sjmusic2's UAS

[sjmusic2]

I just fired up mark 2 of my design which is based on an old seaclone skimmer I had laying around. It struck me that by introducing the air flow into the circulation pump that I should get good distribution and high volumes of bubbles into the growth zone. There is a strip of leds wrapped around a central core with the screen wrapped loosely around that. The seaclone creates a vortex of sorts that pushes the water and the bubbles up the central column and out of the top. The leds are 12v, smd 3528, 120 per metre, warm white and are supposedly rated IP68. I say supposedly because with mark 1 I had the leds in direct contact with the saltwater and after a few days the silicone coating had split and some of the diodes shorted. This time I put a thick layer of GE silicone over the leds which will hopefully keep things in order.

I am testing the unit's functionality right now and if it looks good I will start to focus more on its ability to grow algae successfully. If this design works I see no reason why it couldn't be copied cheaply with pvc and/or acrylic - I don't believe the vortex will be essential and best of all the footprint is realtively small.

Anyway, here's a few pictures of the unit and the top window where you can hopefully make out the bubbles against the acrylic...

[SantaMonica]

More/better pics needed.

[sjmusic2]

More/better pics needed.

Hopefully these are more to your liking...

07.jpg is the mk1 central core (pvc pipe) with the leds tightly wrapped around (many are damaged from direct contact with the saltwater). Ignore the air line at the bottom as that is gone in mk2. The leds are less densely wrapped in mk2 as well.
08.jpg is the completed unit. You can see the screen on the inside.
09.jpg shows the circulation pump and the airline.
10.jpg is a top-down view with the lighting core removed.
13.jpg is a close-up of the mk2 lighting core with a thick silicone coating to insulate better. You can see the leds through the silicone. There was algae growing on the silicone and the screen after a couple of days - but nothing that constitutes a success yet.

I also just realized that one of my timers is not working properly so the unit has only been lit for 8 hours a day, rather than the intended 16.

[SantaMonica]

Hmm... possible problem. Growth will block light from reaching additional growth. So it is self-limiting.

[sjmusic2]

I'm not sure I understand your point re self-limiting...wouldn't all single-sided scrubbers be self-limiting in this way ?

Sorry if I'm having a blonde moment :)

[sjmusic2]

Here's a diagram of how the unit functions...is this what you were thinking. Maybe I am wrong but I anticipate seeing the algae grow on the inside of the screen closest to the leds. This is where most of the flow and bubbles will be.

3193

[SantaMonica]

So it is a 1-sided screen. You can use the guidelines to figure out how much feeding, etc.