I am just starting the process of creating an Acrylic Box to house the nitrate scrubber. I am going with 24" length. Is saw a design here that used the acrylic. I think it was called the Santa Monica 120. It was 24"L x 6"W x 6"H. I was curious on the width, at that width the lights are roughly 3" away from the screens. Can I make the box narrower. basically just wide enough to house my return at the bottom which would be about 4". Does there have to be a minimum amount of space between the screens and the sides? My tank is 120 gallon with a 65 gallon sump. but in reality I have 240 lbs live rock and the sump only really has about 40 gallons of water in it. It has a refugium with chaeto now and nitrates are staying around 20 so I want to try the scrubber. I was thinking of using flourescents from Home depot, 24", 2 bulbs per unit on each side. The bulbs they have there are 20W, 2700 plant growing bulbs. Will this suffice. I was thinking of having a 24" x 8" screen. Is this big enought for my tank size? Are the bulbs strong enough. The cost is right at $5 bux a bulb and $19 for the units. I have 2 overflows from the tak to the sump. One of them is t'd to supply my refugium and I was thinking of teeing off the other to supply the scrubber with a ball valve to control the flow? Next is what size pipe are you using to hold the screen in. It looks like a 1" from the pictures but not 100% sure. Should I have 1.25" come right in and then 1.25" out of the scrubber back to the sump? Thanks in advance and am looking forward to building this tonight once the experts help me out with my questions here
Snowdog