I don't know that there is necessarily an optimal distance, because I think it depends on the tightness of the array as well. If you downsize and put them at least 2 inches away and diffuse, should be fine. at anything over 4 inches I don't think you would need to diffuse, but you start losing a little intensity.
What do you think of a HOB design like this? I think I could easily T off my return line, with a valve or 2 to adjust.
I would design it so there are slots on the inside that the screen slides down into the slot in the pipe. That way you can remove the lid and slide the screen straight out the top. This was designed to use heatsinks 8.46" x 6", the same size you use on your build.
Sorry about my drawing, I suck at CAD/Sketchup
This is the side, the darker ink lines are the edges of the actual side, the lighter pencil is kinda the cutaway of what is going on inside, the drawing is in half scale on a normal 8.5" piece of paper:
I could make it so the entire center section is not full of water, what do you think the optimal amount of water (in inches) is on each side of the screen?
This is the back:
I think I could slim down the front to back distance by about 3" total, so there is 1.5" of water between the light and the screen on each side. It occurs to me also that if I used a powerhead that injected bubbled to drive this it could be an upflow type type.
So maybe something more like this:
Well 6 days ago I scrubbed every bit of algae out of the display tank that I could get, then I put the flouresent lights back on the algae screens, I also dropped the display lighting from 66 LEDs running at around 500mA, to 12 LEDs total (6 Royal Blue XT-E Crees and 6 True violets) running at ~500mA. I also dialed the scrubber light cycle down to about to about 12 hours per day.
After 6 days this is the result:
I am going to have to clean off the screen tomorrow, but thats a ton of algae for a screen that size.
Yeah +1 on a smaller screen. You had too much screen and not enough LEDs; I have 8 660 and 1 445 on a ~6x6 screen on my 12 nano. I had the LEDs too close initially as well but the fringes still got enough growth to keep things under control - I have since changed it up so there is white diffuser over the LEDs, as I can't change the spacing either. I also changed the timing to 4/8/4/8 (on/off/on/off) . Seems to have worked if you check out my last update - http://algaescrubber.net/forums/show...ll=1#post23645 The growth is noodly, rather a bit like chaeto. The mass on the plate there is like a gelatinous blob. I rescued a mysis shrimp and some pods (gently rinsed them from the mass) before I dumped it down the disposal. I have been feeding pretty heavily, last night the clowns got a chunk of brine shrimp about 20mm triangle x 7mm thick.. at least 2 cubes worth. The only hair algae in the tank came on a rock and it's decorative until the crabs and snails hog it all down. Got an emerald to do for the bubble algae.
Yea, I realize the screen size is too large, the whole build is not optimal, thats why I am designing a new HOB setup. However, this is not supposed to use the entire screen to grow algae, I designed this to be my entire tank overflow, and when I built this tank I couldnt find anything on what flow you should have through your sump, so I got a 820GPH pump, which is what my budget allowed for. That is also why I have been procrastinating building a new scrubber, to do so I basically have to replumb my entire tank, and keep in mind this was designed and built long before the "new" guidelines.
Even so, yesterday I cleaned off one of the screens for the first time since I started this thread (I should have done it earlier I have been busy), and I removed what was easily a softball sized clump of algae. It was also interesting to note that the LEDs are DEFINATELY burning the algae, I will try to post pics later of the perfect holes burned in the algae right over the LEDs, and the algae grew much better on the 26w fluorescent side then on the 15w LED side.
I would completely expect you to get burn spots in front of the LEDs with them in that close to the screen. Also the light from the LEDs does not have a chance to spread before hitting the screen so I would also expect you would get less overall growth, because it's too intense in front of them, and not intense enough everywhere else.
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