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Thread: algae scrubber for xl tanks?

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by SantaMonica View Post
    1 lb = 448 grams = 150 cubes = 150 total real fluorescent watts = 75 total LED watts

    150 cubes = 150 square inches, so a good setup would be 3 screens of 50 square inches, each screen with 25 total LED watts (12 on each side, etc). The 12 LED watts on each side could be four 3w red stars, or 3 reds and 1 blue.

    Alternate the screens and clean one each 5 days.
    Ummmm...math error here.

    1 cube/day feeding = 12 sq in of screen, not 1

    12 sq in of screen/cube/day x 150 cubes = 1800 sq in double-sided screen. That's a 42"x42" screen with 900 watts of fluorescent light per side. Using the minimum LED configuration, you're looking at one 3W on each side of each 4x4 section, or about 110 LEDs per side. You could probably slim that down a bit but we're still talking a friggin monster of a scrubber here.

    I can build you that BTW LOL

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by WannaRace View Post
    7x7 is 49 square inches of screen. Three of these would roughly equal your planned feeding, which is what SM was referring to as three 50 square inch screens.
    a 7x7 screen = 49 sq in = 4 cubes/day.

    3 of these would be 12 cubes/day.

    He is planning on feeding 150 cubes/day. Did I miss a memo or something? LOL

  3. #13

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    I knew things were sounding to good to be true. So I'm guessing 4 12x12 will be what I need and I will leave room for expansion. I'm fine with acrylic and plumbing work but where I need help is on the LEDs. Always wanted to try but never have. Floyd if you could help me with that I sure would appreciate it. Help walk me through or let me know what it would cost. Either one I'm fine with.

    Thanks for the reply

  4. #14
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    For a 12x12 screen that would be a minimum of 9 LEDs per side, and up to 36. I know that Ace25 has about 10 LEDs on each side of his 10x10 (I think) and it works well for him, but each system is different. So let's err on the side of caution here and say you need 18 LEDs/side of each screen. That's one LED for every 8 sq in of screen, per side.

    That covers the reds. Now I would normally throw in a blue (at same mA) for every 6-8 reds. But what I have found is that blues will overpower, so I wire them differently so that they run at 1/2 of the power of the reds, and use 2x as many. This means you would want one 1/2 power blue for every 3-4 reds. So 18 reds and 4-6 blues. You could also do 24 reds and 6 blues. I just sketched out a layout and the coverage seems better, but you can mess around with layouts all day trying to come up with a way to make the coverage even.

    Anyways, so you're looking at 18 reds and let's say 6 LEDs for each side of each screen, so that's 18x8 = 144 reds and 6x8 = 48 blues. Using Philips Luxeon ES 660nm Deep Reds at $3.40/ea and 440-450 RBs for $3/ea that's about $650 in LEDs.

    Then you need heat sinks, which you can DIY pretty cheap using square aluminum tubing, C channel, or angle like in post 33+ on this thread http://algaescrubber.net/forums/show...What-to-Change and then you will need drivers of course.

    Depending on how you want to control the arrays, you might be able to get away with a reduced number of drivers. Say that you run each screen for 6 hours, and rotate around so that you always have one screen lit. Technically you only need one set of drivers, and a relay switching system of some kind that switches which array the drivers would feed. That's how I would do it anyways. Then you would just want a few spares as you would be running the drivers 24/7. Each 18 red + 4 blue array (or 24 red + 6 blue array) would take 2 LPC-35-700 Meanwell drivers, which are like $16/each. So 16 x 16 = $256 if you had them all separate, or 16 x 4 = $72 if you made the drivers common & exclusive. You could also use a single larger Meanwell in the same fashion, but it would cost the same or more. I prefer redundancy of multiple and easily replaceable drivers.

    If you could set them all up back-to-back-to-back-to-back, and protect the LEDs with acrylic shields, you can reduce the quantity of aluminum. You would use on set of bars or tubing to heat sink 2 sets of LEDs which would not be on at the same time. Another cost saving idea.

    So that should get you started.

  5. #15
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    Here's the error: 150 cubes = 150 square inches

    Should be 150 cubes = 1800 sq in

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo View Post
    Ummmm...math error here.

    12 sq in of screen/cube/day x 150 cubes = 1800 sq in double-sided screen.
    ^^

  7. #17
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    I am always trying to push the limits on how little I can get by using, so I wouldn't use my setup as any type of base configuration. I currently run 7 LEDs per side on a full screen (13"x10"), 6x 660nm and 1x 455nm. My next scrubber is going to be smaller and have more light on each side than I currently have (I will be adding 420nm LEDs on my next scrubber). My plan is for an 8"x6" screen with 8 LEDs per side, 4x 660nm, 1x 630nm, 1x 455nm (royal blue), and 1x 420nm.

    While I do think my current scrubber on my 75G 'seems to function fine' going off weekly growth, my tank would argue otherwise. On the other hand, I have less LED light on my 60G scrubber and that tank does quite a bit better. This is the big mystery we are trying to solve on this forum, why some scrubbers that seem to not be built up to spec seem to do better than other scrubbers that follow the specs. Unfortunately there is no easy answer to that question as Floyd pointed out.... all tanks behave differently so what works great for one can be a total flop on another tank. There is still a lot of trial and error with scrubbers trying to find out what works best on each tank but when you get it dialed in it does work fantastic.

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