hi everyone, i have a small 60 litre tank with a 4 by 5 inch internal diy scrubber, its been in situ for about three weeks and today i cleaned it, there is some growth on the mesh inside but most (like 80%) is on the tank glass. my understanding is it could take eight weeks before reducing nitrates so do i keep cleaning the glass weekly and wait for the algae to grow on the mesh or am i missing something basic here? cheers
Gotcha, that is an Upflow scrubber. When you say "growth on the glass" it was unclear if you meant growth on the display tank glass, or growth on the glass in between the light and the screen. Now, I'm guessing that you meant the latter, correct? There is really nothing "wrong" with the growth on the glass. It's one of the side effects of the UAS, there's not really much of anything you can do about it. It's just the way it is. I've had a major issue with that video ever since it was published, maybe he's followed it up with an addendum but he doesn't emphasize the importance of roughing up the plastic canvas. He mentions "sanding" it, but this is really not enough. What you really need to do is at least steps 1 and 2 in this video, step 3 is highly recommended (and easy) That being said I haven't seen anyone try the mortar screen in a UAS, not that it hasn't been done. But it's going to be way better than just a roughed up screen, and a roughed up screen is way better than a sanded screen, so the combination would be way way better if I did that way math right lol The other option is using some kind of quartz rock and bonding that to the box. This is the stuff that Santa Monica calls "Green Grabber" that he uses in his HOG and SURF units - it's just crushed quartz bonded in with epoxy. That for sure also works better that bare plastic canvas. The issue is that bare PC is not the ideal material for a UAS, it's very slow to mature. The DIY video was made before this was really realized (the PC is not ideal thingy) so it's not like he was wrong right out of the gate, we just know more now.
the one i have in now was always a prototype, im designing two more, both will fit tighter to the glass. on the subject of quartz bonding why not use rock or even carbon, im planning on making one with a removable screen, and the other perhaps with internal led's i greatly appreciate your comments by the way, this small tank i have was always a trial tank before i upgrade to a big one cheers
