I know you are the leading expert on algae scrubbers SantaMonica and your advice has always helped me. I'm still trying to find a good way to mount all four light strips on the same side but why do you think his setup worked? Mine is built exactly the same way the only differences are he has a 220g tank, 550gph pump on scrubber, lights on 12hrs a day vs. 75g tank, 800gph pump on scrubber, lights on 22hrs a day
If you mean the Expressions guy, he probably has lower nutrients in the water.
What do you mean by lower nutrients in the water? I thought that the screen would do better with higher levels in the tank so the screen would have more to feed on.
The sizing guidelines say for LED, use half the wattage. If he was at 46w per side before, half would be 23. He is at 18. Would a 5w shortage be that much a difference?
Growth is illumination relative to nutrients. Higher nutrients need more illumination to grow the same green. If illumination is less (relative to nutrients), growth is dark. That's one reason why some scrubbers start out dark and get greener: because nutrients are coming down, but illumination stays the same.
Do you think a 50% water change would help?
Sure. Anything that brings nutrients down, or increase illumination in an area, will help.
So basically doing a water change would help but if the wattage on my screen isn't strong enough, than the algae on the screen will slowly die off if the bio load gets to high in the tank.
So I kinda figured that a water change is only putting a small band aide on a large cut so I moved all the light bars to one side if that is enough I guess I'll have to spend another $160 on 4 more for the back side but if it doesn't work then I will have to build my own with more 3w leds instead.
It would not die off; it would just grow dark slime and would not filter as much (and would be harder to clean).
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