UK Based Horizontal Scrubber!

[routestomarket]

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across this site through a very informative article on another site.

Reading through the information I started to realise that everything made perfect sense to me and that it would work wonders on any system. Being the person I am I simplify everything and came to realise the best way to remove algae from my tank is to make somewhere else much, much more preferable to the reefers nemesis!

Starting with a piece of plastic which I heavily abused with sand paper, wire wool, patio skating session and much more I was ready to go but I had one problem which I feel others will have faced and another which I may just not have found the answer to yet!

Firstly, my system will not at present allow a vertical screen due to space constraints and secondly, all the articles that I have seen refer to a 23w Grow bulb, which as far as I can ascertain do not exist on general sale in the UK. Believe me I have tried and feel I may now be on a police blacklist due to the number of hydroponics shops I visited! ;)

Anyway back to the system! I have a 400l system with an over the tank sump (yes, it was an afterthought!) which is fed by 2 1500lph pumps and gravity fed back to the main tank.

I cut my now much scratched plasic to fit the flow into the sump so that the water would flow continuously over its surface and placed a plastic sheet 4 inches away from the screen and placed 3 standard 20w energy saving bulbs. Above the bulbs i placed a home made reflector (laminated tin/aluminium/baking foil, which if you havent tried works wonders).

The system was primed and set off 1 week ago today and I have just made my first cleaning of the screen which you can see below:[attachment=1:2s0fcqgn]25062009213.jpg[/attachment:2s0fcqgn]

The mesh you can see on top of the screen is builders plaster glass fibre mesh for reinforcing plaster. Being glass it has two advantages, firstly it is inert and secondly the sureface area for the algae to cling is massive!

Here you can see a close up of the mesh:
[attachment=0:2s0fcqgn]25062009214.jpg[/attachment:2s0fcqgn]

So to round up, thanks for all the information on here and when I get a chance I will post better pictures and descriptions of the full system!

Thanks again

Keith

http://www.routestomarket.co.uk

[kcress]

NIce!
Got a pulled back picture if how you have it installed?

[routestomarket]

Hi KCress and thanks for the positive reply!

Please see below images of the installation.

Sealed unit with foil light guard:[attachment=2:5qs7olry]26062009215.jpg[/attachment:5qs7olry]

Unit showing lights above the screen and water level:[attachment=1:5qs7olry]26062009216.jpg[/attachment:5qs7olry]

Picture of water run off (apologies for the poor picture as it is a bad angle!):[attachment=0:5qs7olry]26062009217.jpg[/attachment:5qs7olry]

I will post 2 more shots in the next reply of 1 days regrowth and a long shot of the system!

[routestomarket]

[attachment=1:1zypzsd1]26062009221.jpg[/attachment:1zypzsd1]

[attachment=0:1zypzsd1]26062009222.jpg[/attachment:1zypzsd1]

[worley]

It's a bit hard to see from the photo, but do you have a layer of plastic underneath the screen, it may work better if you can get more rigid plastic or use something to flatten it (not the angle but the slight warp to it). Also, looks like there's not enough water flow from the amount that is going off the end, what you have in the middle should be a bit more and over the entire width if you can. Can you increase the pump size?

Random question, how does the water return, it sort of looks like a syphon??

[routestomarket]

Hi Wortley good to see another uk "Scrubber"!

In hind sight the pictures sent through previously were not really fit for purpose so I have cleaned up the tank and taken the following:

[attachment=0:nxvoy89i]26062009231.jpg[/attachment:nxvoy89i]

[attachment=1:nxvoy89i]26062009228.jpg[/attachment:nxvoy89i]

[attachment=2:nxvoy89i]26062009225.jpg[/attachment:nxvoy89i]

As for the return, as mentioned in the previous post the sump was an afterthought and is syphon fed!

[worley]

Thanks for the photos, that helps, the flow looks somewhat better there, have you had a chance to measure it? (e.g. the time it takes to fill a household bucket?)
Is that growth after the first day that it's been in there, or 1 day after cleaning?
I think you'd do REALLY well from stacking several (e.g. 4 or 5) layers of that screen together and attach them so they dont' come apart, as it's got quite large holes. Try and offset them and I bet you'll find the growth explodes.
P.S. there's actually a few of us "UK scrubbers" here :D

[routestomarket]

The growth is 1 day after cleaning, the first pics on the thread were taken yesterday!

Just out of interest what screen material do you use?

[worley]

I use plastic canvas, you can get it on ebay or from a fabrics shop.
The problem you have there is that after cleaning there's not much left on the screen, so if you make it thicker there'll be more for the roots to cling on to so it'll regrow faster (which you want!)