redneckgearhead
Active member
Sounds good Steve, But you would have to feed the ATS to keep the algae growing. But putting food in the tank would do that. That should give you time to get everything dialed in with your ATS.
Algae Scrubber Basics
- Thread starter srusso
- Start date
Sounds good Steve, But you would have to feed the ATS to keep the algae growing. But putting food in the tank would do that. That should give you time to get everything dialed in with your ATS.
SPotter
Active member
Thats what I was thinking. I could run my current skimmer until I get thru the initial cycling stages then fire up the ats once I started moving corals over from my current system and adding new pieces.
yz250motoxrider
New member
iv had my scrubber running for 7 days now and there is some GHA, theres also alot of brown algea how do you tell when to clean the screen.
Thank you
Thank you
redneckgearhead
Active member
Clean it every 7 days, regardless of what is on it.
JohnnyB in SD
New member
I plan on doing the same thing this winter, go 100gl to 240gl with your same approach, using my existing skimmer with 2 x T5 ATS units with 126sqin of screen each. I'm pretty confident it will work fine because my skimmer is barely doing anything since the ATS kicked in anyway. I've increased my bioload and am feeding the tank all it can eat, water quality has never been better. My food costs have more than doubled though.
How are your LEDs working? You switch to more red yet?
SPotter
Active member
Johnny,
My ats is great. It took me three tries with the slot in my pvc pipe but Ive got it right now. Flow is nice and even, Im getting about 400 gph and growth get better every week. I tested my water tonight and n's are 0 for the 7th week in a row and my n's are at 0.012. Ive also cut bsck on how long my skimmer is running every day.
I havent added any additional reds at this point because everything seems to be good. If i was to add more I would need another driver and given that I will be building a bigger one in a couple of months Ive decided not to put anymore money into this one.
Steve
My ats is great. It took me three tries with the slot in my pvc pipe but Ive got it right now. Flow is nice and even, Im getting about 400 gph and growth get better every week. I tested my water tonight and n's are 0 for the 7th week in a row and my n's are at 0.012. Ive also cut bsck on how long my skimmer is running every day.
I havent added any additional reds at this point because everything seems to be good. If i was to add more I would need another driver and given that I will be building a bigger one in a couple of months Ive decided not to put anymore money into this one.
Steve
redneckgearhead
Active member
I'm not sure I would wait to fire up your ATS on the new tank. The ammonia from the cycle would be a great source of food for the HA to grow on the screen.
JohnnyB in SD
New member
So Steve, are you going to build one big one with LED's for the 240 or have 2 smaller ones? What dimension & how many LEDs if one big one?
Sounds like another good thing about LED's is they don't limit your screen to the length of T5 tubes.
Sounds like another good thing about LED's is they don't limit your screen to the length of T5 tubes.
SPotter
Active member
Im thinking about one screen that will be 20x15 and light it with 14 3w leds on each side. Im thinking 2 to 1 red to white ratio. Im still playing around with box design for it.
Steve
JohnnyB in SD
New member
How far away are your LED's from the screen right now / what distance you think would be good for the 14 on future build?
You figure you'll need to cool it with fans?
You figure you'll need to cool it with fans?
SPotter
Active member
Right now they are about 3.5" away from the screen and I am planning on having them at the same distance on the bigger build. On current box I drilled 1/4" holes (18) on each side with my dremel right in the area where the heat sinks sit and heat has not been an issue so far.
With the next build, I'm not sure if it will be a box or more of an open air design. If its a box I would imagine I will have to add some kind of cooling.
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
T5s can be much closer, as close as you can reasonably get them (2" is great)
There's one of your problems. Not all ballasts are made the same. I recently learned that Workhorse ballasts are not very efficient - which is what I use. Since you're only using the lamps for 3 months, you might as well get a good ballast and drive the bejeesus out of the lamps. This will decrease lamp life, generally but like I said, we're going for intensity here.
Your old ballast may not be very efficient (I guess defining "old" in this case would help) and it may not be ideal for driving the T5s that you have. So I would check into that.
But between that and the lamps being too far away, you're not getting efficient scrubbing. The black algae is high-nutrient load in your tank not getting removed and you need to up the intensity by getting the lights closer, better reflectors (assuming you have reflectors, hard to see in the pics), putting more lamps in, etc.
JohnnyB in SD
New member
Yeah, is a Workhorse out of a setup I bought used some years ago. One of the three ballasts failed so the whole thing was sitting around when I decided to take one out for the ATS. So you're right, it's probably very weak.
I have an IceCap 430 being taken out of service for LED's soon, I'll move the lamps closer when I switch to that. Yes, they do have clip on reflectors.
THANKS for the advice.
You making any progress tinkering with LED's for ATS?
I have an IceCap 430 being taken out of service for LED's soon, I'll move the lamps closer when I switch to that. Yes, they do have clip on reflectors.
THANKS for the advice.
You making any progress tinkering with LED's for ATS?
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
Fixtures should get here soon...
SPotter
Active member
what fixture did you decide on????
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
I had 2 custom made, each with 112 1W LEDs and dual-switching. It's arranged so I that I should be able to test multiple combinations. The basic ones, such as 425/660 (Chlorophyll A) and 455/630 (Chlorophyll B) but then also 455/660 and 425/630, then both blues with one red and both reds with one blue (3-band) as well as all 4, then if I get creative I could eliminate the blues completely. It'll take some time, but should get some interesting data to run with...
Can I get some help troubleshooting this? I posted this a little while back and I think with all the things that get posted here daily it got rolled off as a new page started.
Any help would be appreciated.
redneckgearhead
Active member
I think black/brown algae is a sign of high nutrients, but as you said you have got them down, so It leads me to believe that your lights need to be stronger or more of them. If you can fit the higher wattage bulbs in your set up I would try that. How long are your lights on for? If you can not fit the higher wattage bulbs try leaving the lights on longer or move them closer. And IMO having extra screen that doesn't get the required lighting is not a big deal. I would rather have a screen that is to long and doesn't splash and make noise. Keep us updated. And post a pic of your next cleaning.
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
Lets see...
That's a great success story, thanks for sharing!
I looked back at your pic, I don't see anything glaringly amiss with your setup. Your flow is right, the lighting is right and perpendicular to the screen, the reflectors are decent. Your scrubber efficiency may improve by increasing the wattage of the lamps and decreasing the photoperiod. I posted this a ways back and will post is again shortly. This type of approach can help push through the brown/black algae.
Don't worry about excess unlit or poorly lit screen. The algae in the highly lit area will naturally out-compete this algae, though the algae in the lower-light area will probably grow brown. Generally not a concern, but blocking is can't hurt, just probably not really necessary.
It would be better to increase the wattage to match the screen
If you used #10 mesh (10 holes per inch) instead of #7 (7 holes per inch), I think you're fine.
Maybe. What I would try first is taking a stiff-bristled brush and cleaning very thoroughly on one half of the screen, getting all the holes cleared out and everything. This will in effect re-start a portion of your screen, though it won't be a complete re-start, because you're leaving something behind.
All of this begs the question though - is there something wrong with your system that is raising these concerns, or do you just want to see green growth?
I don't always have green bushy growth on my screen, there are weeks where it grows a lot darker and slimier, and I had some algae in the DT. Some of that had to do with the fact that I had severely coralline-encrusted powerheads, a ghetto temporary setup, and I allowed some of my levels to get out of whack 'cause I've been too busy lately, and I recently discovered that the Workhorse ballast that I have is probably not the best ballast, which means I need to switch that out and get a more efficient one that will drive the lamps harder (I think the one I have is wearing out)
But my point is, if your water parameters are fine, fish & corals are happy, DT is free of algae, they what's the worry?
You're welcome...HTH
That's a great success story, thanks for sharing!
I looked back at your pic, I don't see anything glaringly amiss with your setup. Your flow is right, the lighting is right and perpendicular to the screen, the reflectors are decent. Your scrubber efficiency may improve by increasing the wattage of the lamps and decreasing the photoperiod. I posted this a ways back and will post is again shortly. This type of approach can help push through the brown/black algae.
Don't worry about excess unlit or poorly lit screen. The algae in the highly lit area will naturally out-compete this algae, though the algae in the lower-light area will probably grow brown. Generally not a concern, but blocking is can't hurt, just probably not really necessary.
It would be better to increase the wattage to match the screen
If you used #10 mesh (10 holes per inch) instead of #7 (7 holes per inch), I think you're fine.
Maybe. What I would try first is taking a stiff-bristled brush and cleaning very thoroughly on one half of the screen, getting all the holes cleared out and everything. This will in effect re-start a portion of your screen, though it won't be a complete re-start, because you're leaving something behind.
All of this begs the question though - is there something wrong with your system that is raising these concerns, or do you just want to see green growth?
I don't always have green bushy growth on my screen, there are weeks where it grows a lot darker and slimier, and I had some algae in the DT. Some of that had to do with the fact that I had severely coralline-encrusted powerheads, a ghetto temporary setup, and I allowed some of my levels to get out of whack 'cause I've been too busy lately, and I recently discovered that the Workhorse ballast that I have is probably not the best ballast, which means I need to switch that out and get a more efficient one that will drive the lamps harder (I think the one I have is wearing out)
But my point is, if your water parameters are fine, fish & corals are happy, DT is free of algae, they what's the worry?
You're welcome...HTH
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