Banner image

New leds on existing ATS (1 Viewer)

C

ChaCha

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2013
Messages
115
Location
Prior Lake
So I've been running my ats with cfl's for about 7 months and recently just switched to leds, the issue i have is that I'm not getting much growth. I was expecting much more growth but it's opposite. The growth im getting is minimal and yellow. I put my leds closer and increased the time to 3 1/2 on 2 1/2 off from 3 on 3 off. The weird part is that it's not a slimey yellow like i got from my CFL's, it's looks like algae, just yellow and not green with minimal growth. I was running my CFL's at 18 hrs per day. What am i doing wrong?

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk
 
Yellow can be one of two things, not enough iron or not enough flow. However flow is the more likely, you have to be pretty aggressive algae amounts before iron limited.

I've tried both ( well not cfl bulbs, 48" and 24" t5s )as well, LEDs are for sure far more tricky especially to get started. Once dialed in though seems to be okay.
 
Last edited:
I definitely have enough flow, that isn't the issue. It probably is iron then, how do i go about adding iron? How much?

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk
 
You can buy an iron supplement for planted tanks ( usually more expensive ) or you can make a homemade one using fergon iron pills. Do a search on our forums and should find the exact info. It has to be fergon pills can't be cvs or walgreens house brands as they containt other ingredients that are not suitable for our tanks. I just add weekly right after screen cleaning to help kick start. Amount you will have to play with because there are so many variables. On 250g tank I do about 20-30mil of the homemade. If you do too much watch for increased algae on your glass. If getting too much then cut down.

But flow is usually the culprit, it's really hard to guage becuase of all the head loss etc. from the slot. So I'd tweak your width of your slot first if you know your pump is large enough.
 
Last edited:
I believe you are running your lights a little too long. Less light promotes darker growth. I bought a scrubber from Santamonica and had very light growth but clearly not snotty. It was algae. He had me decrease the photoperiod and once the growth came in darker i ramped the photoperiod back up.

Drop your light time to 14 hrs for a week or two and I bet it comes in darker. Algae actually filters more when lights are off anyways. You want to find the time when you run lights the least but still have bright green. You're getting beyond green and getting to yellow.
 
Last edited:
Ok so i have 2 stories telling me opposite things, i know my flow is at about 45gph per inch of screen which is 10 gph more than recommended. I was running 12 hrs a day with the new leds with no growth in a week on an established ats so i increased to 14 and am getting a little bit of growth now but it is yellow algae, not the yellow slimey stuff you get with CFL's. Grigor told me it could be iron then and that i should get and kick start with some iron. Would there be any cons to trying the iron supplement? For example if i dose a small amount, could it become to toxic for my tank? Or do i drop my lighting time to 8 or 9 hours? Or both at the same time? My leds also dim, is there an advantage to decreasing the lighting time rather than dimming? Thanks

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk
 
David Grigor said:
You can buy an iron supplement for planted tanks ( usually more expensive ) or you can make a homemade one using fergon iron pills. Do a search on our forums and should find the exact info. It has to be fergon pills can't be cvs or walgreens house brands as they containt other ingredients that are not suitable for our tanks. I just add weekly right after screen cleaning to help kick start. Amount you will have to play with because there are so many variables. On 250g tank I do about 20-30mil of the homemade. If you do too much watch for increased algae on your glass. If getting too much then cut down.

But flow is usually the culprit, it's really hard to guage becuase of all the head loss etc. from the slot. So I'd tweak your width of your slot first if you know your pump is large enough.
Click to expand...

Where did you find fergon tablets, there are no stores that sell them. Did you order online?

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk
 
Do some research on algaescrubber.net. you'll find lots of answers there. Im surprised you're yellow at that time period but I guess if your nutrients are very low and have been for awhile I spose it makes sense. It could be iron but like DG says that usually isn't the case. Your flow sounds perfect.
 
Since i have to order iron i am going to try and reduce the time down to 8 hours and see what happens. I am starting to get algae fairly heavily on my glass, and wasnt really getting any before when my cfls were being used, so i would think i would get some growth, so maybe it is the time. Would low iron completely stop or minimalize algae growth or just turn the algae yellow and still have some decent growth

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk
 
Iron is used by macro algae, pesky algae, and most importantly zooxanthelleae aglae. So worst case, you might see more algae on the glasss or little darker corals. It gets consumed quickly when ATS is running on all cylinders.

I still suspect flow isn't what you think but I'm not there to view it.
 
How did you measure your flow? The preferred way is to take the screen off and see how long it takes for a gallon of water to come out while its running.

Though if you went from CFL to 3w LEDs then I'm still betting on too much light for what its used to.
 
CFL's work so well on an ATS why did you switch?
 
Last edited:
LEDS are for sure tricky to get dialed in. I have always used the 120degree LEDs becuase the narrower are so hard to keep from being too focused.

My experience has been too much light create bald spots and you see the algae growing more on the outskirts. If your seeing something like this have you tried putting piece of light diffuser between them ? not eggcrate but the stuff that look like little prisms. This can help acclimate to LEDS.


I know when my flow on my screen gets uneven from either blockage or just the way I put it on, lower flow areas will be yellow and a bit more rubbery to the feel. Step 2 is if yellow, flow looks good and not rubbery then supplement some iron.


As far as where to get, we regularly order things from Amazon so I just add it along with another order to qualify for the free shipping. I tried walgreens and cvs and only found the house brands. I don't think I looked any harder locally than that. It lasts a really long time. On a 250g I use 1 pill a week so it would last me 2 years. Just to test it out, may be easier to just go to Petco and get a small bottle of the Seachem for planted tanks.
 
Last edited:
Davids has been helping me with my leds on my ats. It is truly a lot harder than fluorescent. The spectrum is so narrow and strong.

I have mine set to just 9 hours and can't get mine any higher without burning the algae.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk
 
Ok so I ended up cleaning my ATS the other day and noticed something very odd, but almost reassuring that I have been running to long.
IMAG0374.jpg
As you can see there are distinctive green areas both on top and on the bottom of the scrubber and right where my light is concentrated it is all yellow, my camera is making it look more brown.

I cleaned it and it now looks like this
IMAG0375.jpg
I have increased my flow, decreased my time to 2 on 4 off for a total of 8 hours per day and also dimmed the LEDS down a tiny bit and still haven't gotten really any growth in the past 2-3 days. I was wondering if this is due to the algae being burned earlier or if I should reduce the light a little more even. I have dimmable LEDS, would I benefit by dimming them a little more or by reducing my time. I just feel like if I reduce my time to only 6 hours, it won't be getting enough light. One other thing I noticed was that I was getting a little of red algae on the lower green section of my scrubber, it kind of looks like a red slime, what is this and is it bad, good, or what?
 
I would just make 1 adjustment at a time and wait 10 days before making any judgements on the changes you made. Making too many at once will only make it harder to dial in when don't really know what the cause and effect of each change is.
 
IMO two on and four off isn't natural. I'd just run all eight at night. Im not sure how much difference it makes but maybe something to think about.
 
the reason for the on and off cycle is that I've heard doing a straight 8 hours can increase the chance of burning the algae. 8 hours is typically 8 hours, no matter how you implement it. There is actually a study going on about LED ATS right now in which they are using pulsing light to grow the algae. Photosynthesis occurs in about 1 millisecond so a cycle should not really matter from what I have learned, but constant intensity may cause the algae to burn.

Somebody please correct me if I am wrong

And I will leave my scrubber for the next week and see how it goes and repost on my results

Does anybody know where I could get a diffuser for my leds like DG mentioned?
 
Last edited:
Menards in the ceiling tile section. The smallest you can get is a 2X4 piece I believe. The kind that has the little prism like shapes, not eggcrate.
 
FYI: Quick update, I borrowed the SWE par meter the other day to measure my new LED fixtures, while I had it I took some reasons on my ATS.

Reading at the ATS screen with my all red LEDs. I get a par of 215 @ 12 hours light cycle and mine is doing excellent growth. Might be worth using the par meter and see what your getting and use mine as a baseline.

On my T5s 2700K bulbs ATS setup I get 300 Par at the screen. This is probably less usuable light than the Red LEDs at 215 but screen is doing well and have been for quite some time. So perhaps that could be at least a baseline to compare against for non LED setup.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top