DIY LED Scrubber Lighting Guidelines and Builds

[Floyd R Turbo]

pics?

[Floyd R Turbo]

One thing I am coming across is that with a brand new screen it seems LEDs take longer to get the screen going. That e-shine scrubber I built was growing hardly anything in the middle near the bright light. My theory is the the fluorescent light had bandwidth in it that the diatom/brown liked and that grew first and slimed up the screen. LEDs don't, they just grow green primarily. Green takes longer to get started in SW. Therefore a bare screen starting on LEDs (which not many have done) takes longer to cure up because of the intensity and bandwidth. My solution was to back the hours way, way down. I'm talking less than 9 hours/day. Though I haven't tried this, it makes sense. Run the fixtures for 2 hours 2 or 3 times a day until you start to get some growth. Let the screen get really gooey and don't clean it. When you start to see green, then switch to a single period and start extending it. LEDs likely don't need any more than 9 hours per day if you have more than one per every 12 sq in. I have 6 on a 4x6 screen and run them 18, but I'm testing the UAS right now and just trying things out. for a downflow scrubber though I would think that you are meeting the double-light requirement and should not be lighting more than 9 hours/day.

[DennisC]

These are my 2 sets of LED's before fitting.



Fitted into my ATS (still dry)



Not a very good pic, but this is how they look when ATS is running.

Dennis

[Floyd R Turbo]

Make sure your flow isn't more than 35 GPH/in until the screen cures. In fact, as long as it's flowing evenly across the screen, you can probably slow it down to 20 GPH/in. Your distance to the screen looks just fine. Nicely built fixtures also.

[DennisC]

Do I need to alter the timing. At present, 18 on 6 off.

Dennis

[Ace25]

I think 12/12 works much better than 18/6 on your/my type of setup.

[kerry]

Yeah what was with that? Are those FEDYs? Did they just send you a could duals by accident?

They are from TopLed, a mistake I guess. I would like to have more if the price is the same, they would be great for my display builds.

[joelespinoza]

This is valuable. One thing I'm noticing is that the Osrams (on the Rapid page) have a max current of 1000mA. The satisLEDs say 750. ledtoplights (ebay link above) say 650. So If I am wanting to use a meanwell driver, I could use the LPC-35-700 non-dimmable one for the osrams, but not sure about the other two. I would think those would need a dimmable driver, which costs more, which offsets about 1/2 the savings ($34 vs $16). So would I be OK driving the satisLED or ledtoplights LEDs with an LPC-35-700?

My scrubber has been barely functional for a long time, my screens are WAY to big, and I do not have NEARLY enough light concentration. Now that I went from a ghetto t8 100 watt fixture to a 140 watt LED fixture it has finally failed to keep algae from growing in the display now, even though I have not even brought my LED up schedule up all the way.

Here is what I have been using:



I just ordered:
12 of the 660 satisleds - http://www.satisled.com/3w-high-powe...70nm_p433.html
2 of these heatsinks - http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pc-Aluminiu...item23139e07d9
1 Meanwell 700mA non adjustable driver off RapidLED - http://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-lp...urrent-driver/
2 Cree XTE Royal Blues off RapidLED

My plan right now is to wire them up and put them on the other side of the flourecent bulbs, later I plan to build a real enclosure (like a real boy) and mount it above the display tank. However right now I dont have the time or money to do so, so we will see how the combo of LEDs on one side of a screen and 2700k Curly Q flourecent bulbs on the other side do. Should be interesting to see.

[SantaMonica]

You could just turn one screen off and concentrate the light on the other.

[joelespinoza]

You could just turn one screen off and concentrate the light on the other.

You mean put both LED panels on one? I suppose I could do that.

Here was what my original setup looked like, but you said the T5HO lighting wouldnt do anything, and without the black plastic/syran wrap covering they were too hard to keep dry, so I removed them:



I know there is some talk about directing bubbles and clogging airstones etc, has anyone thought about just drilling small holes in a line in the airtubing itself? Or getting some of the clear plastic tubing you can fit an airline over and doing it to that? You might be able to control the flow direction better too.

Also has anyone tried a Upflow and downflow together? I know my waterfall screen seems to grow best at the top, and it looks like SMs UAS grows best at the bottom. The flow directions might fight each other too much, leading to too much turbulance, but I am tempted to try it. Here is a rough idea of what I am thinking for my tank: