My first led algae scrubber

[Skinnysloth]

The tank after one year (12/2009). This was with monthly water changes of 20%, dosing 2-part, frequent water testing, basically good tank maintenance.

Now, after two years of neglect.

This used to be a 20+ head frogspawn. Now it's just a spawning ground for hair algae.

I was using algaefix and it helped clear away about 50% of the hair algae, but once I stopped, the algae come back. I obviously have a nutrient export problem even with a skimmer and chaeto in the sump. It has to be noted that the chaeto really stopped growing like crazy about a year ago, which is when the hair algae went crazy. I remember reading about turf scrubbers over a year ago and after reading up on it again, I decided to build one.

 

[Skinnysloth]

First, the screen. I taped the top before roughing the surface. The screen was 6” wide x 10” long with the top 2” not scrapped. So effect screen area is 48 squared inches. I later lengthened the screen 5” so it would reach down to the water line to reduce splashing and noise.

This is what it looked like after with the saw blade I used to rough it up. I went back and scraped it a few more times after this picture was taken.

The slot pipe ready to be cut.

The dremel bit I used to make the slot.

The screen installed. The screen is being fed from the overflow which was measured flow of around 280 gallons/hour. That is about 46 gallons/hour for each inch. The actual flow is a little less than that because I have a three drain fail-safe style overflow and some of the water is running through the first drain that is about 90% closed using a ball valve. The algae you see on the screen are from the loose algae that made its way down the overflow and not actual growth. You can tell where the roughed up the screen as that’s the area where the algae is hanging.

I’m using two 10watt 660nm led to light the screen. The led is rated: 6.0-6.6v, 1050mA. They are wired in series and powered by a wall wart rated: 12v and 1000mA. The wiring is a little messy, but I will clean it up later. I do have two 20w 66nm on the way and may add or replace the existing 10w led if I need additional lighting. The heat sink is 4.25”x9” which is overkill for a 10w led even without a fan. I will be using the same heat sink when the 20w arrives.

Here, installed with a ghetto splash guard.

I still need to make anchor down the heatsink so it won’t topple over. With a dip stick type test, nitrate is ~20ppm and nitrite around 0. The phosphate level was not tested.

 

[bigfoot610]

get new ro filters yours are bad or stop using tap water when you get that much GHA tooooo many phosphates

 

[Skinnysloth]

get new ro filters yours are bad or stop using tap water when you get that much GHA tooooo many phosphates

I wished it were that easy. My ro/di water comes out at 0 TDS.

 

[Aquayne]

I'm interested on the impact the ats will have on the tank. Red light is understood to grow more algae

 

[bigfoot610]

What kind of lighting ? bulb age? any thing added to tank that is a phosphate bomb? have youhad your tds meter checked have you had yout post ro water checked? if the hammer is dead yank it from your tank no reason to leave it in best way to get hair algea out is manual labor. my brother quit caring about his tank and the only reason he got hair algae was his ro broke and he switched to tap water i would double check everything run an anti phosphate media as well that algea scrubber is going to take all that out but it will take a long time to burn that many nutrients out

 

[Skinnysloth]

What kind of lighting ? bulb age? any thing added to tank that is a phosphate bomb? have youhad your tds meter checked have you had yout post ro water checked? if the hammer is dead yank it from your tank no reason to leave it in best way to get hair algea out is manual labor. my brother quit caring about his tank and the only reason he got hair algae was his ro broke and he switched to tap water i would double check everything run an anti phosphate media as well that algea scrubber is going to take all that out but it will take a long time to burn that many nutrients out

I didn't take care of the tank and one thing led to another. My parameters probably went out of whack and caused some of the corals to die off and put nutrients back into the tank. Then most of the clean up crew died. My T5 bulbs (4 X 54w) were almost two years old, no water change when things started to die.

But all of that has changed or will about to change. Bulbs were replaced two weeks ago, 20% water changes every two weeks for the past two months (not so much to bring the nitrates down, but to help stabilized my parameters), 2-part supplements will be delivered next week, restocked the clean up crew and some manual removal of the hair algae (I'll admit, I'm a little lazy in this department).

My ro/di is fine. Changed the filters last month. I may be over feeding (one cube every few days, two pinches of flakes a day) for a pair of clowns, a yellow tang and a cardinal. But once the algae scrubber gets going, I should be able to over feed (if that's the issue) without any problems.

I've noticed a lot of bristle worms with all the hair algae indicative of high levels of nutrients and detritus. I understand it didn't get this way over night and it won't go away over night either. Just need to stabilize the tank, start to increase the nutrient export, hence the algae scrubber and give it some time.

 

[Skinnysloth]

The water isn't completely toxic as my clowns actually spawned about 4 months ago. Although they haven't done it since. Maybe once I get the water quality situation sorted out, they'll do it again.

 

[reefermad619]

They prolly like it DERTAY!

 

[Skinnysloth]

They prolly like it DERTAY!

Haha, you might be on to something.

I've noticed my skimmer had been producing more skimmate than usual after installing the algae scrubber. Might be coincidence or might be from manually removing the algae from the DT and stirring things up. I'm not sure, but it is an interesting observation.

 

[terahz]

Good luck with the ATS. But while you're waiting for it to kick in, you might start harvesting from the rocks

Also, you might want to take a look at h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide) dipping/dosing. Just a thought.

 

[Skinnysloth]

Also, you might want to take a look at h2o2 (hydrogen peroxide) dipping/dosing. Just a thought.

I might just start doing that. Thanks for the suggestion.

How long should I dip the rocks in hydrogen peroxide? Can I put the rocks back in right away after rinsing the peroxide off?

 

[georgeee]

rowaphos should get rid of all that algae

 

[Skinnysloth]

rowaphos should get rid of all that algae

And I may go that route if this algae scrubber experiment doesn't go as planned.

 

[bigfoot610]

2BSBT 2 BUCKETS SCRUB BRUSH TIME physical removal is going to be your best bet time to get dirty who knows maybe you will find some live corals in there still

 

[PJtree23]

Interesting.

Have you read about peroxide dosing at all? It has work great for me recently.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

You might have to play with distance from the screen with the multichips. I haven't tried them myself, I was worried about hotspots on the screen right in front of them. It wouldn't seem like they would work well for the ones I make at least.

 

[Skinnysloth]

One week update:

Took it out to clean gently with just my fingers and not much came off. It felt pretty well attached to the screen. This was with the 10w 660nm red leds on each side. You can see the it's brown/darker at the top where the light is hitting the screen directly and greener at the bottom. You can tell where I didn't rough up the screen at the top as there was little to no growth there. There wasn't much growth at the very bottom of the screen as that was submerged in the water.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

looks great for week 1

 

[mcgyvr]

ummmm.. What is providing the current limiting for the LED's?