Algae Scrubber Basics

[shifty99]

Great thread and lots of great info! Now I'm gonna build one. I have a 100g. tank with a built-in wet/dry filter in the back.

I have removed the bio-balls from the wet/dry and think it would be a perfect spot to put the ATS. The filter is approx 3' X 6". The back of the tank sits about 9" from the wall.

That being said, I will only be able to light 1 side of the 8X6 screen with 48 watts of CFL (that seem right?) I plan on cutting the PVC pipe in half lengthwise and cutting the 1/8" slot on the bottom. The pipe will be 3' long with the 6" long slot in the middle.

The reason for this is that I was hoping to catch the water that spills into this chamber in a sort of trough to disperse down the screen. I will put a cap on the end of the pipe to try and keep water in the pipe.

Of course I will make sure my pump is giving me 210gph. Hopefully this makes some sense as I explain it. How does this plan sound?

 

[srusso]

Great thread and lots of great info! Now I'm gonna build one. I have a 100g. tank with a built-in wet/dry filter in the back.

I have removed the bio-balls from the wet/dry and think it would be a perfect spot to put the ATS. The filter is approx 3' X 6". The back of the tank sits about 9" from the wall.

That being said, I will only be able to light 1 side of the 8X6 screen with 48 watts of CFL (that seem right?) I plan on cutting the PVC pipe in half lengthwise and cutting the 1/8" slot on the bottom. The pipe will be 3' long with the 6" long slot in the middle.

The reason for this is that I was hoping to catch the water that spills into this chamber in a sort of trough to disperse down the screen. I will put a cap on the end of the pipe to try and keep water in the pipe.

Of course I will make sure my pump is giving me 210gph. Hopefully this makes some sense as I explain it. How does this plan sound?

Sounds good for the most part, you would be really doing yourself a favor if you go LED... CFL is great for quick experimenting, and of course you can use whichever you want but I promise, LEDs are extremely simple and you can't go wrong, and don't need to be replaced every three months like CFL do...

For the people reading this, thinking you can stretch the time on the CFLs longer then three months... Flat out... you're wrong... I have tried, the drop off is very noticeable in the in the harvest. Allowed the CFLs to run 5-6 months and the reduction is algae was easily noticed.

You completely lost me on your plans for the slot tube, sorry.

Welcome to the scrubber club! You won't be disappointed! The best part, it will cost you next to nothing to build!

 

[srusso]

I happy to report that my unit built on Saturday and running 24 hour lights since then now has a few streaks of green (or brown) appearing. I checked this morning before work and the screen looked like the Glad man still, but tonight there is something starting to grow.

I have now moved my lights to the moonlight outlet on my controller so they will alternate with my tank lights.

Dennis

Welcome to the scrubber club Dennis!

 

[shifty99]

Sounds good for the most part, you would be really doing yourself a favor if you go LED... CFL is great for quick experimenting, and of course you can use whichever you want but I promise, LEDs are extremely simple and you can't go wrong, and don't need to be replaced every three months like CFL do...
For the people reading this, thinking you can stretch the time on the CFLs longer then three months... Flat out... you're wrong... I have tried, the drop off is very noticeable in the in the harvest. Allowed the CFLs to run 5-6 months and the reduction is algae was easily noticed.

You completely lost me on your plans for the slot tube, sorry.

Welcome to the scrubber club! You won't be disappointed! The best part, it will cost you next to nothing to build!

I would love to do the led thing but there seems to be no small fixtures for sale with the right type of red leds. I am not the diy type (especially when electricity is involved), can you recommend any fixtures to look into?

 

[_shorty_]

The reason for this is that I was hoping to catch the water that spills into this chamber in a sort of trough to disperse down the screen. I will put a cap on the end of the pipe to try and keep water in the pipe.

Of course I will make sure my pump is giving me 210gph. Hopefully this makes some sense as I explain it. How does this plan sound?

I THINK I'm following - but unfortunately, if I am, I'm not sure this will work. In my limited experience - you only get even flow over your screen with the 1/8 inch slotted tube because the pressure of the water fills up the pipe and purges out all the air. With half of that pipe I expect the water will just overflow over the edge of the pipe, and you won't get your full amount of flow over the screen itself.

If you could raise up the edges of that PVC (creting more of a U shape, (instead of the half circle shape) say with some custom acrylic or something - I'm assuming you could raise the pressure enough to push all water out through the screen. I guess the question is how high you would need to raise those edges, and how do you raise those edges.. and how do you plan to attach and easily remove your screen for cleaning ?

 

[_shorty_]

edit: in addition - why don't you just elbow your flow just above/into the sump, and put a slot in some horizontal pipe for your screen? This is probably more typical setup.

LOL - I edited wrong... Sorry been reading the forums for a while - just now getting into posting more.

 

[sail33]

YIKES ! I've set my scrubber up with CFL's. I now believe that LEDS are the way to go.

I found the page with the correct lights. Now just to finish the design to accommodate them.

LED Grow Light Bulb E27 12W 85-265V 12LED R&B 1100LM for Indoor Plant

By the way, I can't thank all of the contributors to this thread enough. Especially Mr. Turbo.

 

[nanomania]

Sounds good for the most part, you would be really doing yourself a favor if you go LED... CFL is great for quick experimenting, and of course you can use whichever you want but I promise, LEDs are extremely simple and you can't go wrong, and don't need to be replaced every three months like CFL do...

For the people reading this, thinking you can stretch the time on the CFLs longer then three months... Flat out... you're wrong... I have tried, the drop off is very noticeable in the in the harvest. Allowed the CFLs to run 5-6 months and the reduction is algae was easily noticed.

You completely lost me on your plans for the slot tube, sorry.

Welcome to the scrubber club! You won't be disappointed! The best part, it will cost you next to nothing to build!

Im planning on led... 660nm red grow.. how long can the intensity last in led? size and watts?

 

[hunkafish]

Kessil makes plant grow lights and heavy in red spectrum or go to Ebay- chinese LED grow and more to choice from than your wildest imagination My design will be 2 watt bridglux red two different spectrum reds and few 5000-6500K whites mixed in all on a dimmer to find the sweet spot for growth no reflectors Cost for whole shabang should be under $200 for 24 " double sided screen with 50 total LED's

 

[kcress]

I had low brightness not-even-sure-what-wavelenght-red LEDs on my TS and the 12V supply cr@pped-out. So I switched in 24 HB white and RB Crees on about a 1ft x 1.5ft fixture and the growth is about 1/2 what those measly reds provided. Definitely go with the 660nm LEDs. Vastly superior to CFL whites. Built right they will last 10 years in TS duty.

 

[_shorty_]

I just finished making my A.S. LED lighting early this week. It's been running for about 2.5 days so far. I bought the cheeper chinese made 1W 660nm LEDs with two hotwell drivers. the fixture (lighted area) is 6" wide x 8" tall and ~2.3" deep. There are 15 x 1W LEDs per side - two sided (sits between two screens protected by acrylic box ). Went and got 1" alum square tubing and other random aluminum pieces to make the heatsync/reflectors. drilled and tapped all the pieces and they all screw together nicely minus the header on the top that draws the air through the structure... which I used some old jb weld to attach. The whole thing only cost around $65-$70 with aluminum and fan and everything... I got a little 1" fan that pulls up air through each tube simultaneously through that header at the top. So far, i think it's pretty sweet... I'm pretty proud of it, btw.. if you can't tell.

 

[kcress]

Make sure you let us know how many days it lasts.





Seriously, it looks pretty neat. Got a pic without the blaring red light?

 

[hunkafish]

NIce Rig Shorty, Please update growth from time to time with a pic of harvest

 

[_shorty_]

Okay - here's a pic.. it's my first LED project, which is why I'm so proud. it has three plugs (1 for each driver and the fan) - so that blue pigtail has a 10 pin serial port style connector for quick disconnect on the end so i can run a single 'chord' back to power distribution/timer board. I'll put a pic in early next week to report the growth I get within the 7 day period.

Oh.. and NOT a funny joke.. this light is going to last FOREVER... :strange:

 

[srusso]

Okay - here's a pic.. it's my first LED project, which is why I'm so proud. it has three plugs (1 for each driver and the fan) - so that blue pigtail has a 10 pin serial port style connector for quick disconnect on the end so i can run a single 'chord' back to power distribution/timer board. I'll put a pic in early next week to report the growth I get within the 7 day period.

Oh.. and NOT a funny joke.. this light is going to last FOREVER... :strange:

Those look like 3w LEDs to me, but I know very little about them so I am sure I am wrong...

 

[_shorty_]

Those look like 3w LEDs to me, but I know very little about them so I am sure I am wrong...

They are the same size as the three watt.. So probably look identical. But they draw less amps-which brings the wattage down to 1 watt each. I chose those to be able to spread out the light distribution more evenly.

 

[srusso]

Also, for all the people just running red... There is significant evidence that a 5:1 or 6:1 red to blue to the way to go. It should be considered b/c you need both colors to meet photosynthesis requirements. Although no one in the scrubber community has shown long term success with red only, so I can't say it won't work... However it can be said that the commercial bio fuel industry has done FAR more research then we can ever do in that regard and it what they use for growing phytoplankton and the like... Lets use information that has been made and paid for which is applicable here.

 

[srusso]

They are the same size as the three watt.. So probably look identical. But they draw less amps-which brings the wattage down to 1 watt each. I chose those to be able to spread out the light distribution more evenly.

Please do keep us abreast on the progress of your scrubber. We need as much data as we can gather on this topic. And I can't disagree with attempting to distribute the light evenly, good work and thank you for contributing to the thread.

 

[_shorty_]

I didn realize that was an official find. So what wavelength of blue was it? Guess it would only cost a couple bucks to make the adjustment and add the blues... +the three WEEKS shipping time from china...

 

[srusso]

Im planning on led... 660nm red grow.. how long can the intensity last in led? size and watts?

As Kcress has said, we believe these LEDs will have a very long life span... Estimated about 10 years... Either way even if its half that... they will outlast their useful life in respect to new technology advancements and most will want to see what the new stuff has to offer... I know I will!

So much has changed in only the last two years in the LED technology, can't wait to see what we will have in another five years!!!