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Unread 11/14/2017, 06:56 AM   #951
karimwassef
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Mine aren't rusting at all. I wouldn't lump all China made products together. I'll take some pics.


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Unread 11/15/2017, 09:31 AM   #952
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Well one of my lights died. And not because of exposure to moisture. I see no sign it got any moisture behind the glass (which it did before sealing them), but now it is super dim, and only a single strip lights inside the cluster. Anyway, I dont think i want to get another one of these....so what should I replace it with? My current one is the 50w grow light (all red/pink). I currently have a CFL filling in.....

In fact you can see the moisture in there from BEFORE i sealed them up a couple months ago. That was not present when it stopped working.

This is what I had....



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Unread 11/15/2017, 11:50 AM   #953
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Originally Posted by karimwassef View Post
Mine aren't rusting at all. I wouldn't lump all China made products together. I'll take some pics.
Yes you can lump all these lights together, they have metal frames not allow and they all will rust if exposed to salt spray.

Yours will if exposed to salt mist.

Not saying don't buy them, great value for price and good light output. Just do not expect miracles. I would buy them again.


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Unread 11/16/2017, 11:33 PM   #954
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Maybe they mis-printed the IP65, which should have been IP56


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Unread 11/23/2017, 05:02 PM   #955
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Actually, the metal frame is heavily coated and painted. I'll take pics over time.


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Unread 11/23/2017, 10:35 PM   #956
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Actually, the metal frame is heavily coated and painted. I'll take pics over time.
Mine less then a year are ready for the wire wheel and some spray paint.

But in all fairness mine are subject to a lot of salt water mist.

They should be protected


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Unread 11/27/2017, 09:25 AM   #957
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Maybe they mis-printed the IP65, which should have been IP56
Either way, they are garbage.....

I think they just died from the heat, and or low quality parts.

The new lights I got (which are just white/yellow) have worked WAY better, regardless of not being red/pink like these were. I think these also were way overrated in power.


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Unread 11/27/2017, 10:09 AM   #958
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Mine are 100W and I can touch the fins without issue.


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Unread 11/27/2017, 11:24 AM   #959
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Mine are 100W and I can touch the fins without issue.
Have you tested them with a megawatt?


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Unread 11/27/2017, 01:11 PM   #960
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I have two running on a dedicated apex EB8 with 2.2A ~ 253W


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Unread 12/06/2017, 08:34 PM   #961
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With all the diy vertical scrubbers out there, what shortcuts/tips/accessories do you use that helped maintenance/cleaning so simple. Im finding it a pain to clean my scrubber every 10days.


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"I'm totally frustrated by this disease. My display has been fallow for 2 months now. If ich happened to mysteriously appear again, I'm giving up and going back to African Cichilds."
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Unread 12/07/2017, 12:03 AM   #962
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More harvest mass = more filtering. That's what you want. If you don't mind less filtering, just let it go more days; roots will die and start letting go, putting some nutrients back into the water which will appear to you as less filtering. But it will still filter.


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Unread 12/24/2017, 09:16 AM   #963
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So i now have a scrubber thats 20x14... pretty wide and i grow algae like crazy. I have the below lights on each side of my scrubber and the edges of the scrubber isnt growing. If i move the lights further away, will that help spread? Or do i need to buy more lights to cover the sides. Im already 100watts per side.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B017G...rch&th=1&psc=1


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Originally Posted by Gogandantess

"I'm totally frustrated by this disease. My display has been fallow for 2 months now. If ich happened to mysteriously appear again, I'm giving up and going back to African Cichilds."
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Unread 12/24/2017, 06:13 PM   #964
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So i now have a scrubber thats 20x14... pretty wide and i grow algae like crazy. I have the below lights on each side of my scrubber and the edges of the scrubber isnt growing. If i move the lights further away, will that help spread? Or do i need to buy more lights to cover the sides. Im already 100watts per side.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B017G...rch&th=1&psc=1
If your present growth is controlling NO3 & PO4 levels I wouldn't worry about no growth on the edges.
With that type of light fixture you'll never get complete & even growth on the screen, without wasting light, unless the screen is cut to the shape of the beam angles of the light fixture.
Moving the lights further away from the screen will increase in area of coverage, but the intensity will reduce, of course. You shouldn't need to move it too much though to increase the spread so its worth trying before adding another light.


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Unread 12/24/2017, 06:26 PM   #965
karimwassef
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If it's working, don't worry about it. Moving it back a little won't change the spread much since those LEDs are directional (no lenses) and the metal around it is a secondary reflector.

I use those lights too.


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Unread 12/24/2017, 08:48 PM   #966
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Thanks RC team! Nitrates/phosphate levels are 0 so im happy


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Originally Posted by Gogandantess

"I'm totally frustrated by this disease. My display has been fallow for 2 months now. If ich happened to mysteriously appear again, I'm giving up and going back to African Cichilds."
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Unread 01/15/2018, 08:32 PM   #967
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Below is my scrubber results. Always had dark green turf . Now Im getting shades of light green and dark green. Concerns?


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File Type: jpg 4052EEEB-CE39-4CF3-98F8-4B24153DCCE7.jpg (42.7 KB, 67 views)
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Originally Posted by Gogandantess

"I'm totally frustrated by this disease. My display has been fallow for 2 months now. If ich happened to mysteriously appear again, I'm giving up and going back to African Cichilds."
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Unread 01/15/2018, 09:19 PM   #968
Floyd R Turbo
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Not really, what's likely happening is that your water chemistry is changing a bit. Usually, as your nutrients drop, or as the rate of nutrient delivery drops, from a higher level where you're getting dark growth to a lower level, the growth will start to get lighter and usually more volumous. That's assuming you haven't changed anything else. At this point I would not worry, but I would keep an eye on it for any other changes.

Just so all the bases are covered, a few questions:

Screen dims?
Light type/description?
Photoperiod?
Tank Size?
Feeding?
Livestock?


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General Interest Forums --> Advanced Topics --> Algae Scrubber Basics (sticky)
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Unread 01/15/2018, 10:49 PM   #969
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Quote:
shades of light green and dark green
Flow is getting cut off in the lighter green areas.


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Unread 03/12/2018, 02:28 PM   #970
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so, with a waterfall scrubber all the specifications have been well constrained in regards to screen sizes needed and light intensity & flow over the screen.

But what specs are their for tank turnover rates - the number of times the volume of water in a tank needs to go through a scrubber per hour to effectively control inorganic nitrogen & phosphate build-up over a 24 hour period?

You can have two tanks with very different volumes, but with the same fish populations, using the same size scrubber. Is 0.5 x tank turnover per hour enough? Or is a 3 x tank turnover per hour a minimum?

Seems this aspect has been neglected as I've never seen any information covering it.


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Unread 03/14/2018, 07:19 PM   #971
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Continuing along with this Tank Turnover Rate paradox, & something that directly affects this.

I don’t believe that increasing the rate of flow over the screen of a down flow scrubber, above the minimum
required to completely immerse the algae and stop water channelling, will increase the fraction of inorganics
removed by the algae with each tank turnover.
The algae can only remove a fraction of the inorganics available in the water passing over it, and I can't see
any reason why a faster flow should change the value of this fraction.

In regards to the important water - air interface created by the thin layer of water flowing down over the algae
in a downflow scrubber, a quicker flow would increase the thickness of the layer.

Perhaps I'm wrong?


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Unread 03/14/2018, 09:32 PM   #972
SantaMonica
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You are right, extra waterfall flow does not help that much. And sump turnover is almost irrelevant.

What's most important is an air/water turbulent interface, which faster downfalling water can help with. But this can be outweighed by detaching slime from the screen.


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Unread 03/14/2018, 10:09 PM   #973
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@Twinfallz, you're right and wrong

Excess flow does not seem to benefit much, unless you have the ability to sort of "inject" it into the mat rather than just allowing it to flow over the top. Even then, IMO, it's a marginal improvement

Too little flow can mean slower flow through a larger/thicker algae mat and incremental increases in flow would likely benefit to a certain point.

So there is a point of diminishing returns with relation to flow volume (more accurately, speed)

But I think a focus on a "tank turnover rate" is not a primary concern, but rather something that you just might consider when choosing or designing a scrubber. On a larger tank, a wider scrubber means higher overall flow.

Taken to an extreme, a narrow and very tall scrubber would mean a long pass, lowering the nutrients more on a single pass. But, you have a lower TTR. The result with that scenario compared to a screen with the same area but 4x wider means less contact time but more TTR, so the result over the long term is pretty much the same.

The net effect is that it's pretty much a wash.

Combine that along with lower flow rates in general being relatively effective, TTR is even less of a factor. What I mean by that is that the 35 GPH/in "rule of thumb" IMO is really not a target anymore, it's good to get close to that, but you can still run a quite effective scrubber with a lot less flow. Hitting 35 GPH/in is not going to make or break your scrubber. I've seen examples of great growth with something like 20-25 GPH/in. IMO that 35 GPH/in rule is reduced to a target maximum but not a hard & fast rule by any means.


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--> POSTS #3251-64 (Basics), #5206 (Cleaning), #6884 (LEDs), #729
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Unread 03/14/2018, 10:23 PM   #974
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Quote:
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You are right, extra waterfall flow does not help that much. And sump turnover is almost irrelevant.

What's most important is an air/water turbulent interface, which faster downfalling water can help with. But this can be outweighed by detaching slime from the screen.
I always like to consider how paticular scenarios affect a healthy mature screen, and ignore new and immature screen particulars as a new screen won't be new for long after all.

What the minimum flow rate over any particular mature screen with algae growing on it is, I don't know. It may vary from one screen to the next, but only slightly I’d imagine.
And you can go above that rate whatever it happens to be.
But a reasonably constrained figure for minimum flow rate should be identified because an effective TTR would be based on that figure.

I think TTR is important because, if a fraction of the available inorganics are taken up with each tank turnover through a scrubber then the turnover needs to occur enough times during a 24 hour period to remove 100% of the inorganics in the aquariums water.
Otherwise there'll be a deficit and inorganics will accumulate.


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Unread 03/14/2018, 10:32 PM   #975
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@Twinfallz, you're right and wrong
But I think a focus on a "tank turnover rate" is not a primary concern, but rather something that you just might consider when choosing or designing a scrubber. On a larger tank, a wider scrubber means higher overall flow.
Yes & no.

Two tanks, both 800 litres, both fed 2 cubes per day.

Tank #1 uses a 2 cube 6” screen scrubber with a flow over rate of 800 L/hour, which = TTR of 24 per 24 hours

Tank #2 uses a 2 cube 12” screen scrubber with a flow over rate of 1,600 L/hour which = TTR of 48 per 24 hours

The filtering capacity of scrubber #2 is theoretically twice that of scrubber #1 because Tank #2 has twice the TTR per 24 hours, and achieved this without increasing the speed of flow over the screen.


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