No Algae growth - Help

[nm983]

Hi,

I installed AST in a bucket it's not white but covered with reflective cover inside and 4x flurocent bulbs of 28 Watt 1250 Lumen each one. ( two on each side).
The screen width is 10 inches feed by 500G/H pump, the flow is wide and steady as I saw in one of teh pics that Santa Monica uploaded.

However there is only little growth of brown algae, in front of the bulb where teh light is stronger it grow even less. the water temp is 26 Celsius and I don't use a fan.

The Nit is ~200! I assume the phos is also high but I didn't measure. I even brought some algae from the sea but nothing yet it's running two weeks.

What is wrong?

Thank you

[SantaMonica]

Post a few pics. There is no way you can have that strong lighting without growth in two week.

What is the screen material?

[nm983]

It's sort of plastic canvas. The green algae brough from the sea.

[nm983]

Here is the water flow

[kcress]

Looks nice...

Does the screen wiggle a bunch with the water running down it?

A head scratcher!!

[nm983]

No - it's just that I had to cut the screen a bit narow in the bottom.

[SantaMonica]

It's fine, if the lights have the power you say. Give it 7 days, and post pics again. It's going to grow brown before it grows green. Either one is fine.

[nm983]

Okay - thank you for bringing this graet idea to practice.

One important lesson I learned is that it's important to make a "backup hole" or even better few in differents heights so that if the lower are blocked teh water will have another exit.

[worley]

Do you have the lights on a timer? having them on for 24x7 with that much light will inhibit growth, I found that out the hard way until I put a timer on and the lights are off 8 hours a day, growth was somewhere in the region of 10 times faster after this.

[nm983]

yes it's lighting all the time - thank you very much for this input,I will turn it of for 8 hours.

Ther is very little green algae now.