Cylinder UAS using a cfl bulb

I had an idea one day about making a cylinder UAS. And so this is my work in progress that I have been testing.

I attached a plastic screen to a 4" to 3" PVC reducer. I then found a glass cylinder that was 10.5 inches tall. It fits perfectly in the 3 inch section of the PVC reducer. The light hangs down into the glass tube and shines onto the inside of the algae screen. The glass cylinder has a bottom so no water can get into the cylinder. I put an airstone under the 4 inch section and drilled holes around the edge of the pvc outside and inside. The air bubbles flood up along the outside and inside of the screen. To capture the bubbles so they do not go all over the sump I currently have a plexiglass cylinder around the outside of the screen. The bubbles rise up and are released around the top edge. These bubbles pull in water to the screen. Not sure if I am going to keep the plexiglass cylinder on the outside. I really liked my original idea of the screen just sitting directly in the water with nothing around it. This, in my opinion, would allow the more water to flow across the screen.

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I would like your opinions or ideas and I will post more pictures as I continue to modify my design

Brilliant CDM I hope the cylinder ends up being a good viable option.

Ok. It's been 6 days that I have had my cylinder UAS scrubber running. As an experiment, I put it in a 10 gallon tank that is filled with 7 gallons of water from my 30 gallon African Cichlid tank. I have been siphoning out 1 gallon of water a day from it and replacing it with 1 gallon of water from my DT. I only had a 13w CFL bulb on hand so I have been using it on an 18 hour on 6 hour off schedule. For this experiment, I am only running a bubbler in the corner of the tank. This is circulating the water and pulling the water through the scrubber.

Here are some day 5 pics. It began to build up with brown and a few small spots of bright green algae:
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Here are some day 6 pics. Starting to see a green tint on the algae screen. Today I was surprised to see the screen covered with tons of bubbles! Never noticed that before with my other scrubber. Probably because it has bubbles running up along the screen.
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Are are bubbles off for the pics?

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Originally Posted by SantaMonica

Are are bubbles off for the pics?

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There are no bubbles running up along the screen in the pics. In fact, for the experiment, I am not having bubbles run up along the screen at all. I only have a bubble stone in the corner of the tank.

1st cleaning update: My cylinder scrubber had been running for 12 days when I cleaned the screen. I wanted to let it go for a total of 14 days but I was leaving town for 4 days so I went ahead and cleaned it 2 days early.

The color of the algae was a very light to medium green. Even though my light shines 360 degrees on one side of the algae scrubber screen the outside had almost an equal amount of growth as the inside. I was able to tear off a whole piece and I fed it to my cichlids who went crazy over it. Here are few cleaning pics:

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Here is a pic of the screen after I cleaned it:

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And a pic 3 days after cleaning:

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I have switched to running my scrubber light 24 hours a day on this scrubber and my 1st freshwater upflow algae scrubbers. The growth on my first scrubber was good but since going 24/7 the growth is now superb!

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Hey! Here is an update on my cylinder UAS: I've harvested algae off the screen 3 times now and the last cleaning had the most algae so far! :)

Here are some pics:

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This pic is of the cylinder sitting in my sump.

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Before removing screen to clean

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Screen removed. Inside of screen

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Outside of screen

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What I scraped off

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Screen cleaned and put back on cylinder

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Pic of my other UAS screen which I've also been running in my sump. This one has a 6500k light. It also is growing algae but more gha than the cylinder scrubber. The cylinder scrubber has hair algae but it is real slimy.

Each screen is cleaned every 7 days, but not on the same days. I have found than when I clean a screen it jump starts quicker with growth when I immediately run the light on it for 24 hours a day for 2 days. On the 3rd day I cut light back to 18 hours a day until I clean it again.
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