Joels 55 and L2

I have a 55 gallon DT with a 40 gallon sump, it originally had a ghetto DIY overflow/scrubber that was poorly lit and caused water leaks. for the last 6+ months the only filtration I have had is macro algae in my sump lit by a 3' t8 shop light with old 6500k bulbs. My sump is now PACKED with chaeto and calurpa (the 2.5 gallons I removed last week didnt even make a noticable dent), and my DT hair algae is out of control.

I finally cracked down and bought a L2 scrubber, which I recieved yesterday, and I have to say I am VERY impressed by the quality of this. Everything fits together beautifully and its a very nice looking piece. Bud spent a ton of time with me making sure I had everything I needed for my install, and other then an optional piece I had to grab from home depot, it had everything I needed to get it working in the box.


It took me a while to remove my old crappy overflow and replumb a new one in, but I am finally done and this is the result:








Video of it running, does the flow look about right?

 

The before pictures:













(one week since glass was cleaned, full whites, half blue, daylight camera setting)

 

Yea..... I say 6 months... It has probably been closer to a year since my screens were lit, and even then it was haphazard. I used a piece of my old screen for the new scrubber, its not really obvious in that pic but it has a fair amount of coraline algae and some green hair algae already growing on it. So hopefully it will take off quickly as long as I dont burn the crap out of it. Its currently just on my display light timer of 12 hours/day....

 

This was after 11 days of 12/12 light cycle, it was the first time I cleaned it.

 

I think the growth comes from the fact that the screen I used was already kinda seeded, it was cut from one of my screens, not the one that came with the scrubber, and the fact that my tank has gone so long without nutrient export. The nutrient buildup would explain why business tanks grow scrubber algae so fast some times, but diligent hobbiest's scrubbers seem to take so long to get going.

This is 3 days after the first cleaning:


I modified the holding clip a bit, to make it easier to get the screen back in without removing the water suppoly pipe




My assistant, napping on the job....

 

Its been a while since I updated this, but my L2 is doing GREAT! I have nothing but good things to say about this!

To give you an idea of how much algae I am removing, this is 4/13:


4/19:

 

4/24


The tank now:

 

It was about 2 weeks ago that I added 18 LEDs (8-660nm reds, 8-460nm, and 2 ~420nm violets all driven at 700mA) to my 40 gallon planted refugium, all it had before was a 2 bulb 4' T8 shop light chopped down to 36" with OLD 6500k bulbs, and at the same time I cleaned out my algae scrubber. I cleaned it again today and it was only abut 1/4 full so I guess either the 18 LEDs I added to the refugium REALLY shifted the balance of growth or I am finally starting to run out of excess nutrients in the tank. I am still growing some bubble algae and short turf like green hair algae in my display, but they seem to have slowed down.

Also when cleaning out the refugium of excess algae I noticed my amphipods had REALLY taken off, I have TONS of those little 1/8" to 1/4" buggers in there, there were several still wriggling on ever rock I took out of the refuge.