3 weeks

[Danny_B]

Hey, 6 month old, 29 gallon sps/lps/clam reef. 10 gallon sump. 2 mocha clowns, starry blenny, shrimp goby pair.
rapidled leds

Algae scruber 5" wide x 10" pipe to water
240gph measured flow
2 x 23w spiral 2700k

single sided
18 hours on/ 6 off


feeding less than one cube a day.

finally getting green 3d growth after 3 weeks of not cleaning. i cant make the screen any less than 10" tall... how, when do i clean?

Growth is much lighter green than in photos.


suggestions, complaints?

[SantaMonica]

Clean as soon as you start getting those dark areas. And clean everything off the screen.

[kerry]

Those horizontal screens take a LOT longer to grow in. I have also noticed and only clean mine (now that the screen is mature) every three weeks. Here is a pic of my horizontal 3D growth. This took over a month to get just OK growth. If I had a better reflector this may not have taken as long. Good luck.

[Danny_B]

It is a vertical screen....not.horizontal.

The dark growth in the picture is actually in person looks like light green how do i clean it....last time i cleaned there was sheets of algae coming of and i had to clean it completely off...it left nothing to seed.

[SantaMonica]

And during this extra time of darker growth, the roots die. That's why horizontal is not as effective.

[kerry]

I wondered about that, it was hard to tell by the pic, the single sided are still a little slow going like the horizontal due to the single side of light. I use the card in the pic above to clean mine. Some times I take plastic bristle brush to it.

[kerry]

And during this extra time of darker growth, the roots die. That's why horizontal is not as effective.
Very true, the nutrient reading on the horizontal tank are never as good as the vert double for sure. I have noticed that if I go 3 weeks on the horizontal I get little better nutrient readings but its not much. With two week cleaning on the horizontal I get about 5-10ppm nitrate with three week cleaning its closer to 5ppm. I have not done a scientific report and charted the numbers it was just something I noticed since I have been doing 3 week cleanings for the last 2-3 months.