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Thread: LED scrubber for a 120g reef tank

  1. #1

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    LED scrubber for a 120g reef tank

    Hi everyone

    I just discovered this forum and seems to be a great place to get more info for my new project.
    Over the lest few days I been working on adding a algae scrubber to the system. I use to have one installed running for about 6 months or so and it worked fine . It was installed between my frag tank and the refugium, it was running on the drain line from my frag tank water falling on the refugium. The problem with that setup was that some of the hair algea the was growing on the scrubber was falling on top of my chaeto and soon enough started taking over. Didn't take to long for the hair algae to pretty much take over in the refugium and kill most of the chaeto algae, also hair algea prety much covered everything in the frag tank too.
    I decided to clean everything up and start fresh. I removed the scrubber, threw away the chaeto and scrubbed all the hair algae from everywhere. To some degree not the best of decisions as my phosphates went up quite a bit soon after that and also did my nitrates, a problem I didn't have in a long time.

    I added some new chaetoe to the fuge again so I got it started. Still slightly battling to remove all the exes nutrients so I decided to add the scrubber again but this time a different design. Im using my old frag tank as the housing for the scrubber and I will be adding a 4'' sock in the scrubber tank drain so no hair algae will be leaching back to the refugeum, at least thats the plan ....

    Now this time around I will be building a LED fixture for both the sides of the scrubber, before my scrubber was running on home depot reflectors and fluorescent bulbs.
    As you can see in the pictures my scrubber is L shaped with 18'' x 8'' main screen and 8'' x 8'' side screen. Im not sure if I will need them both to be running but the main side will be running it for sure. I am planing on using 14 3w Philips Rebel ES 660nm Deep Red LED and 3 3w Philips Rebel ES Royal Blue LED 440-450nm in each side of the scrubber totaling to 81w as you can see in the drawing.

    Am I in the right track or you see something not making much sense? Should I add more Blues? Should I use both my screens or the main one is enough?

    Here are some pics of the build ...

    http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/Mo...5950d.jpg.html
    http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/Mo...69a77.jpg.html
    http://s1286.photobucket.com/user/Mo...tml?sort=3&o=0

  2. #2
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    Welcome to the site!

    Just a hint for you as far as posting pics goes, use the "IMG Code" link instead. Then, pics will pop up within the your post instead of showing up as links.

    Like this






  3. #3
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    Also a few comments. #1 is that your screen area is HUGE, and way under lit. I think you need to review the current guidelines before going any further.

    New guideline is based on feeding, 12 sq in per cube of food fed per day

    18 x 8 = 144
    8x8 = 64

    Total 208 / 12 = 17 cubes/day. I seriously doubt you are feeding that much, am I right??

    You probably only need a screen that is for 2-4 cubes/day for that size tank I'm guessing. This may change your whole perspective....

  4. #4

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    Floyd, what would be the amount of cubes for 2 clowns with some soft corals?
    I'm from Brazil, and we don't measure feeding by this...
    when you say a cube, you're saying a cube inch? 2,5cm x 2,5 cm x 2,5 cm?
    tnx

  5. #5
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    No, one cube is a frozen fish cube is about 1cm X 1cm X 1cm and is about 3 grams.

  6. #6

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    Thank you SantaMonica.
    How many cubes would I need to feed 2 clowns, and some soft corals?( young clowns)
    in a 20g reef.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo View Post
    Also a few comments. #1 is that your screen area is HUGE, and way under lit. I think you need to review the current guidelines before going any further.

    New guideline is based on feeding, 12 sq in per cube of food fed per day

    18 x 8 = 144
    8x8 = 64

    Total 208 / 12 = 17 cubes/day. I seriously doubt you are feeding that much, am I right??

    You probably only need a screen that is for 2-4 cubes/day for that size tank I'm guessing. This may change your whole perspective....
    You sure did change my perspective on this build.... I guess bigger is not always better
    Ok so my feeding routine as I have a pretty heavy bio-load 26 fish, spa,lps, clams ... i feed I nori sheet 9x9 a day (for my tangs 2 large and 4 medium) and 4-6 cubes of frozen food with oyster feest and phytoplancton.
    If I calculate using your formula for 6 cubes of frozen food I would need 72 sq/inches or thats 9x8, in which case my large screen of 18x8 is double the amount that i need. Is there any harm in oversizing the scrubber, or it would starve as there would not be enough nutrients in the water?



    Thanks on the comments and advices

  8. #8

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    Here is what I am thinking the led configuration could be for a 9x8 screen:

    Click image for larger version

Name:	scrubber Led plan.jpg
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ID:	4139Click image for larger version

Name:	scrubber Led plan 2.jpg
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    Any comments on the led's? more reds? more blues?

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by SantaMonica View Post
    No, one cube is a frozen fish cube is about 1cm X 1cm X 1cm and is about 3 grams.
    Ok. What is it. Is it 1cc or is it the size of one Ocean Nutrition cube. There was another thread where this was discussed and you gave sizes of the O.N. cube and that was much bigger, like 3cc. I don't think that issue was ever resolved.

  10. #10

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    Just found the AScalculator, what a great tool to figure out what you need... As a result I need 150 sq/inch of screen, so my main 18x8=144 should do it. It specifies I need a minimum of 12Led so this is what I am thinking(I added a bit more 14led's):
    Click image for larger version

Name:	scrubber Led plan red1.jpg
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    or should I use any blues? I just read one thread where if I use blues thy should be ran at half intensity? Do I actually need them at all? here is a pic.
    Click image for larger version

Name:	scrubber Led plan red blue.jpg
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ID:	4142

    Thanks on reading

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