Help me plan my scrubber

[symon_say]

Hi

I have been around for more than a year, but register a few days and this is my first post, I'm from Dominican Republic, i have been reefing for about 1.5 years and the ATS have always call my attention, my tank have been really clena since the beginning, but in the late time i have been adding more fish and some algae have start to develop, nothing serius by the moment.

My tank is mixed reef with about 160g in the system including sump. I use prodibio for my system, and have work nice, but is kind of expensive to use and i want to go for a more natural route, so i decided i'll give it a try to the ATS.

My first plan was and UAS but i have work really hard to make my tank as silent as possible, and i don't like the idea of creating bubbles in my system, so i decided i'll build WAS, i plan on feed it with overflow pipe, here are my question:

1. I decide to go with a 36^2" screen, illuminated for both sides, I feed 1 cube of frozen, automatic feeder throw about 25 pellets 2 times a day and every 3 o 4 days i put some nori in the tank, is this screen size correct??

2. I'm goind led route i want to use 12 3w leds, 8 red, 4 blue, or should i use 5 red 1 blue??

3. About flow, my overflow is a bean animal design (for those that don't know i have 3 1" to drain my tank) this design make it dead silent, but if i take the main pipe for the slot i'm afraid it will constrain flow to much in the slot, am i correct??

And in this matter, my drains work 1st pipe work like a full siphon, this is the pipe i plan to use, 2nd pipe works half its capacity, should i use this??

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

For bubbles, remember that you will still need to remove the bubbles from the waterfall hitting the sump water.

36 square inch screen only needs a total of 18 LED watts (9 each side). I'd use all red.

Others may know the plumbing better.

[symon_say]

Welcome.

For bubbles, remember that you will still need to remove the bubbles from the waterfall hitting the sump water.

36 square inch screen only needs a total of 18 LED watts (9 each side). I'd use all red.

Others may know the plumbing better.

I was planing on doing a 6x6 screen, but if i only need 3 leds on each side, i think i should cange dimension to 4x9 this way i can get better coverage, am i right??

[symon_say]

Ok, i re-read everything to understand this better but now i'm more confused, i don't plan on arguing about this because this really works, but something put my head into a spin, "If all 12 watts are on one side, it is a 1-sided screen. If 6 watts are on each side, it is a 2-sided screen";

If a screen have light from both sides isn't it doubling its grow surface?? if so why we cut light into half??

why a 12 sq.in. screen with 12w on 1 side is less efficient than a 12 sq.in. with 6w on each side?? i ask because 1st handles only 1/2 a cube while the other handles 1 cube.

If we split the light for the 2 sides why not cut in half for 1 side??

[SantaMonica]

6 X 6 or 4 X 9 should be the same. Use 120 degree LEDs.

A 2-sided screen is twice as powerful because the roots stay alive for twice as long. So it need 1/2 total watts.

[symon_say]

Thanks, now i have to experiment with the drain to se how it works with a slot.