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Auto dry salt dosing, possible with this?

wasserpest thats the man alright.

Peralistic pumps are used in hospitals for dosing medication through drips and stuff, you can pick them up off ebay if you want to try a DIY approach.
 
The mad scientist one? I seem to remember reading it had a massive fail in the end I could be wrong though.
I think the biggest problem with the dosing systems are A)hiding them from view B) ensuring they reliably add the same amount of ferts everyday and the of course spiralling costs. The most elegant seems to be the small water pump method which I can see being a saviour while going on holiday but it is impossible to use it inline so it is another pipe going to the tank.
 
Peristaltic pumps look good but not cheap. Still think the gravity fed version would be the cheapest if it can be tuned to deliver only 10ml/ day. You could tidy it up by setting it up to inject into the outflow of your external filter. Might require a bit of bodging though.
 
I have a few ideas that I am going to try out, if any of them work I will report back, thanks guys for the feedback.
 
Joined this a bit late but I was thinking of peristaltic pumps too. They work by a wheel (or two) squeezing the tube which pushes the liquid forward. If you remember your school biology, peristalsis is the way your throat works when you swallow.

They're often used to feed plankton/phytoplankton regularly in marine tanks. The only problem is that because they apply pressure on the tube eventually the tube wears out and splits. Not sure how long this takes to happen though.
 
beeky said:
Joined this a bit late but I was thinking of peristaltic pumps too. They work by a wheel (or two) squeezing the tube which pushes the liquid forward. If you remember your school biology, peristalsis is the way your throat works when you swallow.
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Better late than never Beeky 😀

Interesting, I had wondered how they worked.(My school was not the greatest, they never taught me that!).

I might also experiment with this in the future, am in no hurry for now though.

The first step would be making up my own solution of DIY ferts and seeing if the ingredients in the solution settle over time. If they do it would make it harder to get consistent dosing.

For now I will just wait and see what LD comes up with 😀
 
a1Matt said:
The first step would be making up my own solution of DIY ferts and seeing if the ingredients in the solution settle over time. If they do it would make it harder to get consistent dosing.
For now I will just wait and see what LD comes up with 😀
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I was thinking that too, but thats an easy one to solve, get an air pump into the container and pump some bubbles into it before you dose to mix the formula, you could put in a one way valve if you want the container sealed off 😉 or go for the extreme and get a magnetic stirrer.
 
Just purchased one of these:

AquaMedic Dosing Pump SP3000
sp3000.jpg

For £30 wasn't bad, now will have to make an all in one solution to dose my ferts.
But before will have to run a few tests and also will have to buy a timer that can measure seconds.

Automation is the way 😉
 
I'd be interested in hearing how you get on with the pump. £30 is a good price, do you mind me asking which store you got it from?

Thanks
 
zed said:
I'd be interested in hearing how you get on with the pump. £30 is a good price, do you mind me asking which store you got it from?
Thanks
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Ebay as usual 😉

BINKSY1973 said:
Hi,
This may be of use to you, i have found a timer that can be set from 1 second to 100 seconds and will repeat every 24 hours. Slight down side is it requires a 12v supply, but will switch a 240v load.
http://www.quasarelectronics.com/ci0051.htm
Cheers Gordon.
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I will have a look into it, thanks Gordon, but a minute digital timer is not that expensive, the pump is rates at 3l per hout which is 50ml per minute, just have to work out the amout of dry salts required for a 2 liter bottle and then set to dose 1 minute per day. Guess I will need some help with the quantities.
 
LondonDragon said:
but a minute digital timer is not that expensive, the pump is rates at 3l per hout which is 50ml per minute
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Fair enough, i will be watching with interest as im waiting for some dry ferts (hopefully will arrive tomorrow) to make up the all in one solution. And i can be away sometimes in the week with work so can be a right pain at times.

Cheers Gordon.
 
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