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Screen experiment and Ulva.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by atoll, Nov 5, 2017.

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  1. atoll

    atoll Member

    Today I have gambled or should I say I experimented with my Atlantis 2s screen. I was getting a thick pad like dark green algae growth and my Ulva had reduced in quantity considerably. I decided to take drastic action and completely cleaned my screen back fo all algae and even bleached it to ensure all had been removed. I then replaced the screen after seeding it with more Ulva.

    One of the problems when seeding with Ulva is getting the Ulva to stay on the screen while it gets a hold and thought about how I could help the Ulva stay on the screen. I removed the screen once again to inspect it and as I expected most of the Ulva had washed off. I then I hit on the following idea. I decided to cut a number of small holes in the screen about 1" below the slot bar.

    Think of the screen not as tiny square holes but lots of + signs. What I did was to make 4 snips using small sharp scissors cutting out a + making a hole about 5mm square, so 4 holes had been turned into one. I did this every inch or so along the screen and then simply pushed small pieces of Ulva through each hole and of course, it went through much easier than the micro holes in the rest of the screen.

    The Ulva not only hangs down both sides now but tiny bits of the nylon net that are left of the + is still attached to the screen and act as teeth to help hold onto the Ulva. When complete I replaced the screen back into the ATS and switched the pump back on. I left it a couple of hours then took the screen out again to check if the Ulva was holding and as expected it had and very well indeed as per the pic below. I will keep checking on its progress every day to see how it's getting on and that it continues to hold.

    I am confident it will indeed hold and intend to do a series of 3 or 4 rows of these small holes and seed with more Ulva. If my experiment fails then no real harm will have been done to the screen given the larger holes I created are still very small and will hardly affect the screen in any real way.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. atoll

    atoll Member

    2 days ago (8 days after cleaning the screen completely) I took a look at the screen to see how it was progressing after completely cleaning it of all algae as above including soaking the screen for 2 hours in bleach and reseeding the screen with Ulva. The picture below says it all and as you can see the Ulva has established once again at least for the time being. I will see how things go over the coming weeks and if it continues to be the dominant algae or if the other will return to smother it.
    20171113_181519.jpg
     
    Turbo likes this.

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