Algae on scrubber very thick.

[elveloz]

It's being five months so far I installed my 10x10 double sided scrubber ( CFL light bulb 55 actual watts on each side). From last post my Nitrates were 3 ppm and still the same but phosphates went down from .10ppt to .08ppt. At the moment I'm alternating sides for cleaning on scrubber every seven days but the algae growth is so thick is getting really hard to take off and scrubber it's really heavy. Is this normal? I collected 7.6 oz of algae on one side. I'm feeding 8 cubes of food daily.

[SantaMonica]

Yes you might need a hack saw blade.

[elveloz]

Thank you.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Pics would help. In general, once you get a good base of growth (mature screen) it will become more and more firmly attached. I have never needed anything more than a plastic pot scraper in order to harvest growth. Even then, you do have to scrape it pretty good. I don't like to use knives or saw blades though as this tends to promote thinning and tearing of the screen. I do not feel that there is any benefit to re-roughing the screen, as this only makes a difference in the maturing phase, and additional roughing just causes those newly exposed areas to require re-maturing.