Trying something different. Fluidised golf balls. kaldness.

[markstrimaran]

Well I have 3 scrubbers, on two tanks. An up flow, waterfall, and a drip through, experiment in progress.
I acuired a 75 gallon sump tank, for my lower 75 needs some work still.
My top tank has a internal fluidized sand bio filter. An up flow scrubber that is 8" × 18". It is powered with one 10 watt purple grow led and a couple 12 volt 10 watt led diy. It is stocked with 1 adult cichlid and 20 growing fry, 1" long today.
My idea is to replace the sand filter with some k1, packed inside a 5 gallon swimming pool sand filter canister. That is ready to tie in to the basement, closed loop, 55 gallon drum,.
Well the main idea is to fill the 5 gallon sand filter with. Plastic practice golf balls. With 660nm gem lights wired inside via a bulk head fitting. And air injection
Well in theory they will be self cleaning. All the fluff would be picked up in filter floss on top on the tank.
I put some well sanded balls in the catch basin in my waterfall scrubber. To see How well it works.
Just looking for any body's ideas and 2 cents. Thanks.

The drip Thur scrubbers light failed, a month ago, water ingress. Since is has been my tester of wimpy leds, and a lesson on LED wiring 101. The current ones seam hopeful. If the transformer holds.

[markstrimaran]

a 50 Gph pump keeps them in turbulence.
The golf balls.

[SantaMonica]

I don't golf, but aren't those balls solid and not porous ?

[markstrimaran]

They are indoor, practice golf balls, like a ping pong ball.

[SantaMonica]

I don't think they are going to help, You need porous insides, which give lots of surface area.

[markstrimaran]

It's a start.

[SantaMonica]

Yes algae will attach, if rough. But bacteria have very little surface area.

[markstrimaran]

I am not attempting to house any bacteria, only algea.
The turbulent area below the scrubber. Where the golf balls are, has algea growing in a thick clumps. So much that the balls becomes stalled out. It's time to harvest.

[markstrimaran]

Algae covered ball, It seems to work. After a few days the balls jam up from thick algae.
Any algae that grows stays in the chamber and builds into a floating glob.
Ideally I think more turbulence to cause the balls to self clean with a overflow leading into a course filter. This sump set up is too small to experiment much. I have a 75 gallon sump to modify, I will definitely have a turbulence section were the over flow enters the sump. Followed by filters.
I also have some very seriously touph fresh water turf algae growing, That if took root, would never be self cleaning.

[markstrimaran]

Turf Algae, growing under cfl. On the right is what started accidently. The left side is being cultivated.