Algae scrubber or plants in sump?

[SpeshulEd]

They have plastic type screens at michael's, I think its in their knitting supplies, but not sure. The guy showed me those when I was asking about plastic pegboard.

I just ordered 3 sets of the marimo balls from ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260427472390

I have a small strip light on my sump, gonna throw those in one of the chambers and see what happens. I'll probably throw one or two in the tank, but something tells me the rays will destroy them.

 

[jcardona1]

cool, hopefully i can find it locally. if not ill order it online. speaking of which, do they have plastic pegboard? ive been trying to find some for a drip plate...

plants in the sump cant hurt either!!

 

[Noto]

ok thats a little better, if we base it on the incandescent equivalent. that would mean that 4x of those bulbs at 92w equals 480w of an incandescent. i can handle 92w

The wattage is based on fluorescents, not incandescents. Michael's should have the plastic canvas. The pieces are only a few cents each but you'll need several to make your screen. I use cable ties to tie them together; the cheapo ones that come in a tube (100 8" and 100 4") are perfect, as they are just narrow enough to go through the canvas mesh.

 

[jcardona1]

The wattage is based on fluorescents, not incandescents. Michael's should have the plastic canvas. The pieces are only a few cents each but you'll need several to make your screen. I use cable ties to tie them together; the cheapo ones that come in a tube (100 8" and 100 4") are perfect, as they are just narrow enough to go through the canvas mesh.

ok im a little confused now. so even though those CFLs posted by todd put out the equivalent of a 120w incandescent bulb, i would still need 400w of CFL lighting on a 400g tank?

 

[epond83]

Wisteria (aquatic kind) grows supper fast and will give off a lot O2 just throw some in the sump and have decent light on it for about 8 hours a day and you should see a drop in nitrates.

It takes well to palnting in gravel, or just weight it down

 

[JakeH]

ok im a little confused now. so even though those CFLs posted by todd put out the equivalent of a 120w incandescent bulb, i would still need 400w of CFL lighting on a 400g tank?

No way. That can't be right... if you throw in enough of those CFL's to evenly cover the screen with light & run the light for most of the day, you should get some serious algae growth. I know you're supposed to have a certain # of square inches of screen per gallon, but no way it will take 400w of light to grow 400 square inches of algae... Other aquatic plants maybe, but not algae.

 

[Toddo]

The wattage is based on fluorescents, not incandescents.

I now see this statement on the AlgaeScrubber FAQ...

<<Wattage: Your goal should be to get at least 0.5 watts of CFL (compact flourescent light) for each gallon of water, for medium filtering. For high filtering, get 1.0 watts per gallon. And don't use incadescent bulbs... they are much too hot and use too much power. The biggest CFL bulbs you should use should be 45W. If you need more, use extra bulbs, not a bigger bulb. >>

And after thinking about it, my cfl watts/gallon ratio is .416/1, so I stand corrected.

 

[SpeshulEd]

cool, hopefully i can find it locally. if not ill order it online. speaking of which, do they have plastic pegboard? ive been trying to find some for a drip plate...

plants in the sump cant hurt either!!

No plastic pegboard. I looked everywhere and came up empty handed. I found it online, but it was way overpriced. I ended up just using a piece of acrylic and drilling a bunch of holes in it. Then after a couple of weeks the thing cracked on me...now I'm using small plastic bins, that I've drilled a bunch of holes in that hold all my scrubbies.

 

[jcardona1]

I now see this statement on the AlgaeScrubber FAQ...

<<Wattage: Your goal should be to get at least 0.5 watts of CFL (compact flourescent light) for each gallon of water, for medium filtering. For high filtering, get 1.0 watts per gallon. And don't use incadescent bulbs... they are much too hot and use too much power. The biggest CFL bulbs you should use should be 45W. If you need more, use extra bulbs, not a bigger bulb. >>

And after thinking about it, my cfl watts/gallon ratio is .416/1, so I stand corrected.

hmm so that basically means im screwed LOL. i would need about 19x of those bulbs which would run me $200. let alone trying to figure out how to mount them LOL. even i use something like a T5HO strip light, its still ridiculous.

not sure if the algae scrubber is gonna work for me

 

[JakeH]

Maybe try a scaled-down version to reduce nitrate, instead of trying to completely eliminate it? You could also add some Java moss balls after the scrubber to finish the job... They dont need much light.