Week 1 Screen Growth
Here's some results for the turf bucket that was built for the main (not nano) build thread. Below are the pics of the screen, day by day, for the first seven days. I had sanded both sides of the screen, and then "seeded" the screen by rubbing green algae HARD into it. After water flowed over it, only a couple visible specs remained (the rest are invisible spores) that grew a little by the Day 2 pic. It should be noted that this new bucket is working side-by-side on the same tank that my original test bucket is on:
This means that the new screen is sharing nutrients and competing directly against my established screen that I got pre-grown from IA over a month ago. Also, N and P were already zero, so nutrients were hard to come by. So this new screen had little to grow on, unlike the nano. Nevertheless, these pics show the growth progress you MIGHT expect if you decide to grow your own screen from scratch:
Day 2; the specs from seeding are visible:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay2.jpg
Day 3:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay3.jpg
Day 4; Brown diatoms have coated the screen:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay4.jpg
Day 5: Green hair algae specs are starting to lengthen:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay5.jpg
Day 6:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay6.jpg
Day 7: Some green hair is over two inches long:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay7.jpg
Day 7 Closeup; Some brown spots are lengthening, and some green hair is flowing past the bottom; And although it's hard to see, most of the holes are still open:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay7closeup.jpg
Day 8:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay8.jpg
Day 9; Some brown spots are getting thick, and some green areas are starting to cover up other areas. Almost all holes are grown over; time to clean!
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay9.jpg
Day 9 Screen Removed; Note the light colored spots on the bottom half. These are probably copepods eating the algae, since I did not clean and freshwater-rinse in over a week:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay9out.jpg
Day 9 Closeup of Spots:
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay9spots.jpg
Day 9 Removing the green algae by hand first (used toothbruth second):
Day 9 Harvest of first week; Remember that this screen is getting what nutrients are leftover from my other screen:
Day 9 After Cleaning; Note I cleaned both sides, which you only do the first cleaning (thereafter you only clean one side at a time):
Hi Res:
http://www.radio-media.com/fish/ScreenBuildDay9after.jpg
So that takes us through the first cleaning cycle of a new screen. Was surprised to see the light spots on the screen since I never saw any on my established screen, but then this new screen is so thin right now that any spots become easily visible. You should not go more than a week between cleaning and a freshwater rinse (freshwater will kill the pods) like I just did; I just wanted to get a decent amount of algae to harvest so you would be able to see it.
Interesting that all the spots are on the lower half of the screen, which in my bucket is the part that stays underwater more often, since the bucket fills partially as the pump runs. (It shouldn't do this, but I have not connected a ball valve to the pump yet, so I can't slow it down). So apparently, the copepods can't survive well when the water flows away, leaving just air. This is a good reason to not submerge your screen, and also to consider having a timer on the pump to let the screen dry out for 30 or 60 seconds between "waves".
On the cleaning, note that I took off all the green, but left the brown. You always want to do this, in order to prepare the screen for developing real red/brown turf later.
Note on "Day 9 Screen Removed", that there is a bit more coverage on the right than on the left. That's because most of the flow has been going on the right side. But as you can see it does not change the coverage that much.