Originally Posted by
SantaMonica
Congrats on the new design! Forward thinking. Here's some tips...
22 wide X 12 high is a giant screen for a regular 200g system (although yours is really only a 90g.) 2 t5's on each side will not be enough to make use of all that screen area. For high-power scrubbing, you want a t5 every 3" at the most (I have two bulbs for a 5" screen). You could either add one or two bulbs per side (for high power scrubbing), or move the bulbs to the middle of the screen, which would reduce algae growth near the pipe, and also keep the bulbs farther from the water for safety.
No surge is needed to work effectively. I have not seen any difference in nutrient removal with or without a surge. And it's so much easier to not have one.
Since you are going to have nps, you might go the extra-high-power scrubber route:
Adding bulbs (2700k)
Using two screens (clean one at a time)
Pancaking screens (allows algae to grip)
Use rug-canvas (and replace as needed)
Regular-power scrubbing needs 0.5W CFL per gal; High-power scrubbing (like mine) needs 1 W per gal. If you consider your system to be 200g, you'll want 100W on each side of the screen. Since your 24" T5 bulbs will be 24W each, you'll want 4 on each side. And this is especially needed since you will be feeding ultra heavy for the NPS. Matter of fact, I might go so far as to say that NPS tanks need the most scrubbing of any type of tank (including large predetor tanks, which are skimmed.) So your large screen is really not that large for an NPS tank, but you do have to have the light-power to make use of the screen area.