vahegan's UAS test

[Garf]

Kerry -are you talking about the skimmer pics. I was

[kerry]

I was talking about the screen growth pics. My 10G unit is a slow starter or something????

[vahegan]

Kerry -are you talking about the skimmer pics. I was

I do think that it looks pretty well for a fresh screen that has never been used before.
Any better examples of using a fresh screen in an UAS setup?

Here is, for example, Floyd's screen on day 7:



We all know how well his setup has been growing lately. That's why I think that skimmer screen pic is promising.

[kerry]

Its great for the first week, keep us posted on the next cleaning.

[vahegan]

OK, back to my system. I cleaned the screen for the second time today (day 17 since the scrubber inception, day 7 since last cleaning).

Here are the pics:

Before clean:



After clean:



I believe my scrubber is gradually improving. There was more growth this time, compared with the first cleaning, and it is more the 3D type.

After cleaning I attached two laser printer transparencies to the airstone, to confine the bubbles closer to the screen, as Floyd suggested. I also noticed that there was more growth where the screen somehow curved to an angle and bubbles rubbed it better at that spot. So placing the screen at an angle may also promote better algae growth.

One more thing: the algae on the lighted side were lighter color, almost colorless. Whereas on the other side they were dark color (the picture shows the dark side). But the volume of algae growth was approximately the same on both sides.

The algae wasn't as easy to clean as Floyd suggested. Certainly, couldn't clean it by the fingers over the sink, had to work it out actively with an old toothbrush.

Also, it stinked terribly at my first clean. This time there was no foul smell.

[kerry]

Thats a great improvement, I hope to clean mine this evening or Monday morning, I will get pics to. I have been lazy with the fish stuff this holiday weekend. I have so much work to do now, I didn't water change any of my FW tanks this weekend yet.

[vahegan]

OK, I cleaned the screen for the third time today.

Screen before clean:




Screen after clean:



There is clearly more growth than last time, however this time thre was only growth on the lighted side and virtually nothing on the other side of the screen. I think, the time has come to attach a mirror behind the screen.

Algae are gradually disappearing from my display tank, there is significantly less algae on LR now.

I am planning to add 1ppm of nitrate tomorrow. This corresponds to 2.5ml of stock solution (19.5g of calcium nitrate dissolved in 50ml of water) per my 250l system. I suspect that the system lacks nitrate and the algae do not grow well on phosphate alono so I hope that adding some nitrate will promote algae growth on the screen. Besides, some nitrate in the water can be beneficial also for the corals.

[Garf]

Adding nitrate is very questionable. As you stated earlier, algae has a hard time on phosphate alone. You are trying to make your display better, not your scrubber. If your display is getting better I would carry on as you are. If you have a load of phosphate put a bit of GFO in to reduce it.

[vahegan]

Nope, not having lots of phosphate yet, just out of the fear of it My previous system suffered from lots of phosphate (had to feed lots of live tubifex worms to keep my dragonets happy). So now I am trying my very best to prevent from that happening again. I have a bit of GFO, and a scrubber, and a better skimmer, and I do dose a bit of VSV daily in the hopes that my phosphate won't build up again. As for nitrate - a friend of mite was dosing nitrate even without a scrubber. Adding 1ppm was eaten completely by the night, 5ppm was gone in a couple of days... Corals seem to eating it too

[vahegan]

OK, so my scrubber is just over 1 month old, and I cleaned the screen for the 4th time this Sunday.

before clean:


after clean:



The growth is getting more 3D type but, to say frankly, I am a little bit disappointed with this scrubber type. After a month of running, I expected to harvest significantly more algae from the screen. I am gradually thinking of converting my UAS into a conventional waterfall-type scrubber in the hope to get more growth on the screen.

I must admit that almost all the algae in the display has disappeared during this one month (will post an updated general tank photo soon). I don't know where all this algae went since I did not harvest that much during my 4 cleanings so far.

I also cleaned my skimmer this Sunday. Some of the light that passes through the screen falls on my Deltec MCE-600. Unfortunately, don't have any pics of ir, but I was amazed by the amount of algae grown on the internal clear wall of the skimmer. Perhaps several times more than on the screen. Clearly, high turbulence incide the skimmer is responsible for this growth since the light falling there is much smaller than on the screen (I am getting virtually no growth on the opposite to LEDs side of the screen and the skimmer must be getting even less than that side).

This brings me back to the idea of using a skimmer pump for supplying bubbles to the screen. Unfortunately the pumps I have were not able to suck sufficient air at the depth of about 40-45cm (16-18"). I do not want to use too powerful a pump (over 500gph) - if I use that powerful pump, I'd rather convert to waterfall type scrubber which I still think is more efficient. I'll probably give this idea one last try with an 300gph pump I have lying around. Just need to find some time to try this out...

One more thing to try is to dose some ferrous gluconate to promote algae growth...

In the meanwhile, my friend had sent me a photo of the screen placed in the MCE-300 skimmer and lighted by a compact fluorescent bulb. This pic was made in just 3 days after cleaning:



I think the growth is very impressive for 3 days! (well, I must admit that his nitrate is over 50ppm and hence there is plenty of food for the algae).