Algae Scrubber Basics
- Thread starter srusso
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srusso
Active member
Please see pics, This is not my scrubbber but the algae looks the same. The only diference is I have about 3/4 of that much algae after 7 days. Screen is 10x10 inch with 23 wall CFL flood on each side. I can post acutal pictures next week when I clean it agian.
That's very dark, it looks like that image is also a little over exposed... but if your saying your algae looks like that, what I call "black algae or oil algae" it needs to be cleaned every 3-4 days, until it lightens up. The reason you change the cleaning schedule at times like this is, that type of algae will prevent others from growing, in turn lengthening (could even prevent) the time it takes for a better/more efficient type of algae to grow.
One thing to note is, once your nitrates drop to a normal level... your rocks will have trapped a fare amount of that inside them and algae will start to grow out of your rocks... :headwallblue: never fun having fixed one problem, to let another start... hang in there. I think its the reason a lot of people give up in this hobby...
Floyd, just guessing but if his algae looks like that, then its not P limited... call it a hunch
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srusso
Active member
Nope, you dont count the sump volume unless you have coral or fish in it.
Oooppss, just read the dimensions... so yeah you will need more light
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Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
Wow, I could have sworn that I wrote a response almost exactly like srusso's and now it doesn't show up! Weird!
Anyways, I was basically saying the same thing. Most people want a lot of flow in their DT and teeing off the return pump would decrease this and probably require an additional power head to make up for it, adding heat, power, etc.
I also remember writing something to the effect of the recirculated water theory, that being that the dirtier the water hitting the screen more often the better growth and filtering. But this would be a very fractional gain by feeding directly from the overflow vs tee off return pump I would think. But then again, there's not much data about water passing once over a mature algae screen.
So the main benefit of direct overflow feed is maintained flow level in the DT and minimum power usage and heat added to the system.
jrp1588
New member
Alright, could you tell me how to set it up coming off my overflow then? Now that I think about it, I doubt I have enough extra GPH on my mag 9.5 to get 35gph/in. I have an e-shopps dual tube overfow that uses 1" pipe. What would you suggest? A simple diagram would be helpful.
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
Happy to help. It would help to see a full tank shot and full sump / cabinet shot, pics of how the plumbing is currently routed, etc.
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
Hmmm...well, there are a couple of ways you could do this.
1) If you wanted to keep the sump configured as is, then you could take one of the return lines and use it to feed the scrubber and position it in the middle, across the sump, lights on either side. Then it's 1/2 scrubber 1/2 skimmer. If you wanted to, you could add a piece of PVC cut in half the long way (like a waterslide) and have that at the bottom of the screen slanted back to the skimmer chamber, then you're skimming 100% and scrubbing 50%.
2) spin the sump around so that the pump is in the small chamber, put the skimmer right next to the baffle, and put the scrubber on the right and feed the scrubber with one or both of the drains.
Either way if you keep the skimmer running, and don't plan to remove it, you could just undersize the scrubber and treat it as supplemental filtration, it will take up less space. But in reality you should probably size it right as an undersized scrubber may not perform very well, you might get dark growth all the time. For a 75, the simplest build would be something like 7x7 or 8x8 with one 26W CFL on each side, and that would be a little undersized. Ideally, you want 9x9 and probably 2 lamps on each side, but they could be smaller, like 19W or 22W. That would be a little overpowered even.
What it comes down to is what your flow is from each pipe. If you just use flow from one pipe, measure the rate and then design the screen dimensions based on that.
Your pump looks like a pretty straight shot, couple elbows, 1" pipe, I'd think you're getting about 500 GPH, maybe as high as 650. So let's say 250 GPH from one pipe, 250/35 = 7.14, 75g/7 = 10.7, so your screen would be 7 wide by 10 tall. If you have 250 from one pipe. Tricky part is testing it, with your setup, your pipes are under the water line...
1) If you wanted to keep the sump configured as is, then you could take one of the return lines and use it to feed the scrubber and position it in the middle, across the sump, lights on either side. Then it's 1/2 scrubber 1/2 skimmer. If you wanted to, you could add a piece of PVC cut in half the long way (like a waterslide) and have that at the bottom of the screen slanted back to the skimmer chamber, then you're skimming 100% and scrubbing 50%.
2) spin the sump around so that the pump is in the small chamber, put the skimmer right next to the baffle, and put the scrubber on the right and feed the scrubber with one or both of the drains.
Either way if you keep the skimmer running, and don't plan to remove it, you could just undersize the scrubber and treat it as supplemental filtration, it will take up less space. But in reality you should probably size it right as an undersized scrubber may not perform very well, you might get dark growth all the time. For a 75, the simplest build would be something like 7x7 or 8x8 with one 26W CFL on each side, and that would be a little undersized. Ideally, you want 9x9 and probably 2 lamps on each side, but they could be smaller, like 19W or 22W. That would be a little overpowered even.
What it comes down to is what your flow is from each pipe. If you just use flow from one pipe, measure the rate and then design the screen dimensions based on that.
Your pump looks like a pretty straight shot, couple elbows, 1" pipe, I'd think you're getting about 500 GPH, maybe as high as 650. So let's say 250 GPH from one pipe, 250/35 = 7.14, 75g/7 = 10.7, so your screen would be 7 wide by 10 tall. If you have 250 from one pipe. Tricky part is testing it, with your setup, your pipes are under the water line...
jrp1588
New member
You forgot I had my pup dialed back with a ball valve. Luckily the very bottom of the inlet tubes aren't glued into the 45' elbow. I left it like this to ease disassembley some.
Interestingly, the 2 tubes don't flow even amounts, who would have thought? The one on the left flows about 120gph while the one on the right flows about 200gph. I think this is due to the silencers I tried to build. I admittedly did a pretty poor job of making them even, though they are pretty quiet.
Interestingly, the 2 tubes don't flow even amounts, who would have thought? The one on the left flows about 120gph while the one on the right flows about 200gph. I think this is due to the silencers I tried to build. I admittedly did a pretty poor job of making them even, though they are pretty quiet.
jrp1588
New member
Discovered those numbers are invalid, the return pump was clogged with chaeto. I was wondering why it didn't overpower the overflow when I turned it up to full blast like it used to. I'm currently playing around to see if I can find a good balance between noise and flow, then I'll test later.
Edit: alright, after some fiddling and cleaning, I'm getting ~250gph out of both tubes. A far cry from the 1000+ total advertised GPH it's supposed to get. I was able to slide the skimmer out of the way and clear up a bit of room on the skimmer side of the sump, but not enough, so it'll have to go in the other chamber, no big deal since the auto-topoff keeps the water line 100% constant, and the skimmer produces very few micro bubbles.
I'm thinking I'll take the left tube, and flip the 45' the other way. This will point the tub horizontal, and should be long enough to easily fit a 7" mesh. From there, I need to figure out how to hang a bulb on either side. I have several questions.
1) How do you hang the lights, I don't see a way that I could make my clip light work.
2) Should I cap the end of the horizontal tube or will this limit my flow too much?
Edit: alright, after some fiddling and cleaning, I'm getting ~250gph out of both tubes. A far cry from the 1000+ total advertised GPH it's supposed to get. I was able to slide the skimmer out of the way and clear up a bit of room on the skimmer side of the sump, but not enough, so it'll have to go in the other chamber, no big deal since the auto-topoff keeps the water line 100% constant, and the skimmer produces very few micro bubbles.
I'm thinking I'll take the left tube, and flip the 45' the other way. This will point the tub horizontal, and should be long enough to easily fit a 7" mesh. From there, I need to figure out how to hang a bulb on either side. I have several questions.
1) How do you hang the lights, I don't see a way that I could make my clip light work.
2) Should I cap the end of the horizontal tube or will this limit my flow too much?
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Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
1) you can screw a 1x4 or something across the front/back to act as a bracket if you're going to use the clip-on dome reflectors, then just zip-tie them on so they don't fall in the sump if they loosen or get bumped
2) yes cap the end of the slot tube. You have a 2nd open standpipe so if the flow gets slowed down as algae grows, the flow will divert to the other pipe and you will have pretty constant head pressure on the slot tube. Adding a light blocker will keep the slot clear and you shouldn't have a problem.
Good about the skimmer/ato, makes it easy to make space on the right side.
The 950 GPH of the Mag 9.5 is with zero head and 1.5" return pipe. Put 4' of head, 5 90s, and 1" piping and you're about where you would expect to be at 500 GPH. That was a pretty good guess I had.
Soak the pump & impeller in Vinegar for 30 minutes and rinse well, you might get another 100 GPH out of it. But size the screen for the flow you have now and you'll come out ahead. In 6 months you'll lose 20% of the flow and you'll need to clean it again.
2) yes cap the end of the slot tube. You have a 2nd open standpipe so if the flow gets slowed down as algae grows, the flow will divert to the other pipe and you will have pretty constant head pressure on the slot tube. Adding a light blocker will keep the slot clear and you shouldn't have a problem.
Good about the skimmer/ato, makes it easy to make space on the right side.
The 950 GPH of the Mag 9.5 is with zero head and 1.5" return pipe. Put 4' of head, 5 90s, and 1" piping and you're about where you would expect to be at 500 GPH. That was a pretty good guess I had.
Soak the pump & impeller in Vinegar for 30 minutes and rinse well, you might get another 100 GPH out of it. But size the screen for the flow you have now and you'll come out ahead. In 6 months you'll lose 20% of the flow and you'll need to clean it again.
jrp1588
New member
No, the overflow is supposed to flow over 1000gph, that's why i bought the mag 9.5. Unfortunately it can't even handle the 9.5's flow even with all the head pressure, and you have to dial back the 9.5 more before the overflow is reasonably quiet.
Screwing in another piece of wood is a good idea, not sure why I didn't think of it. haha.
Screwing in another piece of wood is a good idea, not sure why I didn't think of it. haha.
Ok got my plumbing finished up. Just need to get lights now. Are the ones on the first page still the "go to" light or is there something newer I should buy? Also I know "daylight" bulbs are in the 6000K range so what would a 2700k bulb be called? Gonna try and find one at home depot tomorrow.
Love the thread btw.
Love the thread btw.
Floyd R Turbo
Either busy or sleeping
5000K will work, you will just get better results out of 2700-3500K. You should be able to find the K rating on the box.
srusso
Active member
+1 on the 5000k working, however if the bulb is more then 3 months old it needs to be replaced anyway.
srusso
Active member
Yeah most companies call 2700k "soft white"... but in general the label "soft white" is not something you can completely count on. Look hard on packaging for small print if its not clearly labeled. Also do your work to find the cheapest source for the bulbs and buy a years worth, b/c they need to be changed out every 3 months.
srusso
Active member
Here is another off topic, video of "life in sump 4" in my undisturbed algae scrubbed only tank
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