# JBL co2 Ph computer



## Insectkiller2005 (7 Jul 2015)

Hi There ,

Anyone use the JBL Ph computer ?


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## ian_m (7 Jul 2015)

Most people here don't use pH controllers as they have a habit of producing algae or killing your fish. Far better to get you CO2 levels correct via timer, bubble counter and green drop checker and/or pH pen than mess around with pH controller.

Remember they read pH not CO2 levels, we are interested in CO2 levels.


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## Insectkiller2005 (7 Jul 2015)

Really that bad ? Doesn't ph change when injecting co2 and that's how the computer works out optimum co2


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## Victor (7 Jul 2015)

I have a JBL ph computer. But I link it to a timer and keep the CO2 running during 8 hour a day.


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## Insectkiller2005 (7 Jul 2015)

So the computer switches off at night and then in the morning are all the settings still there ? Also does the solenoid shut when the computer is off ?


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## ian_m (7 Jul 2015)

Insectkiller2005 said:


> Doesn't ph change when injecting co2 and that's how the computer works out optimum co2


Quite but not quite. What you actually want of a pH controller for CO2, is one that turns CO2 off (or down) when pH has dropped 1 unit. 30ppm CO2 in your tank water will cause a 1 unit pH drop, regardless of initial pH.

You don't care about absolute value of pH as that depends on many things, water hardness the main one but dead fish, rotting vegetation etc. what is more important is the 1 unit pH drop.

So you set you pH controller to what ever you pH happens to be before CO2 on and to turn CO2 off when pH has dropped 1 unit. This should really be done frequently (daily/weekly ?). Also to remember to calibrate your pH sensor (weekly ??) as they are not a fit and forget device, and replace yearly.


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## Victor (7 Jul 2015)

Insectkiller2005 said:


> So the computer switches off at night and then in the morning are all the settings still there ? Also does the solenoid shut when the computer is off ?


I Always keep the CO2 flowing when the ph computer is turn on. I use it basicaly only to measure the ph.


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## xim (7 Jul 2015)

Insectkiller2005 said:


> does the solenoid shut when the computer is off ?



Timer is da boss here. When it's time, the timer cuts the power to both the computer and the solenoid. The solenoid is normally-closed type, means it shuts when there is no power.


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## zozo (7 Jul 2015)

I use the Milwaukee sms  actualy i started using it during an algae problem and still got it under control. Is it realy that good or that bad? I think functionaly good nor bad you still got to do it all yourself and double check all the time and keep in control of the controler. That makes them definitively not worth the price you have to pay for it when they are new from the shelf. It's a rip deal... The people falling for that, thinking they found the egg of Columbus lay back and watch with a big smile, could end up watching floating fish one day comming home and whine.

Actualy these are the people you want to meet  they sell this so called disasterous bad things again for an apple and an egg  and if you buy that and use them with sense they are actualy worth 2 apples and 2 eggs. Then you got  a deal.


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## Insectkiller2005 (8 Jul 2015)

ok so if just use my jbl controller as an expensive solenoid and put it on a timer for 8 hours a day this would be better than letting the computer adjust co2 automatically ?


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## GTL_UK (8 Jul 2015)

PH controllers are great if you want to grow algae  

Thanks


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## JohnC (8 Jul 2015)

i had the JBL ph controller (may be a different model) a long while back on my first planted tank. ended up ditching it for reasons people mentioned above. the unit was actually leading to my co2 levels varying way more then i needed and causing algae. the ph it is checking can be influenced by more then just the co2 levels remember. a well set needle value is something better learned.

i do wish i'd kept it, however, as if I still had it now i'd be tempted to use it as a lower end cut off limiter on a couple of tanks i run but am not often at. One recently suffered the dreaded "end of CO2 tank dump" and wiped out the tank. The ph probe would have stopped it.

A couple of drop checkers with kh4 solution is a great and cheap way to achieve what you are aiming for..... 30ppm.... that and a slow adjustment upwards on your needle value over time to the right level.


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## Jose (8 Jul 2015)

Insectkiller2005 said:


> Anyone use the JBL Ph computer ?



I would like to have one but if you are a newb then stay away from controlling your co2 with it. Just use it to read relative ph change in your tank as mentioned before.


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## zozo (8 Jul 2015)

Using a PH smart controler with common sense is imho knowing what it does and whats going on in your tank when it does. And actualy it only does one thing more then a drop checker does with a timer on the solenoid. Even working only with that without a smart controler can go as disastrously wrong. It's never the devices failing it's the users failing.  Your drop checker also is a PH meter showing a even less acurate color instead of a number. You still need to check your PH in a more acurate manner next to it. As you also need to do regularly with your KH. These thing can fluctuate and adjustment is needed. So with or without controler yu are always checking and double checking.

Many co2 user run on the edge, they asume to have more healty plants if they are on the higest point (in numbers) of the optimal conditions. But that just a falsity, because there is nothing more healthy. It's the same as being dead or alive there is non in between. You are healthy or you are not. There are many poeple running low tech and they have mighty healthy plants as well, maybe not growing so fast but healthy never the less.

If you run your co2 on the high end lets call it Lime Green then you will have not much tolerance, a few bubbles more per minute and you go yellow and could gass the tank. If you'r not at home and the temp rises your co2 presure will rise and you might go over to top come home and see suffering fish. That's the risk of using co2 on the high end of the numbers. And you're not using it with sense you are constantly in the danger zone hand down to the will of mother nature outside your tank.

If the temp drops the bubble count goes down. So regarding to that if the temp isn't stable your co2 is never always as stable as you thought you set it. That's just plain physics you never get around.

Now what does the smart controler do? We don't have to go in to that to deep we all know that already. The downside isn't in the controler it is in the way you think you should use it. 

many people use it to rocket their co2 level to the edge in the fasted time possible. It will shut the co2 down anyway if the set ph level is reached. So why would you worry about the bubble count? Make it 40 a minute and you're in less than an hour at top level. And thhat's the dangerous mistake to make.  If for what ever reasen the controler fails, a fals reading or a mechanical malfunction and keeps pumping your realy nuke it all sky high in shortest time possible.

So living lime green on the edge is like driving a sportscar with 100 m/h, 2 feet away from the edge of a deep clif, 1 little bump in the road and you go down the abys. no error margin!

Now if you use it with sense you go just green, your plants still will be healty the only differents is the grow a bit slower. If poeple start to yell we have plants that need the high levels, that's also a falsity.  Because then they only want to makee the impossible possible to let a swamp plant that usualy in nature only grows emersed growing submersed on the botom of a lake. If the plant needs that it simply not a realy suitable aquatic plant. That's the only truth about it. And if you stay just green you got an error margin.

Now back to the smart controler, how to set it? First take a drop checker and hang it in your tank. Put the probe of the controler in the PH 7 cal. solution. and set you bubble count regarding wath the drop checker tells you, make it lime green  and keep it there for a whole day. Now your bouble count is set to lime green drop checker. measure your PH and set the controler a few points lower. Let it regulate the co2 and keep lowering the set button til the DC is just green. You still have to check you KH and recheck your PH and calibrate the controller. These thing you got to do anyway, also with a non controlling pen meter and a drop checker. So telling a PH controller is crap again is a falsity based on nothing. And if you set a controller in a safe way you have something realy nice that will keep your Co2 more stable than without a controler and that certainly never will get you algae. And if it ever fails you're unlikely to go yellow because the previous set bubble count focused on th edrop checker will never reach yellow. At least not that fast or temps must be rising out of proportion.

Stay just green, stay on the optimum of the average and your always safe. Do you still want to grow actual terrestrial plants on the bottom of your lake you got to go on the edge to nuke 'm with co2.

Don't blame the material for your own ignorance.. Thumbs up.. 

Still my opinion is all that doesn't make a controler worth the price they cost.. it's a rip off..


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## ian_m (8 Jul 2015)

zozo said:


> If the temp drops the bubble count goes down


Mine is completely unaffected by temperature, are you confusing CO2 solubility with regulator supply rate ? Can't see how temperature should affect bubble counter bbs rate ? My regulator stays at 2.6bar and bbs rate stays the same come winter or summer.


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## Jose (8 Jul 2015)

ian_m said:


> Mine is completely unaffected by temperature, are you confusing CO2 solubility with regulator supply rate ? Can't see how temperature should affect bubble counter bbs rate ? My regulator stays at 2.6bar and bbs rate stays the same come winter or summer.



Sounds like he has a single stage regulator. It happens to my cheap single stage one but fixed it with a flow controller.


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## ian_m (8 Jul 2015)

My regulator is single stage. Also doesn't end of tank dump either, once cylinder pressure starts dropping below 800psi (55bar) the bbs rate starts slowing down (as would be expected with a single stage regulator), which I use as an indication CO2 is running out and got about a week left.


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## Jose (8 Jul 2015)

ian_m said:


> My regulator is single stage. Also doesn't end of tank dump either, once cylinder pressure starts dropping below 800psi (55bar) the bbs rate starts slowing down (as would be expected with a single stage regulator), which I use as an indication CO2 is running out and got about a week left.



Maybe its only noticeable at slower bps. I actually normally count the number of bubbles in 10 seconds. Its more accurate this way and it does vary maybe from 10b/10secs to 13 or even 15.


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## zozo (8 Jul 2015)

So you count your bubbles 3 times a day for a number of secconds and that makes it solid enough for you that it stays that way all the time?  Co2 presure is very much influenced by temperatur always was always will be, thats what nature does with it. Ask the high presure paint ballers them bullets hurt 3 x more at warm days.  And they use high grade presure regulators as well. Even regulators have a tolerance in presure the needle doesn't always show. As different PH meters do as well as diffent DC solutions give different colors. You have many many regulators and all have different tolarnces. Keep track of your bubble count the whole period and you'll notice fluctiations. You have good an lesser good regulators even from the same factury in the same housing. Some fluctuate more than others. 

the same goes for PH controllers some are good some are less.. Still got one an old Hannah instruments with a 10 year old probe and its acurate as hell. But will you be on the safe side and be able put in claim within the factory warranty periode, you need to replace it every year. Still doesn't mean you're safe, read the replys how many people had bad luck with controllers. But still that doesn't also mean the probes are all brocken beyond repair point blank on the day the year is over..

But regarding the fluctiations that's not the problem it can handle that, you're DC doesn't even react on it, maybe not even a PH controller will if its acuratie doesn't allow it. But a good quality controller well calibrated will detect a minimum fluctiation of 0.1 point and react to it a dropschecker doesn't. If your drop checkers tells you you're off. you''re allready of for over 2 hours. And wath does a yellow drop checker tells you, it says your PH dropped to a level where you can say omg got to much Co2 but the bubbes are still going. And the first thing you do is? Take your PH pen probe to check. And a PH controller tells you emediately there is something off, or the controller is defect or something els is wrong that doesn't take you 2 over hours. Still you need an other way like a pen probe to double check.

I can understand somebody with a bad experience with a controler is likely not to use it anymore. could be that a faulty controler caused algae. That doesn't make all controlers crap. Maybe you should have noticed very much sooner that your controler is faulty. Did put to much trust in the thing didnt double check often enough.

I got an opposite experience, i had an algae problem, mean while i find an old controler at a garage sale. Bought the ting the price was a lauch  took it home, it works i'm using it and my algae are gone.  That's all i can make of it.

Wana buy it?


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## Jose (8 Jul 2015)

zozo said:


> I got an opposite experience, i had an algae problem, mean while i find an old controler at a garage sale. Bought the ting the price was a lauch  took it home, it works i'm using it and my algae are gone.  That's all i can make of it.



Same as me. No way a d.c. is telling you half the story. Maybe if youre using a reactor but not with diffusers/atomizers.


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## ian_m (8 Jul 2015)

Jose said:


> No way a d.c. is telling you half the story


In fact a drop checker is way better, as it telling you the actual ppm of the CO2 in the tank water regardless of what your else is in your tank water. People go on about pH drop, which is fine, but due to other buffering substances other than carbonate buffering (organics) they usually under dose CO2, which is why people can do a pH drop of 1.5 - 2 units and not kill their fish.

Only issue with drop checker is 1/2 - 2hours delay before you get a settled reading.


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## Jose (8 Jul 2015)

ian_m said:


> Only issue with drop checker is 1/2 - 2hours delay before you get a settled reading



What about co2 bubbles going into the d.c? Many people including me have had a yellow d.c. and then went in with a ph pen and found a ph drop of maybe 0.5-0.6 or even less, ehich means less than 20 ppm of co2. This is why i think its not a good method except if using a reactor which dissolves most of the co2.

By the way ph drop for 30 ppms is normally between 1.1 and 1.3. Its not that different from tank to tank.


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## zozo (8 Jul 2015)

Jose said:


> What about co2 bubbles going into the d.c?.



That would be the same as taking a straw and blow bubbles in the dc solution with your breath. It will saturate with co2 so much it will stay yellow for the rest of the day. 
That's what my drop checker did, got such a hang  on and the pipe is very narrow, i guess that's what makes this type of dc react bit slower then those with a wider opening.
I will see that soon ordered me another one to hang somewhere in the tank with a succer cup. I'm just cuirous what it's going to tell me in the opposit corner next to the ph probe and if it reacts differently.


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## xim (8 Jul 2015)

Jose said:


> What about co2 bubbles going into the d.c?


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## zozo (9 Jul 2015)

ian_m said:


> In fact a drop checker is way better, as it telling you the actual ppm of the CO2 in the tank water regardless of what your else is in your tank water. People go on about pH drop, which is fine, but due to other buffering substances other than carbonate buffering (organics) they usually under dose CO2, which is why people can do a pH drop of 1.5 - 2 units and not kill their fish.
> 
> Only issue with drop checker is 1/2 - 2hours delay before you get a settled reading.



And what would make your ph parameters change like that so suddenly? Isn't there something you missed noticing earlier? I guess it wouldn't be a cow sneaking in over night and peeing in your tank and make it drop a 10 units. If that happens i bet it's not the controler to blame.. Rather you missed something yourself.

A fact is if a PH drops suddenly your Co2 should stop when using a controler, there is nothing dangerous in that. if the ph rises for what ever reason then you should worry. but then the controller comes in handy beccause you'll notice it on the numbers it gives you which i dc doesn't. So a fact is that a controller has advantages facing a dc. The only issue is, scenarios are rarely such drasticly so the cost of the smart controler isn't that smart of an investment when a cheap dc is as sufficient.

And if your water parameters can change so drasticaly you should be prepared for that beofe you even think of using co2. Like is it wise to use sertain KH or PH altering hardware or soil? You have to know whats happening in your tank know what water is comming from your tap or cannister you take home before the WC.  You can't blame a computer for not knowing that, it only does what it is told to do.

You're like an airplane pilot, has to learn to fly and learn how the machine works, what the hazards are and how to prevent them from happening, before he/she can fly with passangers on autopilot.


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## Jose (9 Jul 2015)

xim said:


>




Mmm I like this idea. Any specific brand out there Xim?


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## Jose (9 Jul 2015)

xim said:


>



Now, you still need to make your own 4dkh solution because from my experience what they sell you as an all in one indicator is nowhere near 4dkh. I think I'll make my own solution, use this d.c if I can find it and I'll compare it to the ph drop reading.


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## Insectkiller2005 (9 Jul 2015)

So looks like some like them and some dont .
I have the jbl pro flora v12 controller but people keep telling me get rid and just buy a solenoid .
All i want is non fluctuating co2 even if i have to get rid of the controller .


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## zozo (9 Jul 2015)

I would too if the controler was the culprit.  I have no idea about the JBL stuff. I got a Milwaukee and that one is doing ok.

Lately i experienced some electrical interference, that can throw a controler of balance.. So make sure there are no pumps or other electrical magnetic fields near the probe.
My probe reacts to devices in a radius of 50 cm depending on the power of the device. For example the air pump i use to vacuum the substrate, if it comes to close to the ph probe the PH goes down and co2 shuts off. I noticed it by chance that they are quite sensitive to that. Heaters have a coil as well, so it might also react to that, mine is in line so far enough away, didn't check it if it does. Also don't put the controler on a heavily loaded mains power line, give it a seperate power line if there are other heavy devices are connected to the same line, like fridge, microwave etc. If you got a big tank and a high watt heater, take notice wath you controler does when the heater comes in if they are on the same mains.


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