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Thread: Too much light or too much nutrients?

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Brazil
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    Too much light or too much nutrients?

    Hi!
    I've been running an ATS for 4 months now. During this time it has only grown a yellow "gooey" algae and some brown/black types. No green algae on the screen so far.

    The ATS has 18 1W LEDs on each side (15x red 660nm and 3x blue 460nm). The LEDs are on for 12 hours/day.

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    I've read that black/brown algae means high nutrients in the water and yellow algae means too much light. Since I have it both on my screen, I'm confused about how to correct it.

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    I clean the screen every week with a toothbrush, leaving very little algae remaining.

    The aquarium display has green algae growing on the rocks and gravel and it doesn't seen to be reducing. I also have to clean the glass every other day.

    Any thoughts about how to correct this?

  2. #2
    Administrator
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    Oct 2008
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    Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
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    Welcome from Brazil.

    Just looks like green hair has not attached yet. Make sure your screen is rough, and after several more toothbrush cleanings it should fill in.

    You could dose some iron if you like.

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Brazil
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    Hi!

    Well, I do have some green hair algae growing inside the ATS, around the drain and in some corners... It is just not growing on the screen..
    Maybe my screen is not rough enough after all.

    Today I gave the screen a thorough cleaning. Then I roughed up the screen a bit more with a hole saw.

    A few strings of the screen broke off in the process and I'm not sure if I can make this screen rougher than it is now... This is how it looked when I first mounted the ATS:

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    I also increased the photoperiod to 18 hour/day.

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    MN, USA
    Posts
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    Also it looks to not be the same sized squares. They look bigger. When you rough up the needlepoint matt from US, the scratched plastic will almost cover the whole squares. I'm thinking your material isn't the right size.

    Also to speed up the process you can take some of the green from other areas and smoosh it into the screen. Most of it will fall back off under flow but usually enough filaments will remain to take hold.

    My screen needs replacing about every 8 months or so becuase overtime the weight of all the aglae starts to wear out the screen. Thats what I do to reseed a new screen and within 2-3 weeks the harvests are completely back to normal.

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Brazil
    Posts
    4
    Hi FrozenReef!
    Yes, I did noticed that about the size of the squares...

    I did find some other screens with tighter squares, but they were smaller in size, with only 6x6 inches. Maybe I could get these ones and use two of them together.

    For now I will stick to the one that I have and see if I can make it work.

    Thanks for the tip to speed up the process. I will try that after my next cleaning.

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Location
    Brazil
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    4
    Today I measured the real water flow going through the ATS drain. Turns out it is much less than I thought: 238 gph (900 L/h)!

    The screen is approximately 10 inches wide and this means that I have around 24 gph per inch of screen in the ATS.

    I've read that the minimum flow needs to be at 35 gph per inch.

    Could this be one of the reasons for not getting green algae so far? Does low flow favours the growth of brown/black slime algae?

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    MN, USA
    Posts
    50
    Too much light or not enough flow definately leads to light colors but I can't speak directly to slime vs. green algae. As my screen thickens towards the end of the week you can tell which areas start getting lower flow as it turns light green to almost yellow in that area. IMO: 35gpi is just a starting point, the higher the better IMO. You may have to widen your slot the additional head pressure can be reducing the flow as well. The longer the slot the harder it is to get even flow and you might need to widen in some areas to even it out.

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