SantaMonica
Well-known member
Forgot to post Friday's screen pics. Now that I'm getting a feeling for how this all works, I'm seeing that the key is to grow the real turf (reddish/brown and stiff like astro turf) and remove the green hair/slime. I did not do this to start with. I (along with others, I believe) thought that the green stuff was part of the "turf" too. But it's not. It's nuisance algae covering the real turf. But it grows much faster and longer than the turf. This explains why it's the first algae to grow on the new un-seeded screen, and why if you do buy a pre-grown screen, it seems to morph from brownish/red into green.
But it's not morphing; it being smothered by the green. So my weekly process has changed from scraping all the algae off the screen, to scrubbing the green algae off of the turf algae. Unfortunately I already completely scraped the right (originally seeded) side, but the real turf is slowing coming back. This all explains why after the first two weeks the N and P started showing again: The green hair/slime had completely covered the turf. While the green is good in and of itself (it does do some filtering, and it will be the first to grow on a new screen), it does not compare to real red/green turf. So in effect when I completely scraped the seeded side I removed almost all my filtering.
Fortunatly, the unseeded left side is about 1/3 covered by real turf, and is probably doing most of the filtering. The right side is now two weeks past the scraping and is starting to show real turf again. But the trick is to keep the green hair/slime off of the turf so the turf does not get shaded. It's really easy to scrub the green off, like washing your hair. Green comes right off, and turf stays right on (you'll need more than your fingernails to remove real turf.) From now on i'm going to just scrub the screen clean, and I'm going to hold off scraping the turf until it is completely full of it. This whole process reminds me of adjusting a skimmer to get that sweet spot of just the right amount of foam.
Anyways, here are the pics; this one is the left side, unseeded and never scraped, but now scrubbed every few days. In the center you can see the real turf starting to rise up:
Hi-Res: www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenLeft4weeks.jpg
This is the right side, scraped once two weeks ago, but since then only scrubbed every few days. Since the real turf was scraped down to the screen, it's about even now with the green and has not risen up yet:
Hi-Res: www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenRight4weeks.jpg
This news about how the green algae works is good. It means that since green will be the first algae to grow on a new un-seeded screen, you can "seed" your own new screen by just rubbing in some green algae that you get from your display overflow. This doesn't "grow" it on your screen, it just gets the spores onto it. This is what I did with the 5 gal nano that I'm testing, and the screen was completely covered in green in a week. I'll be posting those nano pics soon.
This places more value on the pre-grown turf from IA; those screens save not just one, but many months of growing real turf. While a new unseeded screen will start growing green and lowering your N and P the first week (like in my nano test), the intense pull of real turf either has to be grown slowly over many months (keeping it free of green), or it has to be bought from IA.
herring, the plastic that the algae is growing on, is it eggcrate? Interesting idea... culturing some algae in a separate container.
But it's not morphing; it being smothered by the green. So my weekly process has changed from scraping all the algae off the screen, to scrubbing the green algae off of the turf algae. Unfortunately I already completely scraped the right (originally seeded) side, but the real turf is slowing coming back. This all explains why after the first two weeks the N and P started showing again: The green hair/slime had completely covered the turf. While the green is good in and of itself (it does do some filtering, and it will be the first to grow on a new screen), it does not compare to real red/green turf. So in effect when I completely scraped the seeded side I removed almost all my filtering.
Fortunatly, the unseeded left side is about 1/3 covered by real turf, and is probably doing most of the filtering. The right side is now two weeks past the scraping and is starting to show real turf again. But the trick is to keep the green hair/slime off of the turf so the turf does not get shaded. It's really easy to scrub the green off, like washing your hair. Green comes right off, and turf stays right on (you'll need more than your fingernails to remove real turf.) From now on i'm going to just scrub the screen clean, and I'm going to hold off scraping the turf until it is completely full of it. This whole process reminds me of adjusting a skimmer to get that sweet spot of just the right amount of foam.
Anyways, here are the pics; this one is the left side, unseeded and never scraped, but now scrubbed every few days. In the center you can see the real turf starting to rise up:
Hi-Res: www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenLeft4weeks.jpg
This is the right side, scraped once two weeks ago, but since then only scrubbed every few days. Since the real turf was scraped down to the screen, it's about even now with the green and has not risen up yet:
Hi-Res: www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenRight4weeks.jpg
This news about how the green algae works is good. It means that since green will be the first algae to grow on a new un-seeded screen, you can "seed" your own new screen by just rubbing in some green algae that you get from your display overflow. This doesn't "grow" it on your screen, it just gets the spores onto it. This is what I did with the 5 gal nano that I'm testing, and the screen was completely covered in green in a week. I'll be posting those nano pics soon.
This places more value on the pre-grown turf from IA; those screens save not just one, but many months of growing real turf. While a new unseeded screen will start growing green and lowering your N and P the first week (like in my nano test), the intense pull of real turf either has to be grown slowly over many months (keeping it free of green), or it has to be bought from IA.
herring, the plastic that the algae is growing on, is it eggcrate? Interesting idea... culturing some algae in a separate container.