Semi finished reactor
Basically finished reactor, just missing the cylindrical heat sink
Basically finished reactor, just missing the cylindrical heat sink
DIY Macro Reactor
- Thread starter reefs4life
- Start date
- Location
- Orange county
Nooice tagging along.
- Location
- Orange county
Nooice tagging along.will this light be great for growing
Blue ochtode Macroalgae
Blue ochtode Macroalgae
Peeled back the aluminum foil ghetto reflector lol so you guys can see the inside. I made the 2 clear plenums/diffuser plates using a 4" holesaw and made about 8 holes in each all around
As you mentioned whether or not it will grow blue ochtodes, I don't have any of that so idk but I did put some dragon's breath algae in the bottom section to see how it grows. Figured it grows much slower than chaeto so I won't have to reach for it for a while
- Location
- Orange county
I hope it works out. I have already started plan my diy to.
- Location
- Orange county
any growth yet
It looks very professional, good job on it. I am not sure how reflective aluminum foil is compared to mylar. Mylar is something you can look into to wrap around the reactor. It's on the back of some wrapping paper, balloons or you can just buy a survival blanket.
I am looking forward to seeing the growth.
I am looking forward to seeing the growth.
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- Location
- north babylon long island
Great topic glad I found it cause I was wanting to do this too I might try it with some old junky skimmers I got laying around
- Location
- Orange county
update growth yet
- Location
- Glendale,Queens.
+1 ..a diy is nice to share BUT...without positive results it isn't helping others from wasting time and money and could prevent others from making the same mistakes
Yeah sorry about the late update but unfortunately the algae reactor isn't working as I expected it to. I take it I used bad chaeto because it had some cyano growing on it when I threw it in there and I think it must have ruined the chaeto itself. I was planning on cleaning it out today and restarting the process.
- Location
- Dingmans ferry PA
Maybe it was to much light?
You have a good base to work with. You should try growing it without the foil. If it starts to grow the foil was probably the issue. Maybe it got hot or the wrinkles in the foil redirect light and caused burning. If the algae still doesn't grow add a dome cfl light from the outside. If it starts to grow the lighting is the issue.
Just keep tweaking it. No need to start over.
Just keep tweaking it. No need to start over.
Yeah I think you're right about the foil, that may have over done it. I just need to clean out the reactor a bit, got a bunch of unwanted algae in it and honestly the chaeto looks like a nightmare so I'll just take a bit from my fuge to put into it
Restarted 2 days ago with some fresh chaeto thanks to dubs. Looks like it's doing better, no signs of nuisance algae. As you can see, I also took down the aluminum foil and bumped up the flow
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Great growth after restart with fresh algae, no aluminum foil and higher flow!!
Thank you very much! Growth has definitely taken off after the few tweeks, I would say that it is now growing properly.
Now I'm curious about dosing the algae, I wonder what difference that actually makes.
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