My new screen material

[Nick28]

Well you only gave it 2 weeks. It could have been many other factors. My UAS took months of tweaking before I got any growth besides slime and dinos.

as far as the rock wall I made goes it just darkened no slime no dinos, after 2 weeks thats too long for no results but the drilled holes that had sharp plastic grew hair algae very quick (just a few days).

the canvas grows fine, apparently I've been dulling it by scraping too hard with a metal scraper ( the little plastic fuzzy things go away, my fault).

I'm going to try using a toothbrush now.

the canvas is growing great now its only been 2 days and theres lots of hair starting to fill in. Also I kept switching from 2700k to 6500k. 2700k grew dino's, 6500k did not

I'll try and get pics later.

[Rumpy Pumpy]

Denitrate is purposely designed to provide a very beneficial environment for denitrifying bacteria (and it works very well for that purpose)

Therefor it is possible that it was depriving the algae of the nitrates it required to grow (the bacteria in the screen was out competing the algae on the screen in other words).

Course that wouldn't affect phosphate but doesn't algae require both for significant growth?


Worth trying with a less porous aggregate?

Someone on here melted some sand into plastic canvas a while back and (if memory serves) that worked well enough.

I myself have used the reverse (unglazed) side of ceramic tiles in the past with good results (although I suspect they ended up releasing silicates into the water as I ended up with a diatom problem)

[Nick28]

Denitrate is purposely designed to provide a very beneficial environment for denitrifying bacteria (and it works very well for that purpose)

Therefor it is possible that it was depriving the algae of the nitrates it required to grow (the bacteria in the screen was out competing the algae on the screen in other words).

Course that wouldn't affect phosphate but doesn't algae require both for significant growth?



Worth trying with a less porous aggregate?

Someone on here melted some sand into plastic canvas a while back and (if memory serves) that worked well enough.

I myself have used the reverse (unglazed) side of ceramic tiles in the past with good results (although I suspect they ended up releasing silicates into the water as I ended up with a diatom problem)

theres should be plenty of N and P that passes over the denitrate that the algae could use. plus the algae should clog the denitrate if it grows on it.

my new scraped up canvas screen has really good growth so far green is filling in the holes long hairy brown everywhere else.

a sharp surface seems to be the way to go. I've thought of over-laping the screen with another roughed up screen to fill in the holes more.


cleaning with a toothbrush from now on

[Floyd R Turbo]

IMO rough surface only matters to a certain point. Initially, the rougher the surface the better, sure. But once the algae forms the base layer, it really doesn't matter. As long as algae is still attached after you clean, you're all good.

So this green grabber stuff that SM is still developing that is made up of the "roughest particles on the planet" would probably start out pretty quick and that is the advantage. Also it needs to be this way because the HOG is single sided, and roughness is extra important for single sided, at least that's the theory.

[Nick28]

IMO rough surface only matters to a certain point. Initially, the rougher the surface the better, sure. But once the algae forms the base layer, it really doesn't matter. As long as algae is still attached after you clean, you're all good.

So this green grabber stuff that SM is still developing that is made up of the "roughest particles on the planet" would probably start out pretty quick and that is the advantage. Also it needs to be this way because the HOG is single sided, and roughness is extra important for single sided, at least that's the theory.

that sounds about right I've been watching the growth on my new roughed up plastic canvas. A snail got into my UAS and made a track on the screen Its seems a yellow crust layer grows then green grows on top of that. I'm running mine with no bubbles just a

powerhead blowing up. Green is heaviest above the nozzle actually not the brightest area either . I didn't have any luck with an air pump 1L per minute translates to about 15 GPH of displacement not enough flow if you ask me.


it just makes sense more flow = more nutrients per mililiter = cleaner water.