Freshwater Scrubber Newbie

[chung_chang]

Hello, my first post here. I've been doing alot of reading here and have some questions on algae scrubber for freshwater application:

1. Does freshwater algae scrubber still produce copepods (ones that would consume the algae)? Quick googling says yes but I keep seeing posts here saying to use "FW" to wash the scrubber in order to kill the copepods. Is that "Faucet Water" with chlorine which kills the copepods?

2. Is it possible to strike a natural balance between algae growth and algae consumption from fish so that the scrubber can be minimally maintained, or become maintenance-free? This is assuming copepods are not an issue or using something like UV light to keep the copepod growth in check. This also assumes a scrubber design that only lets fish reach the excessive light-blocking algae, and not allow fish to overclean the scrubber. Would this become unsustainable due to the extra nutrients from algae as the food source for the scrubber to keep up with?

3. Does LED fade in luminance over time like CFL? If so, what is the recommended time between LED replacement?

I am probably going to start with SM's UAS in a test freshwater tank as the only filter so I can get a better feel and understanding. My goal is to use (commercial or DIY) algae scrubber in a larger freshwater cichlid tank with no plants.

[SantaMonica]

Pods still grow in FW. Don't really need to try to kill them anymore because algae grows faster nowadays.

If you never fed the tank, and had fish which did not grow larger, you might be able to get a balance so that you did not have to clean the scrubber because the fish would not be able to eat it all. Might be a fun projects.

LEDs generally don't fade.

[Floyd R Turbo]

1) It is the low salinity (or lack of it) that kills the baby copepods. RODI water works also. It is not the chlorine. It has to do with osmotic shock.

2) Maybe on the UAS, on smaller tanks. Srusso is raising Mollies that basically eat off the screen so I don't think he cleans it much and doesn't feed much. Something like that.

3) Yes, LEDs have a rating called the L70 date, which is the number of hours at which their output will be 70% of the initial output (radiometric flux). So while they do not usually burn out, unless you over-drive them, they do fade over time. Generally for 3W LEDs on stars, this number is at least 30,000 hours, if not 50,000, and it is generally increasing every year. So at 18 hours/day 365 days/yr, this is between 4.5 and 7.6 years. At 9 hours/day, 9 to 15 years. You will likely not have to replace your LEDs before this date, but since the rate of progression of LED technology is so extremely fast, by the time you have a driver fail (which will happen first) it will be really cheap to replace all your LEDs with half the quantity (or less) of LEDs you would have now and you will get better output, so you'll want to do that. Or rather, you will desire to do that.

[chung_chang]

Thanks you two! I'm stoked about testing this in my small tank. I'll be sure to tell all my friends about it.

[rabbithazen]

I just got the invoice in the mail that I have to pick up my Santa Monica UAS from the post office. its going in a 30gallon new fresh water tank thats just going to have community fish. Im going to add the scrubber after the tank finishes it fishless cycle, when some fish are added.

[SantaMonica]

You can start it during the cycle if you want.

[kerry]

You can start it during the cycle if you want.

YES, I highly recommend this to!!