Algae Scrubber Basics

[karimwassef]

Ok... Red and white PAR came in at 360 but I attribute that to better wiring (lower resistance) since it also consumed more current ~ 10A total.





The wiring needs some improvement, but both the blue and red sides are up and running.

The power is ~ 10A per side for a total of 240W

[Horace]

Karim, I gotta tell you, while I applaud your DIY chops, I dont see your solution being viable long term. I give it 6 months to a year tops before corrosion becomes a real problem. IMHO you have to have these LEDs protected by something, bit it a thin acrylic or glass. While you may not like the fact that the protector gets dirty, its a hell of a lot better to have dirty glass than have salt spray on your LEDs, causing the same effect (blocking PAR), but also causing corrosion which will destroy the array.

[karimwassef]

hmmm.. you're going to make me share my dirty lil secret...

I have a large UV LED strip (96" x 4") on my DT and a small CW+WW LED plate (9" x 6") on my sump Xenia/Chaeto box.

I've been using saran wrap for years now... It's a little embarrassing, but the stuff works for low power applications. I have better (more expensive) plastic sheeting, but this is adequate.

These have been up for ~2.5 yrs. They require a little maintenance once a year





I'll do the same or use the better plastic film.

[karimwassef]

by the way, these lights are made of small groupings of 3 LEDs. one small set can fail without the whole thing failing. I've experimented with this a lot over the last 3 years..

[karimwassef]

my goal is to find a way to reduce the spray though.

[karimwassef]

Day 6

Blue facing side (some areas look pink due to red light bleed through from behind).


Red side (technically day 1, but the blue light was shining through for the first few days, so maybe we'll just let the 5 days offset go?)

[vashawn]

Hey guys/gals
Im building my basic scrubber
question:
I have a pump hooked up to my BSR dual reactor then flows through my UV.
Can i have the water running out from the uv flow through the algae scrubber.
Im just not trying to add an extra pump
tks shawn

[karimwassef]

it may be hard to get it started since UV kills algae cells.. but you can probably seed the mesh with some hair and that'll get it started. Or just turn the UV off for a couple of weeks to get the culture going.

[vashawn]

Originally Posted by karimwassef

it may be hard to get it started since UV kills algae cells.. but you can probably seed the mesh with some hair and that'll get it started. Or just turn the UV off for a couple of weeks to get the culture going.

kewl will do, just didnt want to buy another pump

[Floyd R Turbo]

I would say that the flow might be the issue. A UZ sterilizer and a BRS reactor are typically on the lower end of flow, you want a nice slow pass there. But on a scrubber you typically want higher flow. So I would look closely at your scrubber flow requirements.

http://algaescrubber.zohosites.com/

[Hal]

Does an algae scrubber replace a remote DSB in a bucket? Seems like they both remove nitrates. Anybody run both?

[karimwassef]

I have an inline DSB but with low flow... and a few scrubbers. Redundant systems are always good.

DSB convert nitrate to nitrogen.
ATS converts N and P into their physical tissue to grow and must be exported to work.

[karimwassef]

Tomorrow will be a full week... Seeing some green

[Gorgok]

More light? Less light? Something else wrong? (pics with flash and without flash)



This has been running on system for a long while now, still never gotten real growth like my old tank system had. That one ran on 2 cfls on a side though, not these LEDs. Not even sure what the LEDs are anymore, should be 12+ 3W reds a side if i remember correctly, on a ~6" x 7" heatsink. I don't recall the current either, its been a while, but its somewhere around 500mA i believe. Running 15 hours a day.

Still growing all sorts of algae in the tank, so something can grow, just not on the screen. If left to grow longer it seems to make a spongy yellower growth, even the pics were a little spongy not stringy at all.

Not sure if it would be smarter to just swap to cfls if i could just find a 6 x 7" housing for them...

[karimwassef]

is it slimy? cyano?

[crocogator106]

Originally Posted by Gorgok

More light? Less light? Something else wrong? (pics with flash and without flash)



This has been running on system for a long while now, still never gotten real growth like my old tank system had. That one ran on 2 cfls on a side though, not these LEDs. Not even sure what the LEDs are anymore, should be 12+ 3W reds a side if i remember correctly, on a ~6" x 7" heatsink. I don't recall the current either, its been a while, but its somewhere around 500mA i believe. Running 15 hours a day.

Still growing all sorts of algae in the tank, so something can grow, just not on the screen. If left to grow longer it seems to make a spongy yellower growth, even the pics were a little spongy not stringy at all.

Not sure if it would be smarter to just swap to cfls if i could just find a 6 x 7" housing for them...

Mine is doing the same thing only not as green as yours. I'm running a 20watt red LED light about 5 inches away. Its got pretty good flow and I'm getting algae in the tank and not on the screen. A few small green patches are growing but most of it looks like a rust colored algae that washes off easily. I think my screen might be too big, its 8 x 10 and I really dont feed that much and have a smaller bioload in my 75g.

[hkgar]

Originally Posted by crocogator106

Mine is doing the same thing only not as green as yours. I'm running a 20watt red LED light about 5 inches away. Its got pretty good flow and I'm getting algae in the tank and not on the screen. A few small green patches are growing but most of it looks like a rust colored algae that washes off easily. I think my screen might be too big, its 8 x 10 and I really dont feed that much and have a smaller bioload in my 75g.

Try moving the light in closer. I am running a30 watt on a 7x9 screen at 2inches and 18 hours on. This is the light:

https://www.amazon.com/Growing-water...o+grow+30+watt

[crocogator106]

I was running 18 hours and about 2 days ago started 24 hours to try and get some growth. I'll try moving it closer as well


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[karimwassef]

one week and it's green









I would call that success... tentatively

[Spar]

what are you using to attach two screens to each other?

[karimwassef]

Tiny zip ties



but I'm tending towards going to clear stretchy plastic line like this instead

[karimwassef]

I'm very likely to rip it apart and do it again better:

1. I'd rough up the edges before putting them together.
2. I'd reduce the width to get more clearance in the lower container.
3. I'd use the stretchy line instead of zip ties.
4. I'd add two fan on either side to push the stray spray down instead of letting it hit the lights.
5. I'd redo the power distribution lines to the LED plates. At 10A each, the #18 wire is too wasteful.

The last one is very interesting, by the way. The red plate had more copper (lower resistance) and gave off more light. I expected some difference but it was huge (like 30% more PAR).

Here are a couple of ideas I like but would be more invasive (ok- just don't want to do them )-

6. Loop the flow to enter through both sides instead of from the single middle inlet.
7. Add clear plastic screens between the lights and screens.
8. Put the LED plates on a solid back that can be raised and swivel (PVC probably) instead of hanging (my fans are pretty strong- may need to do this to keep the low pressure they create from sucking the plates against the screen)

[azjohnny]

I'm very likely to rip it apart and do it again better

I can COMPLETELY relate to this statement!

[karimwassef]

10 days...

[mattberrytr]

A little while ago I posted that I was working on a two cube waterfall scrubber which operated a bit differently. The design is pretty much finished, just have a few minor changes to make in the next revision. A few people asked I post up some pics, so here's what I've got so far. My goal with this scrubber was to make it as compact as possible, whilst still getting the performance benefits from it being a waterfall scrubber. It measures: 5.5 inches square, by 7 inches tall.

The biggest difference is probably that the LEDs are inside the unit, instead of being on the outside (and shining in) on typical waterfall scrubbers. The screen being on the outside, and on all four sides means maximum surface area. A four cube version of this scrubber is only taller by about 3 inches.

The design has three sections. The top and bottom sections contain strong neodymium magnets which hold the middle (scrubber screen) section in place. It's easy to disassemble just by pulling the middle section down and apart for cleaning. Water can only flow down, so it can't overflow like a poorly designed traditional waterfall scrubber would. I need to do some more testing, but from what I've seen so far, if the bottom water exit point ever did get clogged, the water would cascade down over the external sides of the middle unit.

The top section contains the top control side, sealed water intake, the heatsink and the PCB. Water comes in through the hose barb on the top side, and is forced down over the sides of the middle section, containing the screen. The water exits down through the bottom section. The bottom of the unit is designed to sit flush with the water level - so it could sit propped up on some egg crate etc. It's nice and quiet too.

The screen is 3D printed. I grew algae on an ABS 3D printed screen back in 2014, but am switching to PETG as it's naturally food safe. It's better than ABS in pretty much every way, it's also easier to print, so it's a win win. There's a red and violet LED on each side of the heatsink, eight total. It pumps out plenty of light.

Some pics:








Pic of growth on an earlier revision - with an aragonite screen:



Video of the control unit in action if anyone is interested: