Designing a new algae scrubber

[Paul B]

I have been experimenting with this concept and so far the small version grew an enormous amount of algae so I built one on a larger scale. It is basically just a cotton sheet suspended over my tank by an acrylic tube that has holes drilled in it which tank water drips through slowly flowing over the material then back to the tank. A light is hung in front of it.

 

[zachts]

Interesting Idea......add a small fan and you also have one heck of an evaporation cooler for the summer months.......

Do you have any issues with the holes clogging?

 

[Paul B]

I just set it up yesterday so I don't know yet. If they clog, I can easily remove the tube and clean it.

 

[CuzzA]

Perhaps a light on the other side too. That will double its effectiveness.

 

[Paul B]

This is the original experiment. This was a small sheet of cotton material draped over the algae trough. Water is not even pumped over it, it is just wet from one edge laying in the water flow inside the trough. I peeled algae from this to seed the new device. This grew in a few weeks.