Am new to the idea of algae scrubbing, been reading on the forums for a couple of days.
Planning to set up a 8g nano-reef, focus on elegant/minimalist look, reducing equipment surrounding/above/below tank. Algae scrubbing seems a good bet.
Anyway, my idea is as such:
1. Find an transparent acrylic tube, watertight-sealed at one end, that can fit a spiral/straight/power compact fluorescent bulb, fairly low wattage for me since I'm 8g, but adaptable for other design needs.
2. Sew/stich a scrubber mat into a tube which leaves 1.5-2 inches all around the acrylic tube, a few inches longer than the length of the fluorescent fitting. Have something that looks like a dog anti-scratch collar (basically a big plastic funnel) that sits snugly around the top of the tube and provide a holding reservoir for water input. The water will flow into the large hole in the middle of the scrubber mat tube! (If you don't want light leakage, wrap the scrubber tube in aluminium foil for added reflectiveness!
3. At the bottom there is a collection cup and return tube to the main tank.
Length of the entire setup is variable, but probably the length of available lighting! The advantages of this setup is removing the need for reflectors, and near 100% light efficiency (minus a bit of loss at the ends). And can scale with using standard 2, 3, 4 foot lights, particularly single-ended power compacts. Also takes up a smaller area/volume of space, allowing multiple scrubbers to run next to each other in parallel if necessary, otherwise reducing the footprint of the setup to make it more discreet.
What do you guys with way more experience than me think about this?