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Auto dry salt dosing, possible with this?

Received my feeder today, due to design won't be able to place the dry ferts in feeder straight, even for flakes I am sure it will get stuck, its good for granule/pellets though. I have ordered the empty capsules so when those arrive I will do a test run. I have placed the feeder in its final position just to see if it gets humid where it is.
 
Received the capsules today, just waiting for the automatic filler that I managed to get for £2+postage! With the filler I can fill 50 capsules at a time with the fert I want, so makes it easier to fill in bulk and dose accordingly.

Tested one of the capsules today, they take about 5/6 hours to fully disolve, at least 3 hours before they will release the contents.

The testing with the Auto Feeder is going great, where its placed it doesn't get any humidity stays allways dry which is a good result, tomorrow I will test how much I can get into each capsule.

When I get the auto filler I will start a test from next weekend and then see how it goes. Would be nice to just fill the Auto Feeder with two weeks worth of ferts and food and just forget about it, and just dose the EasyCarbo every so often. I am looking for a auto dose pump for that too 😉

Will report back with some photos when I get everything organized and ready for testing.
 
Matt Holbrook-Bull said:
itll be dead nifty if this all works!
are we happy with the dissolved capsule being in the tank? any idea whats in the shell?
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It says "Gelatin" capsules, I assumed they are safe, any ideas??? thanks
 
LondonDragon said:
Matt Holbrook-Bull said:
itll be dead nifty if this all works!
are we happy with the dissolved capsule being in the tank? any idea whats in the shell?
Click to expand...
It says "Gelatin" capsules, I assumed they are safe, any ideas??? thanks
Click to expand...

the only thing that bothers me is that gelatin is made from animal bone.. wonder what it will leech thats all.
 
Matt Holbrook-Bull said:
the only thing that bothers me is that gelatin is made from animal bone.. wonder what it will leech thats all.
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Says that its Vegan approved, so must be a veggie alternative rather than bone.
 
LondonDragon said:
Matt Holbrook-Bull said:
the only thing that bothers me is that gelatin is made from animal bone.. wonder what it will leech thats all.
Click to expand...
Says that its Vegan approved, so must be a veggie alternative rather than bone.
Click to expand...

hmmms.. maybe its pectin based then.

well if its veggie then we have no worries.
 
Matt Holbrook-Bull said:
hmmms.. maybe its pectin based then.
well if its veggie then we have no worries.
Click to expand...
Same as these: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/200-Empty-Vegetar ... .m20.l1116

High Quality 100% Vegetable Source Empty Vegetarian Capsules - Approved by the Vegetarian Society.
Produced in the European Union by a leading capsule manufacturer.
Ingredients: Hydroxypropylmethyl Cellulose, Water
 
Just tried measuring the amounts I can fit into the capsules:

MgS04 = 1.2 grams
KS04 = 1.2 grams
KP04 = 1.8 grams
KN03 = 1.5 grams
Trace = 1.1 grams

Now for the bad news, I just tried the feeder to see how many capsules I could fit in there, and I can't even fit one of these capsules into the feeder, the compartments are too small, guess its going back on ebay! lol

Well its still a good way to keep your ferts for a smalish tank, and just dose the amount of capusles you need per day, dose before you go to bed and they will be fully disolved in the morning 😛

Back to the drawing board!!! lol
 
Have you tried the feeder with the powders just in the compartments? Might be worth a go to see what happens.
 
slightly off topic but are there any automated liquid feeders? I would have thought that this would be easier to do than a dry feeder and would also allow a more constant dose of fertiliser. I guess a simple method would be something like a drip that you see in hospitals.
 
Spider Pig said:
slightly off topic but are there any automated liquid feeders? I would have thought that this would be easier to do than a dry feeder and would also allow a more constant dose of fertiliser. I guess a simple method would be something like a drip that you see in hospitals.
Click to expand...

There are, but they cost a fortune thats all! lol
 
Paulo,
Barr suggests using a hospital Intravenous Unit (IV) using a liquid fert mix. This is such an obvious and brilliant solution. No timers, no electricity.. Drip feed, so you only have to resolve the drip rate. The only problem is coming up with a plan to liberate an oppressed IV unit from the clutches of a the repressive regime of a local hospital... 🙄

Cheers,
 
Clive getting hold of one won't be easy I guess, but I am sure one can be made from a plastic bottle and tubbing!
 
An easy diy job would be a drinks bottle with a hole in the top and the tubing coming out of the bottom, after all that's all IV sets are. The main problem would be getting an accurate drop checker and fine tuning the rate. If you want to be really simple about it you could get a small clamp and tune it to the required daily output, and then put it just above the water so you can see the drops going in.
Another way would be to have a drinks bottle with two tubes coming out of the top. One long, down to the tank, the other short. The short one would have the clamp and would regulate air going into the bottle, and so rate. You would still have to tune it as the bubble rate won't necessarily be proportionate to the flow rate, but you would be able to see that it's working from the bubble rate.

Hmmm...may well consider this in the future but no where to hang it at the moment.

If you want an IV you can always wait for these places to start turning up:
http://dvice.com/archives/2008/05/iv_drip_cafes_e.php
 
Lots of information on this subject over on the planted tank forum if you do a search, one of the mods(whose name I forget, sorry! ) did a lot of testing on various devices to make this work, some pretty extensive research was done on this. Nearly sure there is a sticky in one of the sections over there about this if anyone is interested, probably DIY or equipment forum or something like that.
 
Found the link:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/equip ... thods.html

Looked at the kent aquadose- basically an IV giving set with a bottle. If you can get the giving set separately then you can easily set it up with a drinks bottle. Still need to calibrate the output though.
 
Zig the moderator you're thinking of is "wasserpest" he's still developing things as we speak but peralistic pumps (what ever they are) seem to be the safest bet from what I've read.
 
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