LED scrubber for 65 gallon

[Rawr]

[bold]This is boring backstory which you can skip.[/bold]

This might be my third attempt at a good scrubber. I had a scrubber working fairly well for a year or so, had to move so had the tank running at a friends house. For a year it was barely touched except to feed and top off water(which i didn't find out about until I came back) and surprisingly about half of my tank survived. Since i got it back i couldn't seem to grow decent algae on the scrubber and instead they grew in the display. I feel like I may have gotten the wrong type of bulbs from costco but i can't remember what it was anymore when i ran out of bulbs i stopped changing them altogether. Tank was neglected for another few months Now I finally decided to fix the scrubber with some leds.

2 heatsinks from Rapid led
1 meanwwell LPC-35-700 driver
3 x CREE XT-E Royal Blue LED
3 x Violet UV LED
6 x Philips Rebel ES 660nm LED

Is this too much light on a 12x10 screen? I'm currently running it on 18 on 6 off. (6 hours on 2 off etc this isn't necessary anymore right? ) Should I reduce the time?
Another question i have is I used 2 mesh sheets together and I don't see anyone doing that anymore. Is one sheet fine? I noticed alot of gunk was getting trapped in between the sheets. I realized some of my old problems as I was fixing this. The slot for the sheet was too thin and I had to widen that so I could run my pump unrestricted without it squirting from the scrubber.

This scrubber has been running for a day so far so i don't have any results to show here. I'm open to any suggestions for change




Outsourcing labor to an asian



These didn't seem to turn out too bad considering it was her first time soldering












This is how bad the algaes gotten, even my snails are covered in hair algae.








Today I decided to clean the glass and do a water change.



Wow look at all the algae but at least I can finally see into the tank.

[SantaMonica]

Well at least the water quality will be good.

The LEDs look few and far away, and the spray blocker seems to be in the way.

[Rawr]

Well at least the water quality will be good.

The LEDs look few and far away, and the spray blocker seems to be in the way.

How many more LEDs would you suggest? I was trying to increase the distance because I was afraid of having too many since they are 3watts each.
Also are the colors and ratio ok? I bought these a few months back and I can't remember which thread on here I pulled the information from and whats changed since then.


I removed the splash guard and replaced with saran wrap.

[SantaMonica]

Since you only have 6 on each side, I'd make them all 660's. And I'd move them towards the middle of the heat sink a bit, and I'd move the heatsinks to within 2" of the screen.

The way it is now, with the strong scrubber that you have in the display, it probably is not going to work.

[rleahaines]

the Engineer Goby is fantastic. I have one of these monsters in my tank, only see him when he sticks his head out to grab some food.

[Rawr]

Since you only have 6 on each side, I'd make them all 660's. And I'd move them towards the middle of the heat sink a bit, and I'd move the heatsinks to within 2" of the screen.

The way it is now, with the strong scrubber that you have in the display, it probably is not going to work.

If I get 12~16 more 660s would that be enough to keep the heatsinks where they currently are(about 4~5 inches)? Would 60 or 80 degree lenses help at that distance?

Thanks for all the help!

the Engineer Goby is fantastic. I have one of these monsters in my tank, only see him when he sticks his head out to grab some food.

They are funny guys who constantly rearrange my sand. I can't keep any corals in my sandbed cause it'll get buried and lost haha. Do you think some PVC tunnels would help them?

[SantaMonica]

If you make the current ones 660's and use lenses, it might work.

[Rawr]

This is about 9 days of growth on the side where the leds are 4~5 inches from the screen.



the opposite side has the leds about ~6 inches away. it doesn't look like anything but there are a few green strands of algae attempting to grow.


I attempted to add lenses but the solder points seem to have gotten in the way, I think i might have to either cut the lenses or redo the solder so it doesn't stick out as much. I'm also considering redoing the entire frame maybe with acrylic so I can move the leds closer and skip the lenses. But i'll have to save that job for spring break.

[Floyd R Turbo]

I would just let it continue to grow as is and see what happens

[Rawr]

This is 13 days in





I pulled this off the bottom so that its not getting sucked back into the pump.




I had to move the tank to another room so I took some more pictures of the algae.

19 Days in






Oh god I found some more bristle worms. These things creep me out so much I screamed a little when I found this guy.