+ Reply to Thread
Page 2 of 18 FirstFirst 123456789101112131415161718 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 176

Thread: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

  1. #11

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    102

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    Do you mean... feeding fish ???

    Yesterday I check the Nitrate level - it was 80... and I had to change some water, becaue the high level of NO3 is very bad for my stingrays and Arowana... I couldn't wait much longer... I have never check phosphate before... but I have some algae in my tank... not too much...

    Thank you

  2. #12
    Administrator
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
    Posts
    10,565

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    I mean feeding anything in the tank. But, if you already have algae in the tank (which I did not see in the pics), then the growth will be good on the screen. Yours is starting slow, but it will catch up. Post a screen pic at day 7.

  3. #13
    Administrator
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
    Posts
    10,565

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    Are leaving the lights on for 18 hours?

  4. #14

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    102

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    Quote Originally Posted by SantaMonica
    Are leaving the lights on for 18 hours?
    Yes 18 yours. For first two days was 16, but I changed it.

  5. #15

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    102

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    Hello,

    I start on 04.16.2010 at 6.00 am. Today is 04.25.2010. After 8 1/2 days I took some pictures, that you can see below.

    Question:
    Should I change anything ? water flow ?
    Should I clean it ?

    Thank you.

    Mike
    Attached Images Attached Images

  6. #16

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    102

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    and 3 more pictures:

    Thanks !
    Attached Images Attached Images

  7. #17
    Administrator
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
    Posts
    10,565

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    Ah... growth! And the green is perfect. By the way, you can see the rough screen bits of plastic inside the holes, which is what you want.

    The bald center means, in your particular situation, that the light-power is too strong for the ability of the algae to grow in that flow. Since we don't want to increase flow (would need a larger drain), reduce the light down to 12 hours. I just reduced mine for the same same reason... trying to get all green instead of yellow/green. At 18 hours, yours would still grow in the middle, but it would be the yellow stuff which does not stretch out into the water. So try it at 12 hours, and adust accordingly... less hours if bald/yellow in the middle, or more hours if no bald/yellow. Give it 3 more days and clean it on Wednesday.

    The beauty of the light timer is that each person can easily adjust for their own condition. As your nutrients drop, you'll need to adjust again. Eventually your nutrients will measure zero or near zero, and you will reach a steady-state timer setting that works well all the time.

    You have the nice problem of having more than enough light-power. If you had an under-powered design with too few watts, or with the watts concentrated in one spot like CFL's do, you would have the common situation of a screen of dark or black stuff. But with enough light-power spread evenly across the screen, you power yourself out of the dark growth and into the green.

  8. #18

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    102

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    I changed to 12 hours yesterday.

    But I have a problem. Water in my tank is green and turbid. I took one picture inside the "black box", on the bottom you can see lots of dust...

    What I have to do ? Clean box and clean the algae ?

    Thank you
    Attached Images Attached Images

  9. #19
    Administrator
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
    Posts
    10,565

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    Green water is caused by:

    Not removing the screen before cleaning.
    Not washing the screen in FW before putting it back.
    Having too much algae growth in your sump that you manually remove.

    In all three cases, pieces of algae break apart, and the green stuff goes into the water. So solve this by:

    Removing the screen and taking it to the sink for cleaning.
    When removing it, don't break or remove any algae.
    After cleaning it in the sink, run lots of FW over it.

    After you correct the problem, the green water will go away by itself in a few days as it gets eaten by copepods and bacteria.

    One other situation which may cause green water, is that if you have lots of algae in your display and it start "breaking up" because the scrubber is taking away its food. In this case, some of the algae in your tank lets go and floats around, and some goes through the pumps and get chopped up (it's great food for corals). In this case, it will stop when all the algae in the display goes away.

    I don't think this is your problem though, because your scrubber has not been running long enough to filter much. Did you stir up the bottom of the scrubber box? When you clean the screen, you can clean the bottom of the box too, with a paper towell. This will make sure that it's not the problem.

  10. #20

    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Posts
    102

    Re: My Santa Monica - Algae Acrylic Scrubber 100

    OK, I didn't change anything else. I just changed light time from 18 to 12 hours. I don't think that this is a reason what happened.

    Now, I cleaned it using a lot of tap water and inside the black box. On the screan I see only brown color, without large pieces of green algae.

    I have another question about my wet/dry filter. In one part of my filter I have bio balls (blue). It is sense to keep those balls in my filter when I'm using your system. Maybe I can change it to mechanical filter media ? What do you think ?

    Thank you for your time.

    Mike

+ Reply to Thread

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts