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Grigor's ATS Version 2 (1 Viewer)

Cleaning #5. 1 full week after adding more flow

Export amount of algae: 3/4 cup
Nitrate 1ppm ( hard to tell with tests if any worse than last week ).
Phosphate: .0674ppm.

Notes: I did add 5 new yellow tangs during the week. It's nice to see the phosphate levels haven't increased from the new fish load.
 
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David Grigor said:
Cleaning #5. 1 full week after adding more flow

Export amount of algae:
Nitrate 1ppm ( hard to tell with tests if any worse than last week ).
Phosphate: .0674ppm.

Notes: I did add 5 new yellow tanks during the week. It's nice to see the phosphate levels haven't increased from the new fish load.
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Any reason for chosing the yellow color for your tanks? normally I've seen folks pick clear where possible































:rotflmao:

The fish load in itself will not alter anything .. until the feeding increases... what goes in goes out ;) so if you have significantly altered your feeing from before unlikely there will be a change in the readings...
 
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Two new tweaks:

1. During the Sunday night football game I reworked the LEDs. Upgraded from 14 per side to 21 per side. Evenly spaced out in 3 rows of 7 on the 4.25"w X 18"l heatsink.. Middle row has 4 blue all others are red. Using a watt meter I adjusted the pot to 40w input per side. Previously was 30w so increase of 25%. Wide open on the pot it can go up to 44w per side but no plans to do so unless run out of tweaks. 22 LEDS per side is the max my ballasts can handle no plan to add more ballasts so I pretty maxed out on LEDs now.


2. I also switched out the screen with a new one that is all one piece. At the BRS garage sale he had lots of 18X12 sheets so I picked up a couple of packs. Another reason for the switch my old screen was shorter becuase it fit version 1. I added left some length so the new screen so it would reach all the way down to the waterlevel and reduce noise. Overall the usuable screen should have really changed so I won't increase feeding. If I do start to see growth in larger area I will add more food. My fish load can easily handle more feeding.

I don't expect to know how the new LEDs perform for a few weeks becuase of the screen switch over will take a while to catch up. I'm to the point now where I'll need to start shortening the length of the slot as my final tweaks to increase flow. No plans to upgrade pump a second time.
 
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Go figure. I guess James theory is correct. Amount of algae doesn't seem to make much difference.

Havest Amount: 1.5 cups ( +1 cup since last week )
Phosphate: .12ppm ( up from .067ppm last week )
Nitate: approx 1ppm ( hard to tell with color chart about the same as last week ).

Note: This was the first harvest on the new screen. I figure some of the harvest is from last week as I did use the algae from the old screen to seed the new. Which could account for up to .5 cups of todays harvest.

Tank isn't looking so good. Worse than ever since going to ATS last Jan. Some stringy algae started to appear in the show. Not sure if it fell off the new screen or growing in the show. It took out a good portion of the birdsnest ( still alive in the sump ) . Cyano has been growing in the sump/frag tank for a couple weeks now and never had an issue with cyano with version #1. A number of LPS don't look happy. No clue if any of this is related to the ATS. Up to now the show has always looked great and no signs of stress with corals. I will be doing larger water changes today.
 
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It's from switching back to RC from TM! :freak6:

I'm kidding, just a TM user looking for price justification. I'm sure your figure things out, let us know when you do.
 
I haven't been following ats threads outside tcmas for a while, has anyone out there had consistent good results using LEDs specifically the red blue combo? Or on large tanks? The folks posting on here all have largish setups.. Most of the santa Monica posts appear for relatively smaller setup... Maybe a larger growing area IS needed.

I still don't see the ats making a dent in my system, I'm upto 16 hours lighting now, the white side is a tad better than the red blue side, it's better enough that I can tell by looking. However the qty harvested is at about the 2-2.5 cups range.. Some of it being water

I also started my ca rx and it appears the Chaeto/ fuge consumes the co2 or the ats doesn't care
 
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marty9876 said:
It's from switching back to RC from TM! :freak6:

I'm kidding, just a TM user looking for price justification. I'm sure your figure things out, let us know when you do.
Click to expand...


I still have a bucket left of TM, so right now I'm at still using TM for the majority. 40g water change is TM, 15 gallon change IO. But for sure, It has crossed my mind that I may need to hold off adding yet another variable until ATS shows more signs of improvement.
 
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Thanks for the weekly updates, always very informative.

Hope things turn around soon, sorry to hear they haven't been so great.
 
It was all in 48hours too. Everything looked great before that.

The morning before I did have some lotion on my arms that was mostlhy soaked in and stuck my arm in the tank to fix a fallen snail. I can't imagine that being a real big deal.

Who knows.
 
David Grigor said:
Tank isn't looking so good. Worse than ever since going to ATS last Jan. Some stringy algae started to appear in the show. Not sure if it fell off the new screen or growing in the show. It took out a good portion of the birdsnest ( still alive in the sump ) . Cyano has been growing in the sump/frag tank for a couple weeks now and never had an issue with cyano with version #1. A number of LPS don't look happy. No clue if any of this is related to the ATS. Up to now the show has always looked great and no signs of stress with corals. I will be doing larger water changes today.
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This is good info David, as I'm on Floyds list to get a L2 ATS from the scrubber site. I wonder if the new sizing is a little on the small side?
 
Did a thorough maintenance on Sunday. Emptied the sump/frag tank and sucked out all detritus and other buildup in hopes of curbing the cyano issue ( it was overdue ). Siphoned the substrate in the show ( which is part of my normal maintenance ). 50% water change approx. 90gallons using the last of my TM Pro salt. Will likely buy another bucket and hold off switching brands back to IO just to rule that variable out until I know better what to expect from the ATS.

This morning phosphate reading down from .12ppm to .049ppm. Didn't test nitrates, the color chart seems pretty useless. I know why James hates it so much. Trying to read the color change difference between .2-1ppm is difficult.

Of the 9 or 10 LPS that were closed up on Sat. ( all where euphyllia or blastomussa ) have perked back up this morning and looking more normal. Only exception was the golden torch.

So hopefully that will keep things in order for a while until ATS seeds better.
 
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Just a thought, does the turf algae need warmer temps/infra red? T5's emit quite some radiant heat, there is close to none in case of LEDs, assuming LEDs have the same spectrum as 3k T5 bulb... thats the only variable I can think of.....needless to say I'm ready to give on an LED based scrubber as its not making a dent in my system
 
I am having similar issues as David, but I have fewer options as I am limited by space and the drivers on my LED's.

I am up to 18 hours a day lights on. Still about a cup and a half max per 7 days. I am getting behind on my nutrients, not ahead, and I'm still doing two separate 20-25 gallon water changes a week on my 200G system. I'd do bigger water changes, I just don't have the station for it as of now.

I may have to adjust the lights to a brighter intensity, however this may be tricky. Prior to July while I was testing this thing, it was burning out the algae and none was growing. We dialed the lights down about 20% and the algae started to grow. I don't know how much we can dial them up before the algae starts to burn out again. I have been told we are unable to add diodes to these drivers. David looked at my screen growth and said it was a dark green which suggested to him I could increase my light time or the light intensity....I am already at 18 hours (moved there from 17 hours a few days prior to the last cleaning, so jury may still be out..but really, 7 more hours in a week?), so the only thing to move is the intensity. David also thought I could use a narrower slit, which he never imagined might be the case prior to his visiting to look.

I have yet to replace the spray bar or have the light intensity increased....just haven't had the time and David and I were not sure it would do it, we were really just thinking of things that we could try. I will see if I can get either of them done.

The thinking on the slit width was that the water fall was too wide, so the algae was not growing in the entire area in which there was water, i.e, nutrients were not passing through the algae so the algae could not take them up....That has me wondering if just cleaning less frequently will achieve similar results as the mat will get thicker? I don't know how quickly the interior starts to perish as I have never gone past 8 days....Just thinking out loud.

I am likely giving it a couple more weeks. If it simply cannot keep up with what I am throwing at the tank, I'll be going to bio pellets and gfo and looking to sell what I have as I won't have room for both and they compete with each other anyway. I think what I have would work fantastically for a person with 10-20 fish that doesn't feed as much as I do, it just doesn't keep up with what I'm doing. It certainly isn't getting me ahead.

Otherwise, the tank still looks fine. Some red slime, but corals are growing, colors are there. No other nuisance algae. Nutrient tests just show a negative picture. Even though I have been told 'not to chase numbers', I assume I can't dance on this ledge forever....
 
Making progress.

Biggest Harvest yet for Version #2: Just shy of 2 cups.
Nitrates: For sure are lower. Very light pink at high resolution on Salifert so somewhere between .2 and .5ppm.
Phosphates: Stayed almost thesame as they were AFTER the near 50% water change last week at .058ppm ( previously .12ppm before large water change and .049ppm after which is for sure within margin of error ).

Here are some pictures of the screen. 18"X12" single sheet. Only 18" X 8" is above water. So approx. 4" are below the water line. From side A pictures you can see the line of growth thickness slows right about at the point. The bottom 4" is not really meant for filtration. Just to make quiet vs. the water fall noise hitting the water level but it is producing some algae. Lights seem to be positioned well becuase there isn't much growth up near the slot you can see a good 1" below the white part ( which is jammed up in the pvc ) doesn't have any thick growth so flow is not getting restricted.

Tweaks for today ( won't see any results until next week ): Ramped up the lighting schedule from 16 hours to the full 18 hours, Will do another near 50% water change today ( approx. 90g using the Tropic Marin Pro Reef - I delayed the switch back to IO until things have stabalized ) and reclean the sump as there is still some cyano in the sump/frag tank even after the complete cleaning last week.

Side A:

picture.php


Side B:

picture.php
 
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Looking good, David.

Update on mine. After you left, I went to 18 hours lights on. That gave me the best harvest I've had so far. On cleaning day, we upped the MA's through the drivers from 350 to 400. I am still at 18 hours and with slightly brighter lights. I will find out on Friday night how it looks. If it is as good as last week or better, I think I will ride it out. It was really stringy, not slimey and it had 'depth'. I am slightly optimistic and at the same time concerned that we may have the lights too bright. I looked today, it looks like it is filling in, so I think I might be ok. If I start getting good harvests and I still can't move my nutrient needle, well then it will be time for biopellets.

Thanks again for the help.
 
I did look and I have enough parts left over to add a new driver w/ 6 whites and 6 reds on one side to test without spending more $.

If the 16 hours doesn't yield enough improvements ( amount/type of algae doesn't increase or N/P values start to drifts up again ) I will add 12 more on one side to compare output. That would add two more rows of 6 between then existing 3 rows of 7 for a total of 33. If that doesn't do it then time to think about ditching the LEDs as that will put me over 100w of LEDs and T5 would be the same wattage.
 
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David Grigor said:
I did look and I have enough parts left over to add a new driver w/ 6 whites and 6 reds on one side to test without spending more $.

If the 16 hours doesn't yield enough improvements ( amount/type of algae doesn't increase or N/P values start to drifts up again ) I will add 12 more on one side to compare output. That would add two more rows of 6 between then existing 3 rows of 7 for a total of 33. If that doesn't do it then time to think about ditching the LEDs as that will put me over 100w of LEDs and T5 would be the same wattage.
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Ok I'm an average physics student but I'd imagine 100W would be at the LEDs running full blast..

editing/adding to this post - so I've been wondering what is in a flourscent bulb (spiral or T5) that is not in a LED; the fuge has been growing chaeto quite well using two 18W 6500K CFL's hence the question
 
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Just a thought. Even if the watts where the same. The LEDs should still last longer. So they would still be better if they grow algae the same, don't you think?


Sent from mobile
 
Right now running 21 LEDS each side is 44w. So it's running 88w now. Adding another 12 Leds would put it around 70w per side. For a total of 140w.

I pretty much already know what to expect from 2 T5s ( each side ) with individual reflectors. If the LEDs setup can't produce results as well as the T5s do then it's not about bulb savings etc. It's about ATS success or failure.

We shall see what happens. I hope it works out but this next round of LED upgrade is it ( assuming the 18 hour cycle isn't satisfactory ). If it doesn't do the job then like Mannish I begin to question LEDs on a larger scale ATS models becuase it just takes so many of them.

All said and done if end up with 33 LEDs on each side we are up to almost $4-500 just in parts. Initial costs of 4XT5 would be half that and bulbs at $2.25-$2.50 each we are talking about $30 a year in bulb costs. So it would take 5-7 years just to break even on LED vs. T5 route. So not really from a bulb savings would LED make sense ( if building from scratch ). Obviously I've already got alot invested in the LEDS so no turning back for me unless they just don't do the job. But for others who are about to take on this type of project T5 route for a larger scale probably makes more sense.


Spiral flourescent bulbs have a disadvantage becuase of the shape. Same wattage of spirals vs. Linear T5 with good reflectors is not a fair comparison as it would take many more spirals to do the job. I personally will not consider it becuase of those ineffeciencies and the added space I would have to come up with to fit them. Initial cost of the T5 setup may be a little more but the T5 bulbs purchased in bulk would are only about $2.50 each so no real saving in bulb costs vs. going with spiral long term.
 
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