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Thread: Freshwater ATS discussion

  1. #21
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    Let's get the stats on your system. Answer the following:

    What are the dims of your screen, Length and Width?

    How many GPH are you pumping across it? Is the answer the actual measured flow, or calculated based on a pump head loss chart?

    How many hours/day are you lighting the screen? Single photoperiod, or do you split it up throughout the day?

    How many days do you let the screen grow between cleaning?

    Now about your tank:

    BEFORE you added the scrubber, this is what you said was happening:

    [quote[Currently the main reason for using an ATS is to help reduce my nitrates, hopefully to an undetectable level. Because the rate at which nitrates are produced in my tank is clearly much higher than my weekly water changes can remove it. It resulted in a nitrate level of about 150-200 mg/L. After a week of daily water change, I ended up with about 50mg/L nitrates. Right now, nitrates are reaching 100mg/L again, even though algae is growing like mad in my ATS. I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that this week's growth can bring the nitrates down a good amount.[/quote]

    So let me see if I have this correct: After PWC, 50 ppm (mg/L). One week later, 150-200 ppm. That's a 100ppm increase in one week, or possibly as much as 150ppm increase

    AFTER scrubber, you have having this:

    Nitrates at ~25mg/L right after my weekly water change, and tested again before the following week's water change, it raised to ~50-70mg/L.
    On tuesday after water change, it was 25mg/L. Today, it reads 70-80mg/L
    So if I am understanding this right, you have roughly a 50 ppm increase in one week

    That's assuming the same % of PWC each week.

    I get your frustration, you want it not to rise at all. But you have to look at the positive side of this - your tank is much healthier going from 25-75ppm instead of 50-150 (or 200).

    But before I jump to a conclusion, answer the questions in the first part of the post, and then correct me if I wrong in any of my assumptions or interpretations of your posts

  2. #22
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    I dose a cap of seachem phosphates after each water change
    Don't do this. You do not need to dose anything to get better filtering.

  3. #23

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    Hi Floyd, thanks for going through this with me.

    Screen dimensions: 29cm(L) x 21cm(B)
    Pump: Rio 6HF (350GPH@1ft). ATS is 2ft above, so flow rate should be ~280gph?
    Lighting: 20w warm white led floodlight, one on each side. Small diffuser in front of led bulb to prevent my screen from forming a bald spot in the middle. My light looks exactly like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/190725107032
    Light is about 4" away from screen, behind a 6mm glass panel.
    Photoperiod: single photoperiod of 19 hours daily.
    Cleaning regime: +/-5 days per side alternatively. I will usually wait till the growth is too thick for the algae roots to hold on before cleaning. By then, the screen is usually growing 3D but not as thick as the SW ones I've seen. Also, as the screen grows, loose algae falls off often, my filter sock collects about a 1" sphere worth of algae daily.

    Tank history:
    - ~200L run on a wet/dry filter
    - Before adding the ATS, nitrates were at ~200mg/L with weekly water change.
    - 1 week before ATS, did daily water change and got a ~50mg/L reading.
    - Introduced the ATS, did more nitrate tests, tested once every 2 days.
    - Towards the end of my water change cycle, reading always show 70-100mg/L. After water change, it's always ~30mg/L.

    Live stock:
    - 1 x 12" Asian arowana
    - 4 x 4" indo tigers

    Daily feedings:
    - 8-10pcs super worms OR 2 whole market prawns
    - 5-6pcs Hikari food sticks

    Did I miss out any other info? Currently, I'm planning to change my lights to a diy LED set using 660 and 455 bulbs. Only problem is that my country doesn't supply these parts readily. Shipping over is kinda expensive. Still a ? to me for now. And yes, it's frustrating when I see that awesome 3D growth on my screen but that vial of dark red liquid from my nitrate test result just sits there and give me an evil grin. Damn.. Lol

  4. #24

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    Hi SM, alright I will stop dosing any excess nutrients from now on. Reason why I did that was to balance the NPK hoping to rule out any deficiencies. I guess this is algae I'm dealing with, not plants haha.

  5. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Hi SM, alright I will stop dosing any excess nutrients from now on. Reason why I did that was to balance the NPK hoping to rule out any deficiencies. I guess this is algae I'm dealing with, not plants haha.
    No you are right in your line of thinking, but unless you actually have a deficiency in P or K, dosing them would not help. Do you test for P or K, and if so, what kits and what are your readings?

  6. #26

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    I am also in the midst of designing an ATS for my 800L tank, live stock is more, feeding is way more. I'm planning to use a double screen, water will be fed by diy overflow pipe. But all of this will not happen if this current scrubber I have is not showing positive results. Because it's gonna cost a lot more for this unit. Hoping to perfect this as soon as possible so I can move on to curing my 800L tank's nitrate problems.

  7. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by Floyd R Turbo View Post
    No you are right in your line of thinking, but unless you actually have a deficiency in P or K, dosing them would not help. Do you test for P or K, and if so, what kits and what are your readings?
    I don't test for P and K because in freshwater, these nutrients are not critical. Didn't wanna spend the extra money for these kits. Do I need to know the P and K levels in order for my scrubber to be a success? Algae seems to be growing fine at this point.

  8. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Hi Floyd, thanks for going through this with me.

    Screen dimensions: 29cm(L) x 21cm(B)
    Converting this to inches is about 11.5 x 8.25, I'm guessing from your pics that the 8.25 is the width?

    You will want a minimum of 8.25 x 35 = 290 GPH, measured. I would go much higher, like 50 GPH, or 400 GPH. If the screen is 11.5" wide, then your problem is bigger.

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Pump: Rio 6HF (350GPH@1ft). ATS is 2ft above, so flow rate should be ~280gph?
    I guarantee you are not getting this much flow. I run a Rio 6HF on one of my L2s at less than 12" vertical head and I measure 240-260 GPH right after cleaning. At the 2 week point, if I haven't taken the screen out of the slot pipe and scrubbed the top edge (which I typically don't on the particular tank it is on) then it's easily 160 GPH. With 24" of head (and the slot pipe adds about 24" of head also) you're probably way under flow. If you have the capability to measure this, you might want to check that out to verify, but that's my bet.

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Lighting: 20w warm white led floodlight, one on each side. Small diffuser in front of led bulb to prevent my screen from forming a bald spot in the middle. My light looks exactly like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/190725107032
    Light is about 4" away from screen, behind a 6mm glass panel.
    Have you had the bald spot issue before? Now that you are getting decent growth, it should not be as much of a factor. Take the diffuser off.

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Photoperiod: single photoperiod of 19 hours daily.
    Split it up into 3 photoperiods of 7 hours each, with 1 hour in between, if your timer allows this. Or, you can do 6 photoperiods with 30 minutes in between each.

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Cleaning regime: +/-5 days per side alternatively. I will usually wait till the growth is too thick for the algae roots to hold on before cleaning. By then, the screen is usually growing 3D but not as thick as the SW ones I've seen. Also, as the screen grows, loose algae falls off often, my filter sock collects about a 1" sphere worth of algae daily.
    Sounds about right.

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Tank history:
    - ~200L run on a wet/dry filter
    - Before adding the ATS, nitrates were at ~200mg/L with weekly water change.
    - 1 week before ATS, did daily water change and got a ~50mg/L reading.
    - Introduced the ATS, did more nitrate tests, tested once every 2 days.
    - Towards the end of my water change cycle, reading always show 70-100mg/L. After water change, it's always ~30mg/L.
    So that's about 50 gallons (standard 55g tank maybe?)

    From what it sounds like, the scrubber has reduced the rate of increase of your nitrates - correct?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    Live stock:
    - 1 x 12" Asian arowana
    - 4 x 4" indo tigers

    Daily feedings:
    - 8-10pcs super worms OR 2 whole market prawns
    - 5-6pcs Hikari food sticks

    Did I miss out any other info? Currently, I'm planning to change my lights to a diy LED set using 660 and 455 bulbs. Only problem is that my country doesn't supply these parts readily. Shipping over is kinda expensive. Still a ? to me for now. And yes, it's frustrating when I see that awesome 3D growth on my screen but that vial of dark red liquid from my nitrate test result just sits there and give me an evil grin. Damn.. Lol
    Sounds like you are using the API test kit for nitrate, correct? Here's a hint, to get a true reading, you need to dilute the sample and test, then multiply the reading. Lower range is more accurate. Past about the 40 ppm reading, it's useless IMO. Dilute your tank water with distilled or RODI water. Use 4 parts RODI to 1 part tank water, the multiply your reading by 5. If still >40, dilute 9 parts RODI to 1 part tank water, test. Etc.

    You can get the same fixture in 10, 20, 50w, etc with 660 red online also.

    EDIT: oh yeah...that's a ton of food man. Do you run anything else besides the scrubber??

  9. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    I am also in the midst of designing an ATS for my 800L tank, live stock is more, feeding is way more. I'm planning to use a double screen, water will be fed by diy overflow pipe. But all of this will not happen if this current scrubber I have is not showing positive results. Because it's gonna cost a lot more for this unit. Hoping to perfect this as soon as possible so I can move on to curing my 800L tank's nitrate problems.
    Always good to try it out on a smaller, less expensive setup first and learn what works and what doesn't....

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy_cy View Post
    I don't test for P and K because in freshwater, these nutrients are not critical. Didn't wanna spend the extra money for these kits. Do I need to know the P and K levels in order for my scrubber to be a success? Algae seems to be growing fine at this point.
    I would say it is inconclusive whether or not these are a factor at this point. You are growing algae well. I think you are getting plenty of nutrients from the food you feed.

  10. #30

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    Yes 8.25" is my width. Haven't really measured the exact flowrate I'm getting out of that rio pump. Might do it tomorrow if I'm free.

    I had the bald spot issue at the very beginning, week 1. So I solved it immediately and had even growth till now. I'll try without the diffuser on one side to give it a test.

    Yes, my current timer will allow the 7+1 cycle. I'll change it tonight when I get home. That means 21 hours of light, 3 hours rest per day. Phew.. The algae's gonna complain. I might upgrade to a digital timer, then I'll try the 3.5+0.5 cycle.

    Well, my tank is 4ftx2ft with 1.5ft height. Filled to a level which is about 200L. Yeah I believe the scrubber helped reduce the speed of nitrates build up.

    I'm using Sera test kits now. Haven't tried the API test kits, Sera seems to be working fine. Sera test kits measure up to 100mg/L for nitrates. Only when I get a reading of 100, then I will do a second test with 50% dilution, which doubles the range. I'll try testing today by diluting to obtain a more accurate reading.

    No intention of getting this light set anymore. I spent sgd$100 for 2 sets of it and it sucks because it heats up so much. I believe it's not producing 100% of light it should, by now. I will diy the deep red and royal blue led set as soon as I find the right parts here.

    Yeah feeding a lot now because the arowana is young, once it reaches 15", it will be transferred to my 800L tank. Other than the scrubber, the tank is running on a top filter (wet/dry). It's coping well with the bioload. Always keeping ammonia and nitrite ~0ppm. But coughing out tons of nitrates.. Putting all my hope on the scrubber now as I really don't want to use a denitrator. I like how a scrubber works and all the benefits, but first, it has to bring my nitrates down. Waiting for that I happen haha.

    Your help is golden

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