New scrubber for my 90gal reef

[ioevanc]

Just wanted to share my newly built scrubber for my 90gal tank. It's been up for 6 days, algae is starting to really pick up. First two days it had no growth, on the third and fourth day cyano started to dominate the screen. It than started disappearing and green algae started to grow. I am using two 40w 2700K CFSls. Should I clean the creen on 7th day or leave it running for another week since this is a new setup?

[Floyd R Turbo]

Looks good, growth for 6 days is about right. Your lamps look a little close, should be about 4" away, just watch out for a hotspot of low algae growth in the center. Is one of those lamps an incandescent, or is it a sideways CFL with a modified reflector?

[SantaMonica]

Yes 40 watts needs to be a bit further back, like 5"

[ioevanc]

Thanks for the tips, I moved the light further away. I got one question though, since today is the 7th day, the screen is pretty much covered with greenish/brownish algae, should I clean it or wait another week for the algae to grow more?

[Floyd R Turbo]

nope, you want to clean it. Since it's the first cleaning, do it very gently, leave as much algae on as possible, use slowly running room temp tap water and gently rub with fingertips (NOT your fingernails). When I did my first cleaning, it almost looked like new because I used the sink sprayer, so don't do that.