How does tank lighting effect scrubber lighting?

[joelespinoza]

I have not seen much discussed on this topic, but I would assume when you upgrade display lighting, you need to upgrade scrubber lighting so that the scrubber can out compete the the new lights. Has anyone experienced this? Or am I overthinking this?

Currently I have a 55 gallon display that I feel 1.5-2 cubes/day. The display has about 100 watts of t8 lighting, the scrubber is 2 10.5x13 screens (or whatever the full size is), each of these screens has a single (one sided) 26 watt 2700k CFL spiral bulb + reflector powering them. The screens are obviously not completely utilized, but they grow algae quite well, they keep all my nutrients below measurable levels and overall the system works for a low tech system.

I am going to upgrade my display lighting to 42 high end Cree 3 watt LEDs. This will be substantially more light in the main display tank. MY concern is that this may overwhelm my current scrubber lighting. If so I would have to upgrade my scrubber lighting first, if not I would prefer to leave it alone.

What I want to avoid here is the situation of having to explain to the missus that I just spent $600+ on the fish tank, but now I need to immediately spend even more to get the filtration working right again...

[SantaMonica]

It's not just lighting... it's size, roughness, nearness to screen, and time. Once the algae is out of the display, I don't think it will matter how strong the display lights are.

[joelespinoza]

Well the whole point of the scrubber is it provides the best place to grow algae. So the algae on the screen out competes the algae in the rest of the system for nutrients, it does this by access to better light (both more light and a better spectrum for its growth) and by better access to the limited supply of nutrients from high flow, meaning the scrubber basically has first shot at the nutrients as they are produced.

Well reef tanks often have very high flow, so its quite possible there are a few areas in a reef tank that can see flow equal to, or maybe even greater than the scrubber. Also reef tanks have very strong lighting, and while it is not usually in the perfect spectrum for green algae growth, if you go for full spectrum lighting in addition to blue lighting you will certainly be providing the algae the right conditions grow.

Like in my case, I am going to have MUCH stronger lighting in the display than I will on the scrubber. In addition I will have much better light penetration in the display. The backbone of my display lighting will be ~5000K neutral white LED lighting, certainly this is a light source that is more than adaquate to grow green algae in bulk.

So you dont think there is any chance that my display could out compete my scrubber, even accross the top of my rocks where the flow and lighting is strongest? Or any chance it could do so in any setup?

[SantaMonica]

I have not any displays do so.

[joelespinoza]

Fair enough, in that cast I wont worry about it. Thanks.