My new scrubber

[Lenthan]

After reading about scrubbers here and a few other places I decided to give one a try. I am going to place it in my fuge and ordered parts for a LED light set up using 6-12 red LEDs. I didn't do tons of planning so hopefully it will work haha. I had an air pump laying around and I hope that I get enough water movement over the screen. It will be placed along the side of a fuge with only macro in it and slow water movement.

I made it mostly of parts laying around and scrap from a local plastics shop.

I have some hair algae in the tank that I have been fighting for some time so I hope this will make the difference.

Some pictures, I will post more once I get the light built and I get it up and running. The acrylic still needs to cure.

Any questions or concerns are welcome.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-immBbu_u7yg/UP9b03DaIPI/AAAAAAAAFOM/GZjKwEzbQE8/s720/IMAG0591.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-McAR1bvyZ-Y/UP9b4aQ7MLI/AAAAAAAAFOU/GQhzhAlcJ8w/s720/IMAG0590.jpg

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_6ghZO8uHEA/UP9bvl8fPtI/AAAAAAAAFOE/sM8WMCPQfjE/s720/IMAG0593.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-F8zxdV1iZYk/UP9b9fWzAUI/AAAAAAAAFOc/1fniNdDkXT0/s720/IMAG0596.jpg

[Devs]

You probably want to add a blue in with those reds, on a 6:1 red/blue ratio or like floyd has done which I have also done...6 reds and 2 blues with the blues being wired with a current divider.

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

Looks nice.

[Lenthan]

Thanks for the tip, I added some blue to my order.

Here is the scrubber set up, I have a florecent light to run with it right now

http://youtu.be/EsnQtNZb9Gw

[Lenthan]

Had a question, I am going to run the light for my scrubber for 18 hours should I turn the pump off when I turn off the lights or leave it on 24/7?

[cdm2012]

Had a question, I am going to run the light for my scrubber for 18 hours should I turn the pump off when I turn off the lights or leave it on 24/7?

Leave it on.

Nice build!

[Lenthan]

Thanks.

I plan to get a bigger air pump, the one I have now is a whisper 20 and from what I have been able to find out it only runs at .6lpm of air. I probably need closer too 2 lpm from what I read.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Welcome to the site. Just read your thread on coralreef.org. I find in amazing that the "yellow water" crowd is still active.

[Ace25]

Floyd, have you done test like Paul B recommended a while back? I know when I take 5G out of my tanks that to me looks 'crystal clear' the water is actually surprisingly green in a white bucket. Never notice it in the tank but notice it right away in the bucket.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Yes I pull water into a white bucket and it is very clear. However I recently purchased the new Hanna Color of Water meter and put it to the test tonight...but I think I have a defective meter. I tested 3 tank samples against RODI and they all showed up zero, when I can see the color difference in the sample cups, so something is wrong. I didn't even get to the next step of the test which was to filter water through a 0.47 micron filter (which they kindly sent a whole bunch of to me when I asked about where to get them, along with a mega syringe). So that test will have to wait.

One other guy on RC (might have been RHF) suggested taking photos of a white plastic cutting board using a camera capable of forcing settings like a DSLR and comparing before and after shots. The one example I saw was before/after an Ozone system installation. I was hoping the COW meter would be more definitive.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Update - Hanna Color of Water meter is useless for aquaria. So don't go buy one. It's made for wastewater color measurement, all of my tanks showed zero against RODI so I e-mailed Hanna. The good thing is that they offered to swap me out another meter or reagents!! Great service.

[Ed]

And no skimmer. Upkeep is so much easier now.

[Lenthan]

I got a bigger air pump the Stellar Air Pump W-60 and replaced the tube type air stone that is in the pictures with 2 6" deep blue stones


I also got my light built.

My lighting included

Stuff from LEDgroupbuy.com
1 - 6" Makers LED heat sink kit
1 - Inventronics 40w driver - 700mA
1 - 10K Ohm 1/2 watt Linear Taper Potentiometer
12 - Solderless CREE XP-E Red

Other stuff
1 - 5.7v phone charger(for the fan) I had laying around
1 - project box from Radio shack
2 - 15 pin VGA connections
1 - power port
1 - VGA cable
1 - rubber grommet
Power cords

Stuff I am going to add
3 - Solderless CREE XT-E Royal Blue with 80 degree optics
thermal paste (have not used it yet as the LEDs may move)

I decided to do solderless LEDs for a couple reasons, first I am not very good at soldering and second I figured it would be easier to switch things out this way.

One question for the DIYers out there in the picture of the driver box is it okay that I soldered both the fan cord and LED driver to the same power port. I could not think of a reason why but electricity is not my specialty.

All I have to figure out now is a good way to mount the light, my current set up is pretty janky.

Some pictures:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BXbR0boZozo/UQixU_-rdpI/AAAAAAAAFOs/3fyYFhNm7kQ/s800/NSC_3998.jpg

Drilled a hole in the heat sink so I could run the fan wire into the light section and then connect it via the VGA cable
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-vkySPDm1beU/UQi1rQe7BDI/AAAAAAAAFP0/-YJDSf26Z3c/s800/NSC_4003.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ajulq-I0MnQ/UQixZfpdQHI/AAAAAAAAFO0/AjmYUyW2UcE/s800/NSC_4007.jpg

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-wqs6JYDYVTM/UQixdZR25wI/AAAAAAAAFO8/zhO6ouw4Iv4/s800/NSC_4008.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5xORtvLviGs/UQixhyJGn3I/AAAAAAAAFPE/i-XpYvUsYOw/s800/NSC_4012.jpg

Dimmed at lowest setting
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-geNccNTTn6M/UQixnEM5ESI/AAAAAAAAFPU/wrzNP7IQt-4/s800/NSC_4020.jpg

Full blast
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3RISlUg02Js/UQixpoZHlRI/AAAAAAAAFPc/KpL0-_snstw/s800/NSC_4021.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-RZqJoP4khC8/UQixsRssXdI/AAAAAAAAFPk/uZF7gkobh_w/s800/NSC_4025.jpg

[Floyd R Turbo]

No problem wiring both plugs to the same jack, it's the same as plugging 2 things into one outlet by using a splitter on the wall.

Build looks nice, problem is that you are using 630nm reds. 660s work better. Dunno, maybe you will find differently since yours is dimmable. It is entirely possible that the reason for poor growth under 630 is because they are too intense relative to 660s. So yours is essentially an experiment

[Floyd R Turbo]

Oh and I just caught that the phone wall wart is 5.7v, the fans that come with the Maker's heat sink are 12v.

[Lenthan]

I assumed it was the same as using a splitter but wanted to ask to make sure,

I did read that the 660s work a bit better after I got the 630s, I guess if I get bad growth at full blast I will dim them a bit and if that does not work I will try to replace them. Maybe go with 6 and 6.

With the wall wart being at 5.7v it just means the fan will operate at a lower rpm correct? I figured it would not need to run at full blast since I did not completely load the heat sink with LEDs.