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Thanks

I will keep an eye on it but I've also increased to 12 hour lighting period in hopes that the algae grows in thicker. I do not want to burn it by going to 20 hours right away.

The red growth is on top of the green. I actually just scraped the screen clean and there was red on the screen as well. There was green filled in the holes but red on the actual screen material.

There are no holes, you may be seeing a reflection of the lights coming off some bubbles on the screen.

This is about 14 days, I believe, without a cleaning.

I have 9 red LEDs on each side of...

After some time having difficulty growing a bright green algae, I removed the diffuser from in front of the screen. This is the result. Is this coralline or cyano? My tank is overridden with GHA and...

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g282/JBP4Life/photo_zps3c474172.jpg

FTS

Been busy with Spring here. Doing house work, prepping my race car for this season, etc.

I managed to forget about my screen cleanings for probably about 3 weeks, maybe 4. Here's what I came to...

Ill take your word for it, Ace. Better safe than sorry but that was one of the "myths" the author addresses in that article. He states that a reef could go up to 4 weeks, but does not specifically...

Very good read!

I've seen SM repeatedly say that carbon use in scrubbed tanks is just fine. After reading that article, makes me want to throw a bag in for a few weeks.

I've been doing 15% weekly water changes for the past 3 weeks only. Nothing else changed beside pump location. But I'll tell you why I think that made the difference.

The pump intake was less...

Well the algae was starting to hang from the bottom of the screen and I didn't want to let it fall off into the water. Plus, looks like the bottom layers were dead anyway. But here are my results for...

Yes, at that time I switched to 23 watt bulbs. But after first cleaning, the growth completely stopped.

Where are you feeding the screen from, specifically?

So a little update after a bunch of tinkering with the scrubber.

I think I've found the solution to my problem. The dedicated pump feeding the scrubber was at the water line in the middle chamber...

I've heard siphoning them is the best method as well, Ace.

What I've had luck with is shining a flashlight from the top down near the water line, causing the babies to swim up, and then scooping...

That's definitely precipitation

Well day 4 and I've got none left. Ace, where did you initially buy your phyto cultures and rotifers? I don't want to spend a huge amount, I just want to be successful at this once.

Looks like calcium chips.

Well I would estimate I transferred about 60 babies to quarantine. Tomorrow I'll give them their first heavy feeding of (non-live) rotifers and see how they take to it. If this batch doesn't work...

Lights out. I'm waiting for mine to hatch any minute now..

In what way does a scrubber help reduce bubble algae? Aren't all the spores contained within the bubble? When one pops, they spread. I have an incredible amount that hide in holes, under branching...

Even with a reef I still get a film at the top of my sump. It just depends on surface agitation and an overflow definitely helps. An ATS on a fish only can be done, just have very low flow in the...

Are you at the recommended amount of watts? If so, leave the lights at 100% and have them just come on instantly.

You never want to run the lights for 24 hours straight.

There's a sticky here that has a link to a calculator where you input all your information and it will tell you light, time, screen size...

So running effluent through a filter sock, for example? If that's the case, won't that trap all the "food" that we're creating by running scrubbers in the first place?

Ace, this is awesome.

I am sharing the experience with you. My clowns just laid their 3rd batch yesterday. No luck rearing them yet without live rots. I'm trying rotifeast this time so we shall...

I'm with you on that, Bilk, but I seriously don't know what any of that means :-)

So, should I be removing the bubbles off my screen? And trying to lower pH or increase pH?

7x7 is 49 square inches of screen. Three of these would roughly equal your planned feeding, which is what SM was referring to as three 50 square inch screens.

Following this thread.

My tank has slow, brown growth with cyano constantly growing on my sandbed.

Ah interesting, one side lit at a time. Hadn't thought about that although that means having separate timers for each unit which wouldn't be too much of a hassle I suppose.

I will give this setup...

I've tried that with less than satisfactory results.

Two months ago, this was the screen at 14 days old, before very first cleaning while being lit with only 1 of my LED fixtures! How do I get that back! :-)
...

I'll snap some pics of scrubber. Display is a typical 75 gallon with single drain into sump with 4 chambers.

Chamber 1 houses heater and powerhead on floor....

10 day screen. Burnt to nothing in the middle straight to black on the outside. Where is the green???? Usually you see green on the outside where just the right amount of light hits the screen but...

Yes, same pattern repeats itself. After first cleaning, I can't get the green growth back.

Growth is growing 3D on the screen due to Saran Wrap.

Another 5 days growth: looks dead?

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g282/JBP4Life/photo-50.jpg

Ah, this could be true but it feels fairly rough to me. I don't see any pointy pieces of plastic sticking up but it's definitely not smooth.

I was tempted but I'm getting impatient with this thing.

I've still got the bubbles on the screen, Garf. Thinking the algae fell off in the middle due to that?

I've added 2 more hours, making...

Here is 5 days, lights @ 9 hours on
LEDs at 2 inches away, diffuser in front + Saran Wrap on screen

Side 1
http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g282/JBP4Life/photo-49.jpg

Side 2...

I tried the ziploc bag trick yesterday. It didn't hug the screen as well as the Saran Wrap so I went back to using that. If my eyes aren't playing tricks on me, it appears that growth exploded just...

I read that adding Saran Wrap around some screens has solved some issues and allowed green growth. I think I am finding this to be the case with my screen as well. What is the reasoning behind this?...

Looks like the outsides are getting green just overnight, inside still very dark. I moved the lights to about 2 inches away.

I've removed the optics on my lunch break, I couldn't wait. Luckily, they are glued down to the heatsink so no issues there. I've also removed the light diffusers but I kept the bulbs at the same...

Thank you guys for the continued support.

I'm going to remove the lenses tonight. Hopefully I don't run into that situation with the heatsinks. After removing, does the purpose of the aluminum box...

It will be just my luck..

Thanks for the heads up! So removing optics is going to broaden the area that the lights cover, is this correct?

At this distance I get a nice round burned mark in the middle of the screen which is what prompted me to add a diffuser in the front.

The box was also more of a light trap so that the room...

Screen size?

What exactly do you mean and how did you have a moving screen?

Ah, UAS version..

Here is a pic of the box I built with aluminum walls on the inside for reflectivity.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g282/JBP4Life/photo-46.jpg

This is inside the box with 1 of 2 12w LED...

Ok so 12 watts LED each side for 9 hours a day. I just want to make sure I've got the proper amount and that's exactly what I'm using right now.

Well, I spent the day siphoning out the thick sludge sitting in the bottom of my sump. I figured these were contributing to high nutrients/cyano problems on the sand bed.

I've also suspended rocks...

Very good read!

Good to know I've been feeding during the day anyway, but I also just added two powerheads into my sump to keep particles suspended, in addition to an aerated screen.