Generation 4 ATS build

[rygh]

Time to upgrade again.

I am actually pretty happy with my current one, but after a few years now,
there are a couple of things I want to change.

1) Use the water coming from main tank to sump, not a separate pump.
I am tired of the cost of that extra electricity, and the various leaks I have had.

2) Put the scrubber inside the sump a bit.
I am having moisture and space issues, so really want to consolidate things.

3) Easier to get to.
To get to my current scrubber, I need a ladder. Really.

4) Easier to clean slot, with less buildup.
It is easy to clean my current screens, but not the slot.
Plus I do not have anything blocking light from hitting slot.

5) A bit smaller.
It was built with the old sizing rules.

It will still be a standard two sided waterfall type scrubber. LED lights.
I looked a lot at the new UAS, but I am not sold on that.

As reference, my old version 3 thread is here:
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/show...cal-LED-bigger
Versions 1 and 2 are around somewhere on these forums as well, but so old I forgot where.

Lots of details and pictures to follow over the next few weeks.

[rygh]

Here is the basic idea. Side view.
Water comes in from main tank, down into sump, up through scrubber, to main pipe with slot.
Screens are just touching the water.
LEDs on each side.
The LEDS need to be mostly sealed, since water level comes up when pumps are off.

The safety drain is above the scrubber. If slot fills with algae, I can't have my main tank overflow.

[rygh]

Anything brand new in LEDs these days???

My current leaning:

I will have a single Mean Well LPC-60-1050 constant current driver.
It will drive two strings in parallel. One string for each side of the scrubber.
So each string is 525 mA, from 9-48Vf.

I partly chose that because I happen to have one already.
But also because the lower 525 mA means more LEDs (1W per), so a bit
better distribution than using 700 mA. Also slightly more efficient.

Each string will have 4 sets of:
2 x Philips Rebel ES 660nm Deep Red LED
1 x Cheap standard Red LED (roughly 620 nm)
1 x Cheap warm white LED (which fills in spectrum, and also gives a bit of blue)
So 32 total for scrubber, roughly 38 watts.

[MorganAtlanta]

Will you need some active cooling on the LEDs since they will be "mostly sealed"?

[rygh]

Will you need some active cooling on the LEDs since they will be "mostly sealed"?

I definitely need something.
But fans are out.
I will probably mount all the LEDs on a flat aluminum plate like the previous ones.
I may then extend the plate up, and put some big heat sinks on that.
But still thinking about it.

Alternately is to figure out some way to dump the heat into the tank.
Since I run the ATS at night, the extra heat is a benefit, not a problem.

[MorganAtlanta]

Could you mount them on square aluminum tubing and blow air through it? Make it like a U and blow air in one side and let it come out the other? Put the fan remote and blow the air through a hose so the fan isn't exposed to salt?

[rygh]

Could you mount them on square aluminum tubing and blow air through it? Make it like a U and blow air in one side and let it come out the other? Put the fan remote and blow the air through a hose so the fan isn't exposed to salt?

Very good idea. I had not thought of a remote fan on a hose, That solves they key issue.

To take it further : I need standoff supports in the LED box, so that the box does not collapse if it ends up submerged.
I could make those in a maze like pattern, for airflow. That way I can still mount the LEDs to the plate.
I already have the plate, and I think it will take less space that way.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Sweet, another rygh build

Check out Steve's LEDs for the fan blowers MA mentions. Old ones out of Sony TVs that were discontinued.

[rygh]

So what size to make it??

* My estimate of peak feeding:
Roughly 4 cubes per day.
Plus roughly 8 pinches of flake per day.
Plus about 6 inches of dried seaweed per day.

* From the new sizing guidelines:
That is about 6 "units" on the new sizing guidelines.
So 12 * 6 = 72 square inches, double sided waterfall.
And also 72 watts of CFL.
My rough estimate is 72 watts of CFL = 18 watts of LED.

* Current scrubber
Size = 20x14 = 280 sq inches.
Power = Optimized color 26 LEDs, at 700 mA = roughly 45 watts = roughly 180 CFL watts
Obviously WAY over sized by the newer rules.

I am very reluctant to reduce the size that much.
The fact is, it works very well, and my bio-load is still going up, not down.
Plus, I can easily go 2 weeks with no worries.

* New plan:
Width will be 16 inches. Sump is 20 inches wide. I think 2 inches on each side is doable.
Height will be 14 inches. Of which 12 will be above water level, so call it 13.
So that is 224 sq inches.
Lighting is 32 LEDs at 525 mA versus 26 at 700 mA. Basically identical.

So 0.8X old scrubber, but 3X recommended size.

Still, it would be nice to be a bit smaller. Easier to build with more room on the sides.

Thoughts?

[Floyd R Turbo]

I am of the opinion that there is more to is than X * Y = Z for screen sizing. Turnover rate has to be factored in. I have one L2 customer who has several friends running 100 sq in screens and their systems look great, while his seems a little overwhelmed, even though he's growing shockingly large amounts of algae for a small screen. This may have to do with the many changes he has made to his system in recent weeks, including changing tanks then switching from LED to MH lighting. But nonetheless it makes sense that a wider screen with a higher flow rate would mean a larger turnover rate of the tank water versus a smaller narrower screen, which might allow more contact time for tank algae to get an advantage.

On the other hand, I have people whose tanks went from "I've tried everything and I'm ready to sell it all off" to "I do nothing to my tank and it looks awesome".

But I think going up to 50% oversized past your feeding based calculations cannot hurt.

As for LEDs I have found that using one 3W LED @ 700mA on each side for every 2" x 2" section is about the maximum and seems to work well. If you're running then at a lower mA then keeping it the same would probably be about right and you may not need diffusers then. I have a few people removing the diffusers after the screen is well cured and their growth doubles. So keep that in mind.

EDIT I just read all of your post and 3x the recommended size, I would go for that. If it works, it works. Why change it that much.