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Chemsol L4 build thread

Discussion in 'Customer Support' started by Chemsol, Jan 2, 2013.

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  1. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    Finally got around to assembling and wiring the L4. More pictures of install above sump to follow. You may notice my little helper in the background. He was happy to pickup any wires or zip ties that fell to the floor... :)



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  2. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

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  3. sabbath

    sabbath Member Trusted Member Customer

    Welcome! I look forward to seeing how it goes... I like the cat pic.
     
  4. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    Thanks! I've got some more pictures to add but not sure they will be released right away.

    The scrubber has been online now for almost 7 days and I am just starting to see a tiny bit of algae on the sides of the screens. I have slowed the flow as much as I can and am running the light cycles 4 hours on then 2 hours off.

    I'm a little nervous because I took the skimmer off today. Not sure if that was they right decision or not. I am continuing to run carbon and GFO. Any feedback?
     
  5. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    Sorry I don't know why your post got flagged for moderation...I should have received notification too but I guess I'll have to look at my settings. Hmmm....

    Anyways, it looks like a good setup! I would have let the scrubber come up to speed before pulling the skimmer though. Maybe put the skimmer on a timer & cycle it off for a few hours/day, and then progressively longer "off" as the scrubber comes up to speed. Or, leave the skimmer in place and run it very dry so that it aerates the water mainly.

    The only other thing I noticed is that if you are not using the fans, you should take them off. I have this in my user's manual but I'm still trying to find time to finish and publish that,sorry. No biggie for not doing it right away - but they will essentially block convection if you are not using them. You don't need to use them really unless you are running the unit in an enclosed space with zero passive convection, which would cause the area to heat up and then reduce the dissipation effect of the heat sinks.
     
  6. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    Thanks for the advice. I'll throw the skimmer back in there and try skimming dry. I wasn't too worried about ph imbalance b\c lots of outside air comes into the mech room. I was reading Garf's thread on skimmer bubbles and that looked kind of interesting so once the ATS is established I might look into that.

    I have noticed that that screen does not lay flat when suspended from the pipe. Is this a problem? Right now there is a gentle bend in the middle all across as the screen bottom is hitting the acrylic.

    Also, I have been monitoring the heat sinks with them mounted, they are just warm to the touch; not even hot after 2-3 + hours. I was planning to hack one of my wall warts to power them, just didn't get around to it. Once again, the build quality is just fantastic on your product!
     
  7. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    Thanks! Yeah a hack would work, it's just a 12V Molex connector though, you can probably find one at Radio Shack or rob one off a spare PC Power supply and connect that to your wall wart.

    Hard to envision about the bend, is it like the screen is standing on the bottom rather than hanging from the pipe? So the bend is horizontal, all the way across the screen? In that case you may want to trim one row off the bottom of the screen if you start to get uneven growth. It had occurred to me that when you get a screen full of algae, this would 'weigh' the screen down and cause this potentially, you're seeing it happen a bit sooner than that!! I made the screen 13" wide instead of 12" to allow for the need to trim the bottom potentially.
     
  8. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    I trimmed a row and now it sits fine. Here is a pic of 2 weeks up. Some brown growth. No green. Filling in from the edges. I had virtually nothing when running for 4 hours on and 2 off, so i switched to 8 hours on a day (reverse display lighting) two days ago and now have the brown.

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    Last edited: Jan 12, 2013
  9. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    Skimmer's back on. My phos is a little high at .18 so I am going to do a water change of approximately 32 gallons. Last WC was 2 weeks ago.
     
  10. gguertin

    gguertin New Member Customer

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    Just curious what others think... I wonder if this is a normal step while getting your l4 acclimated? It would make sense that in the early stages your phosphates would spike a little... as long as the algae is growing in your scrubber and not the display I think I would be ok with it?
     
  11. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    Well if you took the skimmer off and there was nothing else to export, then it would rise, yes this would make sense. The scrubber really will export very little the first few days or weeks. Even the slightest bit of algae growth will do some filtering, but no where near the input to the system. So in the meantime you really should leave existing filtration as-is and make small changes to roll back, if possible. When I first built and installed my first scrubber, I did not have this choice due to space limitations - I had to remove the skimmer and go scrubber-only, and it worked just fine, but there were no really delicate or expensive corals in the system to risk.
     
  12. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    2 weeks growth. Clean? 2013-01-18_17-21-07_199.jpg
     
  13. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    very lightly, rub the screen with fingertips very lightly, clean slot and top edge of screen well
     
  14. Signalman

    Signalman New Member Customer

    Chemsol - I may have missed it but what size tank are you running the L4 on? I know we size by feedings but tank size is generally indicative of the amount of fish; thus the amount of food. I am looking to upgrade the scrubber on my 210 from the L2 and would like to know what the others with larger tanks are doing.
     
  15. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    I'm running the L4 on a 200. I have 2 tangs, a rabbitfish, 2 clowns, a damsel and a cardinal. Not that high a bio load but I am overfeeding to get the screen up and running. I plan to add more fish once the screen is established. I'm certainly skimming a whole lot more than I used to.
     
  16. Turbo

    Turbo Does not really look like Johnny Carson Staff Member Site Owner Multiple Units! Customer

    Be careful when feeding in order to jump start a screen. What you can end up doing is push excess nutrients into the rock where they will leech out later when the scrubber comes up to speed, resulting in algae on the rocks. I would not change any habits for the first 4 weeks, just let the scrubber get going on it's own. Every system is different so it's hard to predict how long it will take, and if yours takes longer, you could create a problem by overfeeding. Of course, your skimmer is taking care of some of that. So you might feed a little bit more, but just don't overdo it.
     
  17. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    Good info. I'm still running GFO (it's now about 1.5 months in) and I was underfeeding the fish before. My phosphate has dropped to .09 from .18 and now I'm getting some green patches on the screen.

    3 weeks last Saturday

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    Last edited: Jan 30, 2013
  18. Redfish

    Redfish Member Customer

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    Update :)
     
  19. Chemsol

    Chemsol New Member Customer

    Ok, way late on an update. Removed GFO, Carbon, and skimmer over the last few months. ATS has been the only form of nutrient filtration outside of 2-3 week water changes of 15% for over one month. I have a little green algae underneath all the brown but I can't seem to get the long stringy green stuff. Running 9 hours overnight on a reverse cycle. Can anyone offer advice? My phosphates are jumping around .09 and .2 with a Hanna Phosphate tester, not ULR.

    Here is a pic of the screen. Has looked like this for a few months now.


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  20. First let me say hi to everyone on this forum, and this is my first post here. Can I make a suggestion that you might be nitrate limited.I know this can be a problem with other forms of nutrient reduction methods that rely on algae or bacteria. Nitrate and Phosphate is taken up in a fixed ratio,and if one is limited, the other will suffer. I know that Red Sea have a carbon food called NoPox that is claimed to work on both nitrate and phosphate without one being limited, but I don’t see how this is possible. Anecdotal evidence on other forums seems to suggest that this is not the case, and people have added potassium nitrate to help with the phosphate uptake.
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    Lee.
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    Last edited: May 24, 2013

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