ATS GROWTH

[nickq]

I have 2 of the enshrine units I was going to eBay (in berkshire uk) if you're interested.
Going to take the plunge with the Uas from SM soon, my sm100 clone didn't work out.
nick.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Nickq, I built a scrubber around the e-shine fixture for someone else and I have to tell you that he had a heck of a time getting it to grow algae. It was basically a bald screen in the middle and growth around the edges. He had to switch to a light period that alternated fixtures, fixture #1 on 2 hours, then both off 1 hour, then fixture #2 on 2 hours, both off 1 hour. anything else burns the algae in the middle, and even with growth the middle still looks poor. I think the only reason that it worked on one half of one of SM's SM100s on his 90 is because he started using it on a very mature screen, and only on one half of it. The other half got T5HO light. IMO the e-shine scrubber I made was an epic fail, but he is still using it and getting good growth (his tank has had a series of bad events, he almost got out). I am waiting to see results from the first round of L4 users. But the L2 results have been very good, so I have confidence. I wouldn't give up on waterfalls just from one bad experience, but I remember your thread...i would be put off too.

[ccuk]

floyd
what do you find is the best diode set-up for algae growth ?
stew

[Floyd R Turbo]

I prefer an array of 660nm Deep Reds at 2" on center. Then in the middle of each "square" I place a blue, but I wire it such that each blue runs at half-power. Alternatively one could use 1W blues in combination with 3W reds and probably get the same effect. Next is distance to screen. If you're at 2" of less, and it's a new screen, you'll need a diffuser. Placing it at 1" will allow the light to spread a bit before hitting the diffuser and then it blends nicely at the screen. Once your screen is mature you can pull the diffuser.

That being said there's no reason you can't put the spacing at 3" on center or even 4" (maximum spacing IMO) and use less LEDs. You might have to play with distance to screen to get good coverage, but you should be able to get growth, which is of course dependent on your system and load.