Need help with ats

[Dolphinfan]

I've been running my scrubber for about 6 weeks. It's 7x7 in screen with 23w bulb on each side. Lights are about 4 in away from screen. I have growth but it's really dark. It's a waterfall type. I'm using a rio 2100 pump to run the scrubber so I have enough flow. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Garf]

Clean every 7 days. Will get better and better. Pics would be nice ( fairly new to this myself ).

[Dolphinfan]

I can't figure out how to upload pics from my phone. Little more info..... My phosphate reading was 1.6 so I used som Gfo to bring it down. Its now .5 and my nitrates are 30.

[SantaMonica]

High nutrients need really strong light until the nutrients come come down. Try doubling the wattage.

[Dolphinfan]

High nutrients need really strong light until the nutrients come come down. Try doubling the wattage.

Ty SM for the quick response. I will try that and let you know how it goes.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Also consider that when the GFO takes the P down to zero, N will stop getting absorbed. Algae absorbs N:P at roughly 13:1 or something like that. So if you have 30 N and 0.5 P your N uptake could stop about 20 and stall out. I personally would let the scrubber ramp up with at least some phosphate in the water (don't bring it to zero) and then if you have 0 N and some P left run a very small amount of GFO, if you even need any.

Nitrate limitation is the most common thing I have seen (where N=0 and P does not drop) because of the natural tendency of LR/LS to denitrify, throwing off the algae growth.

[Dolphinfan]

Thanks Floyd. I take out the Gfo and let the scrubber do its job...

[Dolphinfan]

Just put on new 45 watt cfl and new 8 1/2 in reflectors. I also got a new screen roughed it up real good and seeded it with the algea from the old screen. Should know in a cpl of days how it's going to grow.