algae growth progression

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here's the starting point of my scrubber

[attachment=0:33l59yzi]36 resized.jpg[/attachment:33l59yzi]

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It took just under a week to grow algae and about the middle of the second week it was looking like this
[attachment=0:2z4fa14v]1 resized.jpg[/attachment:2z4fa14v]

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SantaMonica advised me to upgrade to the plastic canvas and use two layers. I took his advice and used the old screen to seed the new ones (see picture). I had significant growth on the new ones in about two days.

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Here is the new screen after several days of growth.

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I had been monitoring the tests for the first several weeks. It took about two weeks before the screens matured enough to take a bite out of the ammonia and nitrates (new tank). As soon as the ammonia was at zero, I started testing the nitrates and phosphates (the progression is from right to left).[attachment=1:2vrm9zdw]ammonia tests.jpg[/attachment:2vrm9zdw]

[attachment=0:2vrm9zdw]phosphate tests.jpg[/attachment:2vrm9zdw]

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Up to this point, I had been running LED's on the scrubber. I switched to compact flourecents and within days I got my first spot of green algae. This picture was taken after the brown algae was hosed off (the green stayed).

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Here are some pictures of the green algae over about a week and a half.
[attachment=2:20jt7goz]green algae 2.jpg[/attachment:20jt7goz]
[attachment=1:20jt7goz]green algae 3.jpg[/attachment:20jt7goz]
[attachment=0:20jt7goz]green algae 4.jpg[/attachment:20jt7goz]

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And my first three harvests. Each was about three to four days apart. The container is a small Lee's specimin container.

[attachment=2:1cbhnnd2]first harvest.jpg[/attachment:1cbhnnd2]
[attachment=1:1cbhnnd2]second harvest.jpg[/attachment:1cbhnnd2]
[attachment=0:1cbhnnd2]third harvest.jpg[/attachment:1cbhnnd2]

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Here's the scrubber when it matured.

[kcress]

Great write up!

Thanks.