Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
It's the engineer in me. Plus it's a really slow day at work.
Part of my reason for posting much of that information was for purposes beyond your system, in case someone is reading this and really wants to understand the dynamics of the system. I think that gets glossed over sometimes, so someone will find it useful. Plus I just like to tear apart things/idea and find out what makes them tick/work, and I've been doing this quite a bit lately w/r to ATS.
So I don't take your comments as being argumentative, and I hope you don't take mine that way either. I simply took your system and problem and brainstormed a bit on the causes, which launched me into a bit of a rant. Some of it applied to you, but much of it was just general info.
I do also have an explanation regarding the tidal pools and such, as this is one of those counterpoints I considered. Keep in mind that this is just a logical deduction, but I think it makes sense. I will assume that the 80,000 lux figure represents the maximum noonday sunlight, and probably on a clear day, in the tropical or at least sub-tropical zone. This isn't the case all day long, only during a limited portion of the day, and only on clear days. So the majority of the time, the sunlight is actually much below this figure. Tidal pools also have water depth (varying, but water depth none the less) and the more water that there is between the algae and the surface, the more intensity decreases. The incident angle of the light throughout the day will also cut back on the effective intensity. With all these factored in, albeit an extreme simplification, it is easy to see how algae grows well in tidal pools - it follows along logically with algae liking the lower intensity light. There will probably be days where sunlight is so intense, that photoinhibition takes over and growth stops, but it doesn't last long, and certainly not long enough to wipe out all the algae. The same cannot be said for an improperly designed ATS, as it would be quite easy to induce photoinhibition and never get any growth at all.
As for LEDs, yes this seems to be a point that isn't fully clear. A similar explanation as above can be offerred as to why algae grows under HP LEDs in a DT, but also the inverse square rule helps explain this one. Algae grows on rock and substrate under lights positioned several inches above the surface level. This does not correlate directly to algae growing well in a vertical screen ATS with the light positioned 4 inches away with only a sheet of moving water between the algae and the light source. This is the leap that most make in reasoning that an LED ATS should work fine. You will grow some algae, but when you match lumen-per-lumen standard HP LED lights to match T5HO or CFL output, it appears that LEDs are too intense to allow algae to grow properly and perform adequate filtration, due to photoinhibition. That's why it's still considered experimental.
Part of my reason for posting much of that information was for purposes beyond your system, in case someone is reading this and really wants to understand the dynamics of the system. I think that gets glossed over sometimes, so someone will find it useful. Plus I just like to tear apart things/idea and find out what makes them tick/work, and I've been doing this quite a bit lately w/r to ATS.
So I don't take your comments as being argumentative, and I hope you don't take mine that way either. I simply took your system and problem and brainstormed a bit on the causes, which launched me into a bit of a rant. Some of it applied to you, but much of it was just general info.
I do also have an explanation regarding the tidal pools and such, as this is one of those counterpoints I considered. Keep in mind that this is just a logical deduction, but I think it makes sense. I will assume that the 80,000 lux figure represents the maximum noonday sunlight, and probably on a clear day, in the tropical or at least sub-tropical zone. This isn't the case all day long, only during a limited portion of the day, and only on clear days. So the majority of the time, the sunlight is actually much below this figure. Tidal pools also have water depth (varying, but water depth none the less) and the more water that there is between the algae and the surface, the more intensity decreases. The incident angle of the light throughout the day will also cut back on the effective intensity. With all these factored in, albeit an extreme simplification, it is easy to see how algae grows well in tidal pools - it follows along logically with algae liking the lower intensity light. There will probably be days where sunlight is so intense, that photoinhibition takes over and growth stops, but it doesn't last long, and certainly not long enough to wipe out all the algae. The same cannot be said for an improperly designed ATS, as it would be quite easy to induce photoinhibition and never get any growth at all.
As for LEDs, yes this seems to be a point that isn't fully clear. A similar explanation as above can be offerred as to why algae grows under HP LEDs in a DT, but also the inverse square rule helps explain this one. Algae grows on rock and substrate under lights positioned several inches above the surface level. This does not correlate directly to algae growing well in a vertical screen ATS with the light positioned 4 inches away with only a sheet of moving water between the algae and the light source. This is the leap that most make in reasoning that an LED ATS should work fine. You will grow some algae, but when you match lumen-per-lumen standard HP LED lights to match T5HO or CFL output, it appears that LEDs are too intense to allow algae to grow properly and perform adequate filtration, due to photoinhibition. That's why it's still considered experimental.
. If you hadn't figured it out I was going to PM you to avoid confontation on the thread. I sort of afraid that my last post might sound argumentative, but really I do appreciate all the work this thread.
