coolmad:

 

[data_loss]

I decided to measure how much flow I was pushing through the scrubber. It took an average of 10.5 seconds to fill a 1 gallon jug, so:

1 gallon / 10.5 seconds * 3600 seconds per hour = 343 GPH (right?)

and the guideline is

at least 35 gph per inch of width of screen

So with a six inch screen I want at least 210 GPH

My conclusion is it shouldn't hurt to slow things down a bit right?

 

[David Grigor]

What about turning the light cycle down by an hour each week until it improves to see if you can find the sweet spot. I personally would leave the flow as is.

 

[Taklu]

Flow does not appear that much higher... In ur case I would leave it as is. In me case I made the observation bcoz the red side fills in and continues to grow in about half the flow as the white side... Thats due to the red side blocking the spray bar earler...At the end of the week both sides look pretty much the same

 

[data_loss]

What about turning the light cycle down by an hour each week until it improves to see if you can find the sweet spot. I personally would leave the flow as is.

On my thread on the algaescrubber site (where I basically mirror my weekly updates) Bud is saying to up my hours on the light cycle.

Right now it is still running 3 cycles of 3 on 3 off for a total of 9 hours. You thinking less time because it looks like its burning?

As always, thanks for the feedback guys :beerchug:

 

[Taklu]

Its interesting, the first link talks of a 1W setup... I hope it will work for me...

I see he no longer specifies which specific LEDs he is using... So is yours using 1W's or three watts...?

 

[David Grigor]

The reason I say that is becuase your not getting any growth yet there are plenty of nutrient so I assume too much light.

Does the L2 come with a already roughed up screen or is that something your supposed to do on your own ?

I know Chad was having real problems with his ATS and finally discovered his screen wasn't rough enough. After months of struggles it totally took off the minute he redid the screen more rough.

While I may not be seeing the detail in your photos, my screen is so roughed up that you can hardly see any open area between the little squares from all the scuffed up parts.

Regardless, it may be worth a try to rough it up some more........ Could explain why your not getting much growth becuase it isn't sticking to it.