Mega Powerful Nitrate and Phosphate Remover - DIY!

[parrotchute]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghoIsUmBCN8&feature=youtube_gdata_player]Scrubber - YouTube[/ame]
There's a link to a video

 

[SantaMonica]

Screen is too big for the lights; is allowing a thin growth over a large area, which is getting burned in the middle because thin growth is not thick enough to absorb the strong light. Needs instead a small growth area right in front of the light, about 5" high, which will concentrate growth into a thick green pile. If you can't rebuild the box, then try adding iron, and reducing hours. You could also try putting both lights on one side, to try to make use of the huge area. Lastly, you could try doubling feeding.

 

[parrotchute]

Thanks SM - If I tried stacking the lights on one side to cover the whole screen, would I still want to cut down on the lighting hours and would I want to move the lights a little further away from the screen?If that works, I'll just order 2 more lights to effectively cover the entire area. Or will the screen size still be too big, even if it's covered by that much light spread? What if the lights are backed off to have more of a spread?

So that's how algae will grow? If a huge screen, it will just spread out instead of getting denser where there's more light?

Sorry for all the questions, trying to make it perfect! Thanks!!

 

[parrotchute]

And, sorry, a follow up question -
It seems like you're saying having extra screen is sort of worse than having no screen. I.e., if the screen is too big, the algae just grows thin, whereas no screen it clumps up?

 

[SantaMonica]

Too big is not good. That's why the new size guidelines based on how much you feed.

 

[parrotchute]

If I stack the lights and the whole screen gets coverage would it be fine? Would I still want to reduce the lighting?

 

[parrotchute]

SM, ignore the post above, I went ahead and made some changes.

I raised the lights up to the top half and I cut the screen in half. It's now 14" x 5". We'll see this week how the growth changes. Should I keep the lights on the same schedule?

Hopefully now it'll grow green..

 

[SantaMonica]

Much better. See how it goes.

 

[WannaRace]

Any suggestions for the way mine looks? I always get this brownish/reddish algae clumps all over the screen. Screen is 3 weeks old. 13 watt cfl on each side. 6 x 7 screen.

 

[SantaMonica]

More light. 14 days.

 

[WannaRace]

Should I just put both lights on one side?

 

[felixfish]

Give it some time for your scrubber to break in. My's about 8 weeks in and it's starting to get some decent red and green growth. Just my .02. I would say lights on both sides.

 

[SantaMonica]

Always both sides

 

[parrotchute]

I shortened the screen and more directly routed the pump to get more flow. I also put the LEDs on a slant to see if more/less light growth would occur at different distances - looks like similar results, though, with low growth.

Any thoughts?

 

[SantaMonica]

Feed more.

 

[parrotchute]

Feed more.

I'm afraid to feed more - there's already plenty of brownish algae in the DT - shouldn't this indicate there's already plenty of nutrients?

 

[SantaMonica]

Difficult to explain.

Just let it do a few 14 day cycles, and see what happens.

Iron might help.

 

[parrotchute]

Ok - 14 day cycles? Do you mean not cleaning for 14 days?

 

[SantaMonica]

Yes 14 days max.

 

[WannaRace]

I'd like to know why the green hair algae grows in the slot where it is shaded and not on my screen where there is direct light. Wouldn't that suggest too much light? I'm tempted to put a blank piece of screen in front of the roughed up one just to see what happens... Any answers?