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Thread: Long Term Acorral users?

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    18

    Long Term Acorral users?

    I've been thinking about his scrubber design a lot. One of the pitfalls of my waterfall design is that eventually it gets very noisy as the water falling down find new pathways as growth occurs.

    In his dual spray bar design, it seems like the noise levels should be consistent throughout all growth phases. What are the shortcomings of the spray bar design? Anyone use one long term and care to comment?

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Apr 2012
    Location
    Mexico
    Posts
    76
    I guess the most "long term" user of the spray bar system has is me... I have the first customers on latinamerican markets mostly so they don't visit this forum too often... I will try to drive here some comments from them...

    If you can take my opinion as "unbiased" I can mention some of the shortcommings comparing it to the slotted pipe design:

    1. The spraybars offer grater head pressure resistance than the slotted pipe so it is really not recommended to have it fed directly from the overflow by gravity, you need a pump for it or plumb it to your return
    2. I always recommend an additional pump cause plumbing it to the return will reduce the flow to your tank, caused by the same pressure needs of the spray bars, the pump I recommend range from 300 to 450 gph depending on the setup, brand etc... that kind of pumps/powerheads are the ones that I've seen are able to provide a steady real flow of 250 - 270 gph required
    3. Regarding spraybar maintenace, and the main concern of spray bar clogging... Algae "growth" on the holes of the spray bar is VERY UNLIKELY because of the high flow they have... BUT they can be clogged with debris from the tank/sump where the pump is at. This solves putting the pump after some kind of mechanical filtration or if you dont have that kind of filtration on your system (as I do) I recommend adding a ball valve on the opposite side of the inlet at the spray bar manifold, this works as a flush, when debirs got caught on the spray bar you just open that ball valve for a few seconds and it will flush everything inside the spraybars, I do this like once every 2 months
    4. On the space between the clear window and the spraybar it tends to accumulate algae, that is easily removed using a toothbrush at every weekly cleaning
    5. Regarding noise, I have found this design to be extremely silent, no matter if the spray bars are ok, clogged or whatever... doesn't matter what stage of growth you are... if you have the screen in place and the false bottom in place the scrubber is dead silent, if it makes noise, you have your money back !

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