My inefficient ATS

[TsjaTTer]

Hi guys,

been reading about algae scrubbers for a while now, and I'm going to try one myself.

My tank however is only a temporary tank (my nano crashed due to my nephew pouring in a full box of fish food) without a sump, and next to no room to put a bucket ...
Its an old sump however, and there is a part where I can somewhat create a scrubber, even if it will not be perfect...



Right now I only created the canvas (PVC piping and some polyester curtain canvas), and while you cannot see it here, there is a pump underneath the canvas pumping water upward, so its coming up through the canvas...

Later I'll change the design by angling the canvas and run water over it from the topmost point... The lighting will remain the same for a while though, right now it receives a fair amount of light from the fixture, time will tell if this is enough...

[TsjaTTer]

And the canvas in close-up...

[worley]

Hi TsjaTTer,
I can see a whole bunch of things that need changing.
The water needs to flow over the mesh as you said, rather than through, it will get blocked fast, it looks as is if it's a little too far out of the water, there should be a small layer of water over the top with a reasonable flow over it.
The lighting: The lights look too blue, you'd be better off fitting a standard compact fluorescent energy saving light bulb (20W+) much closer to the screen.
You'll find that making the water flow over it, getting brighter, warmer (colour temp) lights closer to the screen will help a lot

[TsjaTTer]

Hi Worley,

I already knew these things, from what I read here before, hence the "inefficient" in the title of this thread

The lighting is partly do to only 2 lamps burning in the late hours, normally there are 3 10K lamps burning + 1 actinic. Maybe not as efficient as a dedicated CFL, but I'll see how it develops and add lighting later if needed.

The flow is on the program for one of the next days, but I just had 15 minutes of spare time yesterday, and happened to have some canvas and pvc piping near...

[worley]

sounds good, a work in progress then?

[TsjaTTer]

Yes

its also a temporary tank, I'm going to glue my 100cmx50cmx50cm together tonight, at the aquarium meeting of my local club... I wonder how that will turn out

[SantaMonica]

If you can lower that light to 4" from the screen, it will get it started.

[TsjaTTer]

If you can lower that light to 4" from the screen, it will get it started.

Its already starting

I'm getting a brown film on the spots where the water flows up through the screen...

Getting the flow over the screen is my first priority...

Grtz,

Jan