It's been about a week. Maybe.

[sklywag]

Screen is rough. I have the knicks and cuts to prove it. I have no growth yet. Do see very small spots on screen. Don't remember my last one taking so long to grow. But that was almost a year ago. Starting to get Cayano(?) in the tank and bright green patches too. Assuming it's leaching out of the rocks in what was a FOWLR tank when I got it. Owner didn't run a skimmer. Just a sock and had some one do water changes for him.

Screen is 8x12 lit on both sides with 23 watt CFLs. I'm still old school on sq. inch per gallon. Just about 36 gph based on head loss calculation. Atleast 80lbs if not more of rock. Four fish and feed pellets for now until I find my final display.

[SantaMonica]

Low light.

Cut the screen; and up the lights (with reflectors).

36 gph total?

[sklywag]

Low light? 23 watt CFL 100 watt equivelent was the norm I thought. Have reflectors. 36 gph per inch of slot.
Here's a picture of the temporary setup in garage. and the scrubber. Lights are 2" from screen.
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/th_3-1-2012014.jpg (http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/?action=view&current=3-1-2012014.jpg)
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/th_3-1-2012018.jpg (http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/?action=view&current=3-1-2012018.jpg)
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/th_3-1-2012029.jpg (http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/?action=view&current=3-1-2012029.jpg)

[SantaMonica]

Scrubbers are now sized according to feeding. Nutrients "in" (feeding) must equal nutrients "out" (scrubber growth), no matter how many gallons you have. So...

An example VERTICAL waterfall screen size is 3 X 4 inches = 12 square inches of screen (7.5 X 10 cm = 75 sq cm) with a total of 12 real watts (not equivalent) of fluorescent light for 18 hours a day. If all 12 watts are on one side, it is a 1-sided screen. If 6 watts are on each side, it is a 2-sided screen, but the total is still 12 watts for 18 hours a day. This screen size and wattage should be able to handle the following amounts of daily feeding:

1 frozen cube per day (2-sided screen), or
1/2 frozen cube per day (1-sided screen), or
10 pinches of flake food per day (2-sided screen), or
5 pinches of flake food per day (1-sided screen), or
10 square inches (60 sq cm) of nori per day (2-sided screen), or
5 square inches (30 sq cm) of nori per day (1-sided screen), or
0.1 dry ounce (2.8 grams) of pellet food per day (2-sided screen), or
0.05 dry ounce (1.4 grams) of pellet food per day (1-sided screen)

High-wattage technique: Double the wattage, and cut the hours in half (to 9 per day). This will get brown screens to grow green much faster. Thus the example above would be 12 watts on each side, for a total of 24 watts, but for only 9 hours per day. If growth starts to turn YELLOW, then increase the flow, or add iron, or reduce the number of hours. And since the bulbs are operating for 9 hours instead of 18, they will last 6 months instead of 3 months.

HORIZONTAL screens: Multiply the screen size by 4, and the wattage by 1.5Flow is 24 hours, and is at least 35 gph per inch of width of screen [60 lph per cm], EVEN IF one sided or horizontal.

Very rough screen made of roughed-up-like-a-cactus plastic canvas.

Clean algae off of screen every 7 to 14 days, so that you can see the white screen material.

[MorganAtlanta]

Measure the flow. Don't count on head loss calcs. My sump to display is roughly 5 feet, but actual head loss is roughly 10 feet based on actual measured flow versus the head loss/flow graph with the measured flow, which in reality is about half the "calculated" flow.

8x12 is 96 inches, so you would probably want 92 total watts on the screen.

Unless you plan to feed a lot (8 cubes/day?), you could probably cut the screen size down, which is another way to solve issues with not enough flow and light for the screen size.

You also might want to swap out some of that rock. It could be a long time before you pull out all the phosphate. Maybe not worth the headache of battling that issue. You could probably sell it half of it and buy some dry rock to replace it with no cash out of pocket.

[sklywag]

Bio load is rather small right now. So big reflectors are out and small ones are in.?! That's a good Idea on the rock Morgan. Wow! The more I think about it the better that idea gets. Unless there is Phosphates still in dry rock too. You seem to think not. May go on a search binge to figure this out.

[SantaMonica]

If the dry rock had phosphate before, it still does now.

If the dry rock had lots of life before, there will be a pulse of nutrients coming out of it when it's wet again.

[joelespinoza]

Before you get too crazy redesigning, try scrubbing off as much algae/cyano in the display tank as possible and then turn off all the other lights, besides the scubber off for a few days.

Personally I have 2 full sized screens lit from only one side with 26 watt CFL+8" reflector each, and it took them a long time to get going. After a couple weeks with minimal growth I was beginning to think I would have to redesign the system. However, I scrubbed all the glass and rocks, to get off all the algae growing there, then turned off all the lights in the system, with the exception of the screen lights, for about 3 days. At the end of the 3 days I was starting to get some very nice scrubber growth.

After that I ran a fairly short light cycle of 8 hours per day in the display (I was running about 14.5 hours per day on scrubber lighting). Once most of the display algae faded away I started slowly increasing duration of display lighting and am now up to 12 hours per day. I have noticed recently that a small amount of algae is starting to grow in my display again, which means I should probably back off the display lighting to 11 hours/day or increase the scrubber lighting.

Nothing is only one factor.

EDIT: BTW, what light/photoperiod are you using in the display? Your coraline algae appears to be growning mostly on the top of your rocks in the light. I cant seem to get any coraline to grow unless it is in the shadows, it actually bleaches out when I move it into the light... I wonder if it is a light difference or different strain of coraline?

[SantaMonica]

I cant seem to get any coraline to grow unless it is in the shadows

High phosphate. Which is also indicated by display algae. With high phosphate, coralline has a hard time competing with other types of periphyton, and loses out (except in the shadows).

Find out what's slowing your scrubber down, fix it, and your coralline will grow everywhere.

[joelespinoza]

High phosphate. Which is also indicated by display algae. With high phosphate, coralline has a hard time competing with other types of periphyton, and loses out (except in the shadows).

Find out what's slowing your scrubber down, fix it, and your coralline will grow everywhere.

I would agree 100% if there was other algae growing in the light and coralline growing in the dark. But that is not the case. I have mostly bare rock in the highest light areas and coraline algae growing (slowly) in the shade.

I realize "Coraline" algae is made up of thousands of different species, and they probably all have slight variances in requirements, however is there a max photoperiod that coraline algae likes? I might simply be leaving on my display lighting too long. I just realized I had it at nearly 14 hours.

Currently the main coraline algae coverage on my seed rocks is a thinner light purple variant that really does not seem to like the light, however I have some colonies of a thicker coraline algae in both red and dark purple that seem much more light tolerant, although they still seem to grow better in shaded areas.

Sorry to hijack the thread.

[sklywag]

Hijack away. I don't care. I find it all interesting. That red stuff you see at the top of my tank is Cyano algae. Not Coraline.
My last tank had very little Coraline in it but was very healthy. And I credit it to dumpiming my skimmer and going with a scrubber.
Hoping to attain those same conditions again.

Thanks for answering the idea of dry rock storing phosphates SM. Saved me some computer time and beneficial bacteria growth time.

Now on topic of my thread. I am getting the green stuff and coming in quick now.

[sklywag]

Update. Week two. Growth on ATS is good. Cyano and bright green spots on rock and sand in display are deminishing faster than I thought they would.

[Floyd R Turbo]

pics!

[sklywag]

I am not a camera person. Cyano on rocks.
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/th_3-1-2012018.jpg (http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/?action=view&current=3-1-2012018.jpg)
Cyano going away. Went through an ugly algae stage which was expected. Still going through it I'm sure. But the Red slime is fading. Need to look for spots that you couldn't see in first pic to notice any difference. Or stand in my garage.
http://i874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/th_3-13-12004.jpg (http://s874.photobucket.com/albums/ab308/ddinox64/?action=view&current=3-13-12004.jpg)

[SantaMonica]

Looks like they are reversed.