Sizing a scrubber based on feeding (guideline review)

That kind of measure can be both a measure of capacity and benchmarking unit to compare two different designs... For example upflow vs waterfall...

Having that ee can start gathering more information on what the real capacity is for any design of scrubber or algae filter available... And let that collective data based on a standard unit be the base in which people decide to do or plan their diy projects...

Having a blind sizing guideline based on design factors and with very little background information on where did it came from just keeps diy'ers and product developers trying to hut a target in the dark...

 

VERY interested on knowing you point of view on this Bud an Garf, I guess we can define that measure based on a precise set of defined rules or experiments and have that measure be something scientifically meaningful... Then start spreading it all over the internet trying to repair all the misinformation and arbitrary rules and guidelines the internet is plagued with on the algae scrubber area...

 

Agree that the guidelines are based on something but my point is that efficiency varies alot on many factors not considered on those guidelines, leds, spectrum, differences in substrate, upflow or waterfall etc...

We now may have the ways to determine something much more precise than what adey did years ago.

Anybody can put a poor design scrubber and say it is 4 cubes/day efficient just based on size of the surface and light power, disregarding the other very important aspects ee know affect their performance

 

I would not take that as a reliable indicator since the water in it can vary greatly on how you press or rinse the water off, and supposing that you can get all the moisture out of it then I am sure that different types of lgae contain different amounts of nutrients. Agree that it has been the best we have but I guess we can define something better.

We could use elemental analysis like the triton testing, on that testing it doesn't matter if some chemistry changes due to bacterial activity, die off or something, the same elements remain on the water sample and they will show on the results.

We can as you said use test kits available to us... perhaps not hobby grade, perhaps we can have the 3 Hanna colorimeters (High, Low and Ultra low range) for P and the Hanna Nitrate Colorimeter for N... and many others like organic P from Hach and many other elements from Hanna like K...

What about setting up a common ground on the setup... comes to my mind something like:
-Brute container
-Certain amount of cermedia bioballs or any other dry bio substrate for bacteria
-RODI with an specific salt mix and ATO
-Chiller and/or heater to keep temp constant
-Dosing pump feeding some kind of food or fertilizer, perhaps a mix of hydroponics nutrients that can provide detailed content analysis in terms of NPK at least.

On that setup I can place any scrubber on top and start dripping a certain amount of nutrients to mature the screen, having a mature screen letting it take nutrients to zero and then ramp up the nutrient dripping to the max level where the testing remains at zero.

Then the capacity of that scrubber based on this test would be something like 10 ml of "nutrient mix" per day, and then because we have NPK contents of the nutrient mix we can start developing equivalencies to many common aquarium foods, or perhaps do a complete trial using for example blended spectrum pellets diluted to X%... nd we could be able to say with much more certainty the capacity of a scrubber and benchmark using that unit...

I am determined to do something like this but I don't want this to be an individual thing, I am sure it would be a much stronger argument if the experiment or method to measure this is agreed by as many of us "Algae Scrubber Proponents" as we can sum on this effort... I am not looking for a 100% accurate method but something we can have consensus on meanwhile we develop something better...

 

I don't know AWT, do you have a link?

Just saw this one for nitrate:

http://www.amazon.com/Hanna-Instrum...&qid=1414171375&sr=8-3&keywords=hanna+nitrate

I know there are companies that do soil and fertilizer analysis to find out NPK but I don't have experience with any, will do my homework finding out what is available out there...

 

I have read in many posts that they use scrubbers to produce algae using fertilizer and salt mix, wondering what fertilizer they use, I read about Kelp plant food from home depot, got one already but I was wondering if I need to put something else because that one doesnt have any phosphate, at least they don't name it on the bottle... Any idea on what fertilizer mix we could use? or you would go directly to the blended pellets? or use actual forzen food cubes? I was thinking first on the fertilizer products because you can drip them without the worry of them go bad out of the fridge....

 

Already asked, waiting for response...

Hiw about this other? Not the same resolution but could work justvto take out the subjective color analysis...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001EHAYUE?pc_redir=1413887021&robot_redir=1

 

Confirmed, the hanna nitrate photometer has interference by chlorides higher than 100 ppm... So it's useless on seawater...

 

Browsed the Florida Aquafarms but they only have fertilizers without N or P cause they assume you are putting it in established ponds with continuous feeding...

Seaweed has the following NPK ratios:
Seaweed, fresh: 1.68 - 0.75 - 5.00
Seaweed (dried): 1.1-1.5 - 0.75 - 4.9

I think we must aim to have a nutrient source that cover those ratios so I see these options for nutrient dripping:

A) Go with Alaska line of products, use Pure Kelp Plant Food that contains everything algae needs (according to various websites I found) except for P, then for adding P we could complement with Alaska Fish Fertilizer that includes P

B) Go with a mix of Seachem Flourish line of products (Flourish Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium, Excel and Trace)

I am feeling a little bit inclined to use Seachem line since they manufacture products specifically for aquariums and it will be easier to buy them worldwide...

I am doing a little bit of math based on the specs of those products to know what mix ratio we should use...

 

About the other factors besides dripping nutrients...

- Gray Brute Container 32 galons?
- What bio media or substrate you think we should use? I thought about cermedia since they provide spheres that we can have a specific count for.
- What salt mix? any preference? IO?
- 78 F ?

 

Light on the brute? do you think it is relevant?

 

Just found out this link:

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?1181-The-Great-Algae-Light-Source-Experiment/page5

You had it figured out years ago Bud !!

Let's do it !!

 

Agree to do it as cheap as possible...

I am no chemistry expert but I have heard that for macro nutrients we could use Potasium Phosphate Dihydrate and potassium nitrate.

For micro nutrients I would not know how if not using a commercial fertilizer, either for aquarium, hydroponics or garden.

 

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilizer/pmdd-tim.html