Even before cleaning, at 2cm, or 1cm, the flow slows down. Slow flow reduces nutrient tranfer. In a vertical, flow never slows.
Yes, but this is gained by excess total flow. Being so high it is not reduced by algae "islands" or "clumps" or "balls" also in horizontal scrubbers. We propose to optimize it. For example by not cleaning but just trimming algae to some certain height. In this case, step by step isle growth (3D) will transmit to homogeneous plane growth (1D).
In a horizontal, algae grows in "islands" or "clumps" or "balls" because of the "stacking up" of water. In a vertical, the water does not stack up... it jumps over.
Andrew has nearly horizontal scrubber, he said that currently he does not indicate isle growth just homogeneous. If it will continue so no negative appearances you consider will occur. We will see.
The more algae that exists, the stronger the filtering is. The more algae in your aquarium, the more it operates like the ocean. If you remove the algae before it becomes large, you reduce the filtering.
Yes, I extremely agree this argument. Thank you. I would like to notice only that the efficiency of filtering is proportional to increase of algae biomass (let say in g/day) which is proportional to the biomass (i.e. exponential development of population is considered). However I propose to equalize algae only while it grows by isles (if any). After transition to 1D growth algae may be treated as usual.
This is "turf" algae. You do not want turf algae on your screen. It is to dark and will block light. Also, turf on rocks in the ocean only contacts the water half-time. When it is not touching the water, it is not filtering the water. You want the water to touch the algae at all times.
No, no, no! Does not matter how long contact with water is. Only growth rate has importance. Half time contact does not imply lower growth rate, rather vice versa (scrubbers with pulse water supply is interesting and promising idea, they can be part of combined systems like "scrubber+wavegenerator").
Opposite. Almost everyone who has tried horizontal has given up. It did not filter enough.
Ok. We have our genius-experimenter if he will not succeed in horizontal scrubber building then nobody will.
But the flow is stopped until then. If only stopped for one day, this is one day of no filtering.
Let me leave this argument without answering before results from Andrew`s experiment.
Water CO2 is already in equilibrium with air CO2. They are not changing. If the air CO2 changes, it only takes a few hours for the water CO2 to equal.
Yes, but you should know that equilibrium concentration is only 0.6 mg/l and is powerful limiting factor for water photosynthetic organisms.
The type of algae you want to grow... green hair algae... does not use air. It uses water only. Green hair is best because it allows water and light to flow through it.
Sounds truly. However one of scrubber advantages over common mono- or bi-cultural algae tanks is multicultural population having no limiting factors for every cultures simultaneously. The green hair may stop to grow when nitrates fall to 0, for example. Other cultures not sensitive to nitrogen should continue filtering.
