B.a.d.a.s.s.

This is 6 hrs after 1st harvest.



Rubbish vid I know, but you must be used to my video ability by now.

Rumpy Pumpy - filamentous algae only require light, nutrient (enhanced flow or otherwise), predation free substrate and opportunity to exist. This screen is a pre matured ex waterfall screen which has speeded things up a lot. Flow is different from the small version, but on that one it was the left and right flow that was being tested as it filled and emptied, not actually the water going up and down. This new flow seems to have improved things as it oscillates more like natural conditions. Light is supplied by 80 ish watts of cheap grow LEDs so there's also scope for improvement there. Another benefit is that when the screen is cleaned with fingertips, it tears the algae which leaves a good base of algae for the next growth period.

Edit - Rumpy Pumpy, just looked at your thread again. There tends to be no benefit in having the screen more than 3 inches under the water. I don't know how deep your screen is but deeper means further away from the light. I'm gonna state again that your lights are very weak it seems to me. All those cable ties are probably reducing the light reaching the screen even more. Youll notice I have drastically reduced the amount of ties on mine to get the screen growing rather than the ties. I'm keeping my eyes on the few I have though to see if there really is a benefit, or not.

 

N 2 - P - 0.2. Exactly the same as it was when running the waterfall. I expect that my system has some sort of buffering because the levels don't really seem to change in the short term. I'm gonna hold off with the 24hr growth picture until I have a series but gdamn

 

Ok couldn't wait;

First harvest - day "0"



+24hrs;

 

+ 48hrs



+ 72hrs

 

+ 5 days



+ 8 Days

 

+ 11 days;

 

13 days in technicolor;



harvested today, and this is how the screen looks now. Don't know if you remember my "haircut test" on my waterfall screen, but this "in tank tearing seems" to achieve the same sort of result.

 

So far N & P is identical to when it was Waterfall. Yes indeed, there's lots of crud in the mat and yes, it goes into the water when harvesting. I haven't noticed any water discolouration yet, but seeing this is my only form of filtration at the moment I'm sure if it's going to give yellow water it will happen sooner rather than later. I have noticed a slight bubble formation on the top of the sump presumably from organics but nothing distressing (i only ever got that on the waterfall immediately after harvesting,and only when I harvested early). I've been toying with the idea of putting another screen in the sump, on the other end in order to make use of the waves that are being wasted that end and double filtration. I will keep it like this for now, just to see if test results get better or worse over the next few months.
Something in the water chemistry seems to have changed because my ever reliable toadstool had a "sulking" episode for 4 or 5 days, but looks like he's recovering now (I don't believe in coincidence).

 

First photo in ages;



This is a pic of a bare patch that has been slowly developing (last 4 to 6 weeks) from the side of the screen that is in contact with the sump wall. It's very uniform across the screen.Can't see any snails or stuff on it and It looks as though coralline algae is invading, perhaps a consequence of not scraping the screen? Probably take the screen out at the weekend and see if I can get a close up pic in white light, because let's face it, everything looks like pink coralline in this light.

 

Finally got round to investigating. I'm hoping its a simple case of not cleaning snails off the screen. It's took nearly a year but it would seem that snails are clearing a bit of screen at a time and this is encouraging calcifying algae to spread. Freshwater rinsing doesn't remove them as they tend to hunker down and make themselves water tight. As you can see, the screen is not roughed up due to scraping when this was a waterfall screen so I've tried the holesaw to both rough up the screen and remove unwanted "maturity" (snails and such). I've had to be a bit tender with the holesaw because this screen is two years old and a bit delicate in places. There's still a few snails on the screen because they were hiding between the screen and Perspex bed;

Problem;



Cause?



Rectification?

 

This is growing again. I've made a rudimentary modification too;



Reading Adeys work on 3D screens it appears horizontal performance can be tripled by adding filaments that reduce lateral flow in areas and provide "Biomimicry" which alters screen dynamics to a natural diverse area for more algal species. Apparently it also enhances algae recruitment (by filtering algae spores from the water column). If this "DIY net" does grow stuff, I've not a clue how I'm going to harvest it but this is only a test, after all

 

Algae recruitment underway;

20 hrs after adding net;

 

Yeah, I know the vid is crap. It's better if you go to YouTube directly, and even then your eyesight has gotta be good.