432sqinch acrylic LED scrubber with controller

[glarior]

Here is my scrubber build I have been working on for a in wall 300g + 240g aquarium build. The 300g will have a small shark, ray and eel while the 240g will be a mixed reef. The scrubber is built out of 1/4" acrylic, c-channel, 60 Rapid LED 660nm LEd's, DIY controller and powered by a meanwell SE350-48 with 4 LDD700 drivers on a PCB.

http://www.horsepowermafia.com/images/web/LED1.jpg
http://www.horsepowermafia.com/images/web/LED2.jpg
http://www.horsepowermafia.com/images/web/LED3.jpg
http://www.horsepowermafia.com/images/web/LED4.jpg

Click here for video that I don't want to upload to youtube. (http://www.horsepowermafia.com/images/web/LEDVid.mp4)

Hopefully in the next week or so I will get it installed on my setup.

[ALENQUER A.]

looks great !!! What exactly does that controller?

[glarior]

It will control my aquarium. I can add wave makers to it, more temp sensors, controlled power outlets for the heaters if one goes bad and sticks on... but the main reason for it is to control all my LED's. Both tanks will have LED's and be adjustable plus the moonlights will reflect the moon outside during its cycle.

[glarior]

First cleaning of the scrubber.

How does it look? The second screen was added about a week later


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[SantaMonica]

Good start, but I'll bet it can be 1/2 as big, and use 2X or 4X the light.

[glarior]

Good start, but I'll bet it can be 1/2 as big, and use 2X or 4X the light.

Half as big? I thought if anythign it should be bigger since I am feeding a lot. More 660nm LED's? What would that do? I can add them with this setup with ease.

5-10 - Silver sides or chopped up smelt
3 cubes for the reef fish
palm full of shrimp
every other day is one small octopus or squid and 5 silversides

[SantaMonica]

Well that is a lot of food. Once you get the flow corrected...

60 X 3 = 180w of LED. For strong filtering, it should be 1/2 of the CFL guidline (which would be at least 435 real watts, or preferrably about 800 watts for strong filtering). So 1/2 of this would be 400 led watts. This, combined with the very dark growth, and also the fact that there is a lot of space between each LED, leads me to think that at least doubling the LED density would be best.

And actually, if you did not want to spend the electricity, I'd rather see the current LEDs moved over into half of the unit, and just use half the screen size, with a lot of flow. You'll get better filtering since the growth will get thick and green, compared to now where it will stay thin and dark and will peel off.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Talking watts with LED seems to get confusing. I'm starting to recommend an on-center spacing instead of overall wattage, because 3W 660s running at 700mA and 2.3V are really 1.6W output, they just call them 3W for marketing.

High-level lighting would be 2" O.C. for all reds, distance from screen 2", with a diffuser at 1".

Low-level lighting would be 4" O.C. at 3" to 4" and no diffuser.

2" O.C. would be one "3W" LED (on each side) per every 4 sq in, which is 1.5 W/Sq In (rated) or 0.8 W/Sq In (actual)

4" O.C would be one "3W" LED (on each side) per every 16 sq in, which is 0.375W/Sq In (rated) 0.2 W/Sq In (actual)

Basically take the LxW for total Sq In of dimensional area, multiply by 0.375 for low wattage, 1.5 for high wattage, and divide by 3 and that's the total number of LEDs needed (half on one side, half on the other)

So if each screen is 12 x 18 (right?) that's 216 sq in. Low wattage 216 x 0.375 = 81 (40 per side). High wattage 216 x 1.5 = 324 (160 per side). Looking at those numbers, that is quite an insane amount of LEDs, but that is quite an insanely large scrubber, and an insane amount of feeding!!!

but anyways, the point is that 15 LEDs per side (30 total) *could* be a bit low on the overall light needed. So 2x or 4x the LEDs is good advice.

[glarior]

Talking watts with LED seems to get confusing. I'm starting to recommend an on-center spacing instead of overall wattage, because 3W 660s running at 700mA and 2.3V are really 1.6W output, they just call them 3W for marketing.

High-level lighting would be 2" O.C. for all reds, distance from screen 2", with a diffuser at 1".

Low-level lighting would be 4" O.C. at 3" to 4" and no diffuser.

2" O.C. would be one "3W" LED (on each side) per every 4 sq in, which is 1.5 W/Sq In (rated) or 0.8 W/Sq In (actual)

4" O.C would be one "3W" LED (on each side) per every 16 sq in, which is 0.375W/Sq In (rated) 0.2 W/Sq In (actual)

Basically take the LxW for total Sq In of dimensional area, multiply by 0.375 for low wattage, 1.5 for high wattage, and divide by 3 and that's the total number of LEDs needed (half on one side, half on the other)

So if each screen is 12 x 18 (right?) that's 216 sq in. Low wattage 216 x 0.375 = 81 (40 per side). High wattage 216 x 1.5 = 324 (160 per side). Looking at those numbers, that is quite an insane amount of LEDs, but that is quite an insanely large scrubber, and an insane amount of feeding!!!

but anyways, the point is that 15 LEDs per side (30 total) *could* be a bit low on the overall light needed. So 2x or 4x the LEDs is good advice.

160 LED's per side would be insane! THat would be ~13 drivers and 4 PCB's! lol. The cost effectivness would be gone.

So, if chop up the aluminum and place 60 LED's on each side of a 12x18" screen powered by a rio 3100 I should be able to remove more nitrates then the current setup of both screens?

[SantaMonica]

Why not just do the simplest thing first... slide the current LED bars all to one screen, and seal off the other screen with tape. This will give twice the watts and flow per square inch.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I'm sure you could get away with fewer drivers if ran parallel strings, etc, but yeah the cost effectiveness goes way down. However, I don't think you would ever be able to get the efficiency and nutrient uptake with any other method of lighting, so it is what it is.

As far as going 60 per side and only one screen increasing nutrient uptake, I can't say "Yes" definitively, because you are feeding such a huge amount. I would have no past example to compare it to. But if you took all of the flow you are currently using and put it on one screen instead of 2, and put all the light on that one screen, I would think you would get overall equal or better production of algae. All you can do is try, and if it's not enough, fire up the second screen again. But you need to give it enough time to really get growing thick and fast. You will probably want to clean the screen one side at a time every 3-4 days and keep the slot clear and flowing well.

IMO once the screen is mature, and if you have heavy feeding (at least equal to the screen capacity as defined by the feeding based guideline), you can crank up the flow as much as you can, and blast the screen with as much light as you can.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Why not just do the simplest thing first... slide the current LED bars all to one screen, and seal off the other screen with tape. This will give twice the watts and flow per square inch.

Yes I would try this first also

[glarior]

However, I don't think you would ever be able to get the efficiency and nutrient uptake with any other method of lighting, so it is what it is.

As far as going 60 per side and



I agree on the efficiency of the lights.

As for the 60 I said that wrong.. it will be 30 each side.

@SM I will try that. I welded it all up but can cut and re-weld.

It is worth a try