Algae Scrubber Basics

Sorry Floyd, I meant the source of water. And I had it down very low so I increased it a bit.
This thing is kicking butt man

Corey
 
Glad I asked - yeah if the flow is too low on a longer screen, then all the water drains out of the slot before it can get to the end, which would generally leave the far end of the screen shorted for water flow, which could easily result in growth other than GHA in that area
 
I had the light at 18 on 6 off. Should I go to 21 on 3 off or 23 on 1 off? The screen is white I just didn’t remove enough algae to show that.
Click to expand...

I'd try that. And black stuff should never be left on a screen.
 
jalisco said:
The first photo .
Click to expand...

Looks like mine does.


I run 14 ish hours, my problem is the water is moving so fast through my drain slots the water is all pushed to the end of the screen and I don't have even flow.

I need to build a manifold so I get even flow.
 
Hey Bud! Been running the turbo L2 for 2 years now. Never seemed to get a foothold but I don't think it's the unit, I think it's a combo of tank issues and operator issues.

Got the tank issues sorted, we're running stable and doing all the things I want. Only issue is annoying GHA creeps up if I feed what I want to (1tsp 1mm pellets, two pinches of flake and 1 cube of frozen a day) to satisfy the anthias. Food is gone in short order (aka I don't think I'm drastically over feeding) but the GHA persists in the DT.

Scrubber is yellow/slimey light green. In a last ditch 6 months ago I went 24/7 with the lights at about 6 o'clock. A month ago I dialed hte light intensity back. The screen grows, just not enough to out compete apparently.

Based on your previous comments it would seem I need to not run 24/7. I changed it tonight to 13 on 11 off opposite the DT lights but I am willing to give any suggested schedule a shot. Currently being fed by a rio1100 at full tilt.

Open to suggestions to try to tune this in enough to work out some of hte GHA problems.
 
iced98lx said:
Scrubber is yellow/slimy light green. In a last ditch 6 months ago I went 24/7 with the lights at about 6 o'clock. A month ago I dialed the light intensity back. The screen grows, just not enough to out compete apparently.
Click to expand...

The 6 o'clock intensity level and 9-12 hrs/day is really a starting point, once you get a base of growth this should be incrementally bumped up to about 75%. If you leave it at 6 o'clock, that's not going to penetrate deep enough to keep the base alive very well, so the GHA that is attached gets covered up with any type of slime that might be growing and it gets stifled

iced98lx said:
Based on your previous comments it would seem I need to not run 24/7. I changed it tonight to 13 on 11 off opposite the DT lights but I am willing to give any suggested schedule a shot. Currently being fed by a rio1100 at full tilt.
Click to expand...

Running long hours is OK once you find your sweet spot on the intensity, and also as long as you have the nutrients available to support it.

It sounds like a combination of things, but I would start by bumping up the intensity to 75% and letting it run the photoperiod you have set

What you will want to do is take the screen out a couple times a week (every 4-5 days) and just rub & rinse to loosen/remove most if not all of any slimy type of growth, but don't scrape or scrub. If you do scrape, don't use a scraper to "chisel" at the growth, but rather just to "swipe" or "drag" to loosen growth (some slimy stuff might come off easier using a drag/swipe)

If there is some unwanted growth remaining in some areas after swipe/rub/rinse, then you can use a soft toothbrush to gently remove some of this with a light dragging motion (versus a hard back & forth scrubbing motion).

The idea here is to keep the slime growth at bay while not removing any GHA. This should improve your GHA growth over time, but depending on your tank situation, this could take some time.

Once you start getting GHA to fill in, then you can start adding hours until you get to about 18 hrs/day and have consistent results. Then, you can bump intensity up a level, give it a few cycles of growth/harvesting, add 2 hours/day, give it a few cycles, etc until you start to either A) get the production you need or B) start to see a reversion of growth (which would then indicate you went too far on intensity)

Intensity will yield a change in growth results faster than duration, because intensity is instantaneous - so if you pass the "sweet spot" for your tank at the given nutrient levels/tank conditions, the growth will revert. Whereas, if you keep the intensity fixed and extend duration, this is a much "softer" change. The growth reversal can still happen, but it's less pronounced and is more likely to happen when the tank conditions change over a period of time (for instance, when your system gets "cleaned up" and your nutrient levels start to drop and your feeding doesn't keep replenishing them)

IIRC you have a high head level on your setup - the vertical measurement between the slot pipe and the water level that the pump is sitting in. If this is over 15", the Rio 1100 might not be cutting it, but that really shouldn't make a major difference as long as you are getting decent flow and good coverage. However, it might mean that you have a upper limit on how much you can push the intensity, because there is a relationship between intensity and flow - generally, if you wish to increase production (on a well-functioning screen) then you usually have to increase flow along with intensity. Otherwise, if you increase intensity, your available nutrients delivered to the screen are limited, and you can rocket past that sweet spot.

So I'm not saying you need to change your pump - that would be the next consideration after trying all of the above.
 
I have a 9.5 x 9.0 screen lit from 8 pm to 8 am. It is light with 21 3 watt led's on each side. The leds are from Steve's LED and the configuration is 3 bars on each sideof the screen, the outside bars are 7 deep red and the middle bar is 2 neutral white, 2 royal blue and 3 deep red. All are lit with the standard driver from Steve's and is not adjustable so I assume it it is 100% intensity. They are about 2 inches from the screen.

Flow is about 350 gallons /hour.

My harvest today was 410 grams after 6 days.
 
Floyd R Turbo said:
The 6 o'clock intensity level and 9-12 hrs/day is really a starting point, once you get a base of growth this should be incrementally bumped up to about 75%. If you leave it at 6 o'clock, that's not going to penetrate deep enough to keep the base alive very well, so the GHA that is attached gets covered up with any type of slime that might be growing and it gets stifled



Running long hours is OK once you find your sweet spot on the intensity, and also as long as you have the nutrients available to support it.

It sounds like a combination of things, but I would start by bumping up the intensity to 75% and letting it run the photoperiod you have set

What you will want to do is take the screen out a couple times a week (every 4-5 days) and just rub & rinse to loosen/remove most if not all of any slimy type of growth, but don't scrape or scrub. If you do scrape, don't use a scraper to "chisel" at the growth, but rather just to "swipe" or "drag" to loosen growth (some slimy stuff might come off easier using a drag/swipe)

If there is some unwanted growth remaining in some areas after swipe/rub/rinse, then you can use a soft toothbrush to gently remove some of this with a light dragging motion (versus a hard back & forth scrubbing motion).

The idea here is to keep the slime growth at bay while not removing any GHA. This should improve your GHA growth over time, but depending on your tank situation, this could take some time.

Once you start getting GHA to fill in, then you can start adding hours until you get to about 18 hrs/day and have consistent results. Then, you can bump intensity up a level, give it a few cycles of growth/harvesting, add 2 hours/day, give it a few cycles, etc until you start to either A) get the production you need or B) start to see a reversion of growth (which would then indicate you went too far on intensity)

Intensity will yield a change in growth results faster than duration, because intensity is instantaneous - so if you pass the "sweet spot" for your tank at the given nutrient levels/tank conditions, the growth will revert. Whereas, if you keep the intensity fixed and extend duration, this is a much "softer" change. The growth reversal can still happen, but it's less pronounced and is more likely to happen when the tank conditions change over a period of time (for instance, when your system gets "cleaned up" and your nutrient levels start to drop and your feeding doesn't keep replenishing them)

IIRC you have a high head level on your setup - the vertical measurement between the slot pipe and the water level that the pump is sitting in. If this is over 15", the Rio 1100 might not be cutting it, but that really shouldn't make a major difference as long as you are getting decent flow and good coverage. However, it might mean that you have a upper limit on how much you can push the intensity, because there is a relationship between intensity and flow - generally, if you wish to increase production (on a well-functioning screen) then you usually have to increase flow along with intensity. Otherwise, if you increase intensity, your available nutrients delivered to the screen are limited, and you can rocket past that sweet spot.

So I'm not saying you need to change your pump - that would be the next consideration after trying all of the above.
Click to expand...

Many thanks Bud, as always. I'll put these suggestions into action. I do have a DC6000 pump if the 1100 isn't up to the task. I'll report back in a few weeks.
 
Yeah you should have increased the intensity a while back, have you ever ran it higher than 6 o'clock? I'm guessing no, because your screen is stark white underneath, which tells me that the algae isn't anchored very well (or your flash is super bright) and this could be part of the reason.

The odd part is that the yellow goo/slime you show prior to swiping it is (usually) indicative of too much light, but I don't think that's the case here - there might be something else not light-related that is causing this. Upping the intensity might cause that to do away.

I would bump intensity up to 4 o'clock. Not 3 o'clock, not yet. Just a precaution
 
I had it above 6 (probably 3-4) when I first switched to 24/7, after not having much growth I dialed it back to 6 24/7.

To verify, I'm at 13 on 11 off with the light at about 4 o'clock now.
 
Since we're talking intensity and duration, I'm on 24hr x 400W LEDs now but moving the whole setup into the back yard with solar as the primary light = 11hrs.

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/BDAD2289-AB95-4DC5-A7CB-BF4214F0E450_zpsznspzsid.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/BDAD2289-AB95-4DC5-A7CB-BF4214F0E450_zpsznspzsid.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo BDAD2289-AB95-4DC5-A7CB-BF4214F0E450_zpsznspzsid.jpg"></a>

It'll be in a greenhouse facing south so good solar capture.
<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/124D758E-BAC2-44F5-8366-5002242B06F9_zps9xjoimmg.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/124D758E-BAC2-44F5-8366-5002242B06F9_zps9xjoimmg.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 124D758E-BAC2-44F5-8366-5002242B06F9_zps9xjoimmg.jpg"></a>
I think the solar intensity should be enough to compensate the total PAR X Time but it's still a massive change.

Thoughts?
 
Is this normal? Its been running for like 6 weeks. This is REALLY dark nasty slimey shhtuff. You can't squeeze water out of it like u can hair algae. When u squeeze it it just oozes between ur fingers.
672cb23647da24cfd28b74d46f8e00ab.jpg
3a56a69426cb6cab45a03a3d816a0301.jpg


Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
 
That's generally indicative of high nutrients. Not quite as bad as the black thin sheet stuff, but still pretty dark. You will want to try and clear most of this off the screen. You still don't want to scrub hard, but you will want to scrape that stuff if it doesn't come off when you just rub with fingertips & rinse)
 
Yeah my nutrients are likely super high ATM. I have not done a water change since starting the tank like 3months ago. And my skimmer has been offline for a month. Got a 30" lifereef skimmer ordered, so that should help slow down the nutrients a bit.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
 
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