Stronger scrubber lighting.
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Stronger scrubber lighting.
how many watts should I upgrade to and how far away from the screen should the bulbs be so as not to burn it?
thanks :D
I'm getting a new job soon and my next investment will be a SantaMonica 100, i love the 3D algae idea, and ive seen one in person in action (Thanks Chris!) and it really is awesome.
btw, I have some clumping crap settling/growing in my sump area. I havent done anything with it yet fearing that it might dislodge and end up in the Display. I wanted to know what you thought about it first. should I let it be and never stir it around? or should I shut all pumps off and clean it out using a filter sock and suction hose and remove it all?
Pictures below showing the tank and what I believe to be cyano, and other shots of sump/crap in sump.
Thanks SM!
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6131.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6130.jpg
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Let it stay... it's not that much.
Goal for high filtering is 1 real watt per gallon. CFL's can't get much closer than 4 inches.
ok, pics of the scrubber today and of the harvest.
4/3/2011
I added Kent Marine Iron and Magnese about 4 days ago because some of the algae was yellowing on the screen. the iron took care of some of this in the new growth over the 4 days, but as the pics reflect, there is an odd band of yellowing going down the screen. Flow is linear with no blockages to these areas, and I also run a toothbrush at the top of the scrubber and pipe to dislodge anything that may be blocking and also prevent blocking.
I also noticed that the algae is producing bubbles that stay on the screen, if I rub my fingers on them they dissipate. Is this normal?
Also after adding the Kent Marine Iron (the only thing ive changed since last week, so i'm assuming this is the reason) the algae that I harvest is more "goopy" so to say. It is still solid, and it looked great on the screen. But when I harvested it it was more of a goopy mess than last week.
I harvested 11oz (wet)
I'm trying to figure out your 1 real watt per gallon rule. i have around 120 gallons of water in the system. I have 4 bulbs, so you are saying I need each bulb to be 30 watts, correct? So it doesn't matter what the equivalent watts are, just the actual wattage of the bulb, correct? Im trying to get this thing as efficient as possible.
Oh and i'm also excited because Coraline is finally starting to grow on the back wall again since I moved the tank.
tested the water 4 days ago:
Nitrate - 0 (I have 8 fish and feeding cubes/flakes 2x/day)
P04 - 0.22 this went up since last testing
Alk - 9.6
Calcium - 540
Mag. - 1500
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6132.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6133.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6134.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6135.jpg
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The band is blocked flow; you should remove the screen from the pipe to clean it.
Bubbles are just oxygen.
The darker growth you get with iron is just more proteins, which of course use up more N and P, so it is good. As long as it does not get too dark and thick, which blocks light.
30 real watts each, correct.
Coralline is proving that P is now at low levels.
Still having issues with stringy like brown algae in the DT. I have to blow it off of the corals or it suffocates them, any suggestions? Here are some pics. I dont know what portions are die-off because of the scrubber and what parts are just new algae. Is it Cyano? also in the sand, some of it is clumpy.
BTW my fish are camera hams...
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6151.jpg
killed the gorg...
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6150.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6148.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6147.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6145.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6144.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6143.jpg
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...s/DSCF6142.jpg
Hmmm... well new coralline would mean P is coming down. But algae growth on the plastic frag tray would mean P is still high in the water. Either way, If you've been scrubbing a while, then your scrubber is not too strong. You could spend the time to try to improve it, or let it operate slowly the way it is. Cutting feeding in half would really speed it up too.
coraline growth has been slow but steady since I first started to notice it 2 weeks ago.
I feed twice a day, generous pinch of flakes and 1 small cube of omnivors diet frozen. im thinking of just switching the flake I use and go with another form of frozen that is smaller in micron size. The omnivor diet cubes have slightly larger chunks of food and my fish are medium size. I suspect that the leftovers are settling inside crevasis of the rockwork and begin left to rot.
My clean up crew has dwindled in numbers and I only have around 10 mini blue hermits, and a few odd snails and limpets around. also 2 mexican turbos. should I implement more of a cleanup crew while i'm at it? i'm not feeding much as it is.
My bulbs in my DT are also super old. Im going to upgrade the wattage on the scrubber bulbs when I get back next week to the wattage you recommended.
HELP
I ended up staying out of town for a little over 2 weeks. I got back to a DT filled with brown algae all over the sand (and a lot of the rocks), and a brown stringy mess on the back glass.
The scrubber wasnt doing so well, either. It has turned a brownish reddish color mixed with spots of dark green.
Thats the last time I leave the boyfriend in charge of the tank.
The feeding schedule was erratic, and leads me to believe he diddnt feed enough. Also the lighting is not on timers (totally my fault for not setting it up before leaving town...) and i'm sure he probably left the tank lights on too long/ the scrubber lights not long enough.....ect.
ive cleaned out a lot of the algae in the DT, and the scrubber is starting to grow back greener (after only 2 days of stability....i can only imagine what happened when i wasnt here!!!)
1) Now my issues is that the tank water is kind of cloudy (like a whitish cloudy, not yellow or green). I'm going to try to take a picture but I dont know how well that will show up. What might have caused this?
2) I also figured its about time to upgrade bulbs to your recommended specifications for high filtering, the only problem is I am using 23watt (actual, its 100 watt equivalent) spiral bulbs and my local Lowes and Home Depot dont sell any spiral bulbs with higher wattage than 23watt. Do you know of a place, either locally or online, that sells the spiral bulbs at higher wattage? Also, bulbs are about 4-5 inches away from the screen, will the higher wattage burn the screen? I only ask because with the current setup I have no way to move the lights back more than they already are.
3) is it possible to underfeed the scrubber? if this happens will the DT algae grow out of control? I ask because since cleaning the rocks when I moved, and right before I left town, the scrubber was growing great BUT old spots of thick hair algae have since grown back on a few of the rocks. Maybe those specific rocks are still leaching phosphates? its only 2 or 3 rocks that seem to just attract a mountain of algae (all at different depths in the tank, which made me rule out direct lighting correlation)
Thanks
The tank will clear up on it's own.
You can use up to 40 watt bulbs, at 5" distance. Try 1000bulbs.com
P is coming out of those rocks. It will eventually stop.