Floyd's LED UAS test

[Floyd R Turbo]

Incidentally I think the full-size diffusers made a huge difference. Suction cups holding the bar down helped as well. This week I'm going to take daily pics every morning after the lights shut off and post them.

[SantaMonica]

The vinegar will only remove calcium based deposits. The clogging however is just algae growing in the pores of the air tube. You can poke holes in it to work better. That's why I switched to a sliced airline, which does not clog much and if it does, you just brush it off and/or bend the tubing segments to clean between them.

[srusso]

The vinegar will only remove calcium based deposits. The clogging however is just algae growing in the pores of the air tube. You can poke holes in it to work better. That's why I switched to a sliced airline, which does not clog much and if it does, you just brush it off and/or bend the tubing segments to clean between them.

When did you switch? This is the first I have herd of using airline tubing with a slit in it... you have pictures?

[SantaMonica]

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/show...Monica-s-HOG-5

[vahegan]

Hi Floyd! What's up with your project? Why did you stop posting here?

[Floyd R Turbo]

Well I had good intentions to document thoroughly, then I got into a crunch before taking last week off for vacation and I barely had time to clean the sucker before I left on 6/29 let alone take pics and all. I only had time to take the screen out and clean it, no time to clean the whole box, growth is steady and about the same, but Sunday when I checked it you couldn't even see the screen, the window had algae grown over it so I will have to clean it all out tonight and see what it looks like.

I doubt I'll have time for it, but I would like to mod the design again to include the crosscut airline tubing. I have found that the current suction cups I am using are deteriorating rather quickly, and I also recall reading that you shouldn't have rubber in SW as it deteriorates and releases unwanted chemicals. The clear airline tubing suction cups are available at Petco/Petsmart so I'm going to pick up a few of those and the mod should be easy, but don't know how I'm going to keep the clear plastic laser-print paper 'hugging' the screen...too many things to figure out!

Plus I've got another 15 L2's to crank out ASAP...

[Floyd R Turbo]

[Floyd R Turbo]

Well not so good news. Today I decided that it had been too long since I pulled out the test kits. I admit that I should have been monitoring things a little more closely and making adjustments as necessary. I had a little too much faith in either the UAS, my implementation of it, or both.

I have been too busy to pay much attention to the tank and started to notice my SPS (stupid easy SPS, by the way) were not looking so good. Well by the end of this week, the ORA green birdsnest was nearly toast, and my green digitatas were bleaching. I figured it was lack of Alk/Cal dosing and my T5HO lights needing replacement. The latter may still be true but Alk and Cal tested fine, a little low on cal (390) but Alk right at 9.0-9.3.

I tested N on Salifert at over 25, and at the level you lose resolution. Anytime it turns that pink, you've got trouble.

I tested P on Hanna Checker at 0.32 which is emergency time IMO.

Also not to toot my own horn here but the L2 I put on the dentist's tank produces less algae and filters better at this point. After 2 weeks on that tank, N still zero and P went from 0.00 last week (I didn't re-test, so that might have been an anomaly) to 0.03 this week. That tank has more fish than mine, but they are probably fed a little less.

So I will be taking the plastic sheet off my UAS and putting the largest loudest air pump I have available on it ASAP, and doing a PWC ASAP, which is something I haven't done in a while so I hope I remember how LOL

[RkyRickstr]

Wow bud, if you compare your uas to the l2, any differences? Ran same hours?, same lights? Same flow?

[Floyd R Turbo]

The L2 waterfall has about 200 GPH over it, lights on 4 off 2 or 3, on 4, total 8 hours/day

The UAS has same screen area, same exact lights (down to the brand of LED and configuration) on 12 off 12, but the flow via the pump is only about 30 GPH or so. Of course the bubbles / air flow rate is what also matters, and I have no way of measuring that, and haven't looked on the pump to see if it gives a rating.

I think the dividing factor here is the nutrient exchange. I put the plastic laser-print paper over the UAS to keep the bubbles from bypassing the screen, but this may be preventing flow from getting to the algae efficiently. But the algae still grows very well. So I guess the solution would be to somehow drive the flow down to the tube that holds the airstone so that the flow is forced past the screen, but that's not easily done with the way this is set up, at least not without risking draining the box on a power outage. I suppose I could put a siphon break on the supply pump side.

I also noticed that one of the rubber suction cups popped loose, but there's still plenty of growth on the screen.