Second cleaning was today, two weeks after the last cleaning. The growth was a similar dark green and slimy, but there was more. It was a little thicker, and stuck to the screen well enough I had to use a pot scraper to get it off. I still had several strands escape into the tank when I pulled the box out, even though I was trying to be careful. The clear acrylic had algae on it that needed to be scraped. I'm glad I included it in the design so that algae was not on the tank glass.
I think more slime develops in a UAS because it's supported by the water, and not flushed away by a waterfall. I would think this would mean better filtering.
Sounds like the problem I was having with the brown slimy dino-like stuff growing on top of the GHA. Incidentally, since I added the clear laser-printer type sheet and wrapped it around the airstone/screen, I do not get ANY of this stuff, none at all, not even in the box. Not even in areas where the bubble bypass the screen because of the floating issue. I just added suction cups to keep the pipe in the bottom and level and diffusers in front of the LEDs so this week will be the first full week where I feel it is at it's prime functionality, so we shall see how growth turns out.
I believe though that the turbulent flow of the waterfall scrubber does wash these things away, and if you constrain the bubble flow such that they cannot easily flow past the algae mat instead of through it, the end result is the same. I grew nothing but GHA this past week, even in areas with little to zero bubble flow (which was interesting)
It's definitely not brown dino stuff. It is deep green, but just much much finer filaments than I get on my waterfall, so it feels slimy rather than "hairy".
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