fit questions

I have this idea that will allow easier access to the screen for cleaning when access is tight. A suggestion, or a brainstorming idea. The problem is, when taking out the screen, sufficient height above the unit is required to lift the slot tube with screen attached, out of the scrubber.

What if you cut horizontally right through the scrubber, say half way down the scrubber, or close to the base, right through the clear acrylic as well if necessary, and put some kind of rubber or vinyl seal? The seal could be similar to the cup on some skimmers that just pop off. And there might be bolts or clips or pins to keep it held on tight.

 

I think you have my idea down perfectly. I agree there are engineering challenges. I think you mentioned most if not all. The custom gasket, the clamping system, LED fixture fixturing. But I know you can do it. And it would make servicing in tight spaces much easier. It would also make cleaning the internal surfaces of the scrubber much easier. Do it, do it ......

 

Scrubber is working extremely well for me. I do want those upgrades. please tell me how to pay. Here is why I want the upgrades: I want a more uniform slot, even more silent operation as when I get a streamer from the slot, sounds like the unit will be more bullet proof in terms of avoiding a streamer that could exit the entire system and cause a water leak.





I have moved my scrubber from above my dt, to the sump. I had to cut the wings off the heat sinks to get it to fit. And it is still a careful orchestrated set of procedures to get it in and out. I am much happier with it there. No more leaks to worry about. Less noise. Out of sight. No bubbles, but that could be due to something else I did simultaneously.

I have tapped the bottom drain, got ten rid of the bulkhead so there is now almost no lip. And have that drain stepped down with fittings to accept the 3/4" lock line valve, which I am using to restrict the drain a bit. Perhaps half way closed. Fixed. And I am tuning the water into the scrubber with a gate valve such that I get a small flow out of the overflow protection drain and no bubbles through the main drain. This, versus adjusting/restricting flow via the gate valve on the main drain. Much easier to access especially in my cramped situation. My sump is too high or my cabinet is too low. Anyway, this is working amazingly well. No adjustments needed after the initial adjustment for weeks. Not even though there is tremendous buildup of algae at the slot as you can see in the pic. Don't know why this should be, but it is.

I am running of late without the false bottom. Seems to work better for now. I am experimenting with letting the algae grow 3d to the max. I may be loosing some algae through the drain, especially because of no false bottom. But I don't care because I am getting such fast growth in this phase. The pic shows the algae fills in from the sides. I believe this happens because the slot is wider on the sides than in the middle, and not because the algae is being flushed through the drain.

I think I may not be running at the recommended flow rate. Is there any inline flow meter I could get for a reasonable cost?

A concern is nutrient fluctuations, I imagine, when I harvest the algae and loose the tremendous filtration while the algae builds back up again. Is this a real concern?

I think also that the procedures of getting the scrubber in and out in my cramped/low cabinet, is a little difficult (and I am lazy, strapped for time and I let the algae grow more than I perhaps should). It might be nifty if I could get at the screen through the side plexi. Ie where the leds shine through. A removable panel with a simple gasket, clamps or thumb screws would be be a nice feature if it worked. I feel like I could service the scrubber through that instead of taking the entire thing out to clean.

Running now with a skimmer. An sca 65.

 

The slot pipe is light grey and has largish writing on it "NON METALIC CONDUIT AND UNDERGROUND" and has other writing and bar-codes.

The feed to the scrubber is off a tee on my return to the DT. My overflow from my DT is actually via the two pipes (herbie) on the extreme right hand side of the sump. The submerged pipe is pulling a full siphon and the other is trickling.

 

I am going to insert an inline ball valve with the existing gate valve.

I wish there was a continuous flow meter available.

 

Ok. I want to remind you to please make me a new slotted pipe if needed. Recall that I hace the old schd40. However, I thonk one of the upgrade kits includes a new slot pipe anyway.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk

 

What pump would you recommend for the HF L3 ?

Its a little complicated running it off the main return and want to see if the cost justifies the si.simplification

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk

 

I think I'll try to keep the one pump for now due to temperature concerns. I wish I knew how much 23 watts adds to a 70 gallon system. do you know? I think it is critical for me to keep the temps down in my situation.

Attached are some pics of my screen.

It has been floating in my dt for a while (led's) and I just scraped it. So ignore the all over growth. I want to show that the screen is warped and stretched. And it's been that way since day one. I thought this was normal but I see from somebodies recent vids that perhaps its not normal. When I get the HF updates, should I change out the screen? I get uneven growth primarily from my schedule 40 pipe slot, but perhaps also from the warped screen. Or perhaps I am getting more growth due to increased surface area.

 

Do you have an estimate for my HF updates? Also, let me know how to pay.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk

 

I got my HF updates last Friday and it very easy to make the mods due to the great instructional vids.

The scrubber is now in place, the screen Is In and water Is flowing. And it is smooth. Really great upgrades.

I zip tied my old screen at the top of my new screen, such that only the sinhle new screen is in the slot pipe.

 

Just cleaned for the first time after upgrading 17 days ago to new HFmods and slightly different plumbing. Not sure how much flow I am using, but it is significantly more than before the upgrades. Cleaning took 5 min max. Much quicker than I was used to. I only had to tilt the housing to get at the screen. The new plumbing really helped in many ways. I can shut off the flow without changing the gate valve. Growth on the screen uniform due to the new uniform slot. Higher flow easily handled by the HF mods. something that previously would have been impossible.

Pics just prior to cleaning. I have my old screen zipped to the new screen.














New screen only now in the scrubber. I cleaned only one side of the screen (and the side shown in the photo is the side that was in the middle of the sandwidch - so very patchy growth).



I saved some of the "juice" I squeezed out of the harvest. I wonder if this could be fed as Phyto on a daily basis?