ATS Led Ribbon 620nm vs. Ebay 3w 650nm Difference.

[mylo]

Greetings from the land of the Midnight Sun,
I´ve been following this forum for awhile, now that i have ´finished´my ATS, I am trying to tweak the design to meet my reefs demands.
I first started off making my Led lights for the ATS with red ribbon from Ebay. 300 leds pr. 5 m roll. rated at 0,25w pr SMD Led. I also used approx 1,2m of blue 465nm blue ribbon in order to create a ratio. which was about 5:1 red:blue.

This setup got me on my way and created these results. 24h lighting period. Skimmer on 24-7. ATB Small Cone Skimmer with ATB DC pump.


This is week 6 of the screen up and running at the same light period. The pictures are taken one side pr. picture. The Algae was never thick, as imagine turf would be. Very slimy consistency.
I thought I would opt at making an upgrade. Bought 20 REd and 4 blue 3w leds with constant current Led drivers. 50 dollars from ebay.

This creates huge amounts of light. The picture below is a week under the ribbon, and a week under 3w.



As of today (8 days after). The growth is orange in color. I am wondering if I could have some guidance to tweaking my setup. I´ve reduced the light from 24-7 to 18 on 6 off.
I usually feed 1 pinch of flakes, and 1 cube a day on avg. Running Balling Light. 150g total water volume. Low stock= 7 fish and some sps corals and zoo´s. Will post a picture of setup on request.

Any help would be apprechiated.
-Mylo

[kotlec]

My guess.
You shocked your screen possibly. Need to find right photoperiod and give algae time to recover. 24/7 is really not the best idea.

[SantaMonica]

Welcome.

Go to 18 hours and see how 10 days looks.

[mylo]

Thanks for your replies. I will do some scraping today and post a picture. I have 60 diy 3,4w leds mostly at 700mah, dimmed to 85% power. This creates some bushy hair algae over time in the DT. Even with the higher power ats leds. My light period is 8hrs. Hope that this will clear up after some tweaking.

[SantaMonica]

Well yes, if you just started your scrubber, you'll need to have cleaned it many times before DT algae starts going away. And if your rock have lots of phosphate in them, they may actually start growing more as the phosphate come out of them.

[Floyd R Turbo]

More info needed to find out what is going on here:

What are the dimensions of your screen (specify which is the length/width and height)?

How much flow is running over it?

Is that actual (measured) or estimated (based on pump chart head loss)?

How big is your display tank?

How much do you feed?

Can you post a picture of your scrubber LED array (lights off)?

What current are you running the scrubber LEDs at?

Do you have any algae issues in the display?

24/7 is a definite no-no. 18 on/6 off is probably better but that might be too much.

[mylo]

Sorry for the late reply Santa Monica\Floyd R Turbo:

Screen dimensions are 18inches length by 6 inches in height.

Display is 125g and sump is around 35g.

I usually feed one cube and a pinch of flakes a day. I don¨t rinse the cube.

Leds are being run at constant current = 650 ma +-5% One driver pr. side.

I'm not sure what the water flow is on my circ. pump: Its an ATB Airstar 6000 pumping out 6000ltr\h. Head Height is at 1,7m. I only use Flexible PVC -> Then that goes to a 3 Locline nozzles 3/4" inch. Used to be three but didn't get much pressure. It then flows into a Herbie Overflow. Where there is an adjustable Ball valve with the excess running off into a backup pipe. But the backup is only accouts for 10% of return water from Tank.

ATB Airstar 6000.
Max. height: 3,2 m.
At 3,2 m: 300 L.
At 0 m: 6000 L.
Outlet: 25 mm
Inlet: 32 mm

Other circulation includes MP40w's.

The Rockwork I have is DEAD LR. Atolls rock formation made in Germany. So no phosphate leach. I have some current algae issues.


thanks.

[Floyd R Turbo]

you might have a flow issue. Is the max head is 3.2m and you're running at 1.7m vertical, plus the horizontals, elbows, loc line, etc, I'm willing to be that you're well below 35 GPH/in with an 18" width.

[mylo]

Just speculating, maybe the slot in the pvc is too restrictive? I could turn up the flow a little after i widen the slot.
Any idea to why the algae turned orange? I saw a change in thickness and texture right away after changing to the 3w setup.

[SantaMonica]

Too much light, relative to the flow/nutrients.