Dan Earl A
Member
Does anyone have experience of the Eheim pH controller? I've researched online and found very little about it but assuming this is quite a good route to automate pH control and CO2 injection. Would love to hear people's views.
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Eheim pHcontrol+e
- Thread starter Dan Earl A
- Start date
To be honest not really needed and is really just an expensive gadget to go wrong and gas your fish, as well as having a reasonably high running cost in calibrating pH probes and their frequent replacement.
You would be better off buying a decent controllable dual stage CO2 regulator, experimenting/finding an efficient way of getting CO2 into your tank (in-line diffuser is a good start) and easily readable drop checker(s). If you must insist on having a gadget then a pH pen could be considered.
I never bothered with a pH pen as a quality/reliable one is £30-£50, requires calibrating if used irregularly, has a finite life and is delicate, but many people swear by them. Can be affected by "leaking electricity" in your tank, so should really measure pH from sample taken from the tank.
I just used a drop check placed at various locations around my tank, fiddled with CO2 bubble rate and surface agitation until drop checker was nicely green at lights on. Ran like this for years. Once got right it just worked, green drop checker every time based solely on bubble rate and surface agitation.
I used this rather simple guide below.
Perfect. Just the job. Plants happy.
Woow slow down there boyo... back off injection rate a bit or increase surface agitation a tad.
Well that's way way way too much, your fish will suffer, apparently. Though as you can see my fish weren't bothered too much.
You would be better off buying a decent controllable dual stage CO2 regulator, experimenting/finding an efficient way of getting CO2 into your tank (in-line diffuser is a good start) and easily readable drop checker(s). If you must insist on having a gadget then a pH pen could be considered.
I never bothered with a pH pen as a quality/reliable one is £30-£50, requires calibrating if used irregularly, has a finite life and is delicate, but many people swear by them. Can be affected by "leaking electricity" in your tank, so should really measure pH from sample taken from the tank.
I just used a drop check placed at various locations around my tank, fiddled with CO2 bubble rate and surface agitation until drop checker was nicely green at lights on. Ran like this for years. Once got right it just worked, green drop checker every time based solely on bubble rate and surface agitation.
I used this rather simple guide below.
Perfect. Just the job. Plants happy.
Woow slow down there boyo... back off injection rate a bit or increase surface agitation a tad.
Well that's way way way too much, your fish will suffer, apparently. Though as you can see my fish weren't bothered too much.
Dan Earl A
Member
Thanks for the response and I do agree that simplicity is the more reliable path and I have exactly this kind of set up currently which has delivered CO2 efficiently for a year or two. I'm always inclined to seek out ways of automating through 'smart' solutions so the Eheim unit caught my eye. I have hard water so I get quite big shifts in water pH from when the CO2 is being injected to when it is not (overnight) so was wondering if this could establish better consistency, or if indeed that is even needed!
, I've used a pH controller which was quick and easy once calibrated and then move on to just getting the injection rate correct and found the later more stable.