Growing algae through the screen.

If it basically peels off, instead of having to slice it off, then I'll know I've gone a bit too long. Strange you should bring this up actually- I've been having wierd ideas that suggest to me that at about day 9 or 10 of algae growth, growth is that fast that the decay (death) of previous growth would never be able to exceed the rate of growth, and in fact the differential of death to growth would expand. Got strange ideas of putting the harvested algae into a photo bioreactor with bubbles and seeing what happens !!!

 

Embarrassed to say 3 or 4 turbos, 2 blue legged hermits, 1 black brittle star and hundreds of these;

I think it's my system age that's doing the cleaning thing. I've not cleaned the glass on my tank at all for 6 weeks, and look;

System stability is key I think, and loads of food !?!

 

Foxface is 10, loves chopped up nori. He is a bit skittish, even now.

 

Not gonna get any more on the screen I reckon. Just about maxed out ! Started (only just) to degrade the lower levels at 9 and 18 days, nearly 400 grammes harvest and water looks great (skimmer in operation also bubbles on screen).
edge on 9days left, 18 right


9 day side


18 day side

 

Stopped the DIY generated Co2 a few weeks ago because I thought it may be skewing the results, so this is just air bubbles on the screen, also running skimmer (both in sump with low flow through sump).

 

Got a quote for you that suggests I've gone in the right direction.

"This indicates that with intense illumination, the CO2 fixation rate can exceed the rate of nitrogen assimilation and, thus, the excess carbon and energy derived from photosynthesis are stored in the form of glycogen (Fay, 1983; Campbell et al., 1998; Zak et al., 2001).

So, growth is only 1 side of the story. Over illuminating (compared to the nitrate [or other nitrogen forms] concentration), forces the algae to store extra amounts of nutrients, because photosynthesis is occurring faster than the algae can translate it into growth.

To aid this, I've got a 50watt LED growlight arriving soon, to blast the harvested side of the screen and over illuminate the underlying algae on the unharvested side, to see what happens. Bit tired of replacing my CFLs every 3 months also if I'm honest. If it works will be getting another one for the other side.

 

Maybe. Gonna try and get yellowish on mine and see what's happens to my levels. This may increase the phosphate uptake, as it's a component of glycogen as far as I can tell. Gonna do it slowly though, last thing I want is to mess up my tank.

 

Another update, still no die off at the screen. Appears I was wrong about it being maxed out. Got extra 15% harvest this time at 450 grammes wet weight......

Edge


9 day


18 day


Sticking with harvesting at 9 days for now.