# My Automatic Fert Doser (No 56K)



## intermision (Nov 7, 2005)

Simply amazing. I wish I could affoard to do stuff like this.


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## Betowess (Dec 9, 2004)

Smile, chuckle, smile... Sergio takes the cake!


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## tazcrash69 (Sep 27, 2005)

LOL, I think Sergio's next project involves a lightning storm, a hunchback assistant, and a 7' tall cadaver. 

:wink:

thanks for blazing the trails Sergio.


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## kzr750r1 (Jun 8, 2004)

Sergio, Thanks for this post.

The only item I see worth confirmation is pushing the solutions through one of the check valves, just to be sure. I notice on the calibration photo the other end of the pump is open. Not really how your using it any longer as stated. I would assume a bit more resistance with check valve. Haven't used one of these pumps yet so not able to confirm over here. 

You have raised the bar beyond the use of ADA products. roud:


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## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

Thanks everyone! The system itself is really nothing new. The inspiration came from threads by some guys on this forum, like Bill Harada and Steve Colley. I originally built the system to be displayed on the wall above the tank, which is why the equipment is so overboard, but a lot of it is absolutley unnecessary overkill!

kzr750r1 - the actual calibration took place with an ouput hose from the pump feeding through the check valve, and directly into the tank - exactly as a normal dosing would take place. The picture is just to show the pipette used. Sorry for the confusion!


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## boink (Nov 27, 2006)

Hey Sergio,

As per your PM ill post here. Well i guessi should put up some tank specs:
75 Gallon
ADA Aquasoil
4x54 Tek T5 on 9 hrs a day
CO2
EI dosing
2 2215 with 12mm/16 mm id/od

The reason i wanted to plumb it to the intake was i wanted to minimize back pressure from the water. I assumed the pump would not fail and let the reservoir of ferts empty out due to negative pressure. I want to setup the pumps so they plumb into my filters via a reducing tee, 1/8 x 1/2 x 1/2, but it seems they arent being sold. So i will custom make them it seems.

I would like to set up 3 peristaltic pumps: 1 for macro, 1 for micro and 1 for excel. I was going to get teh 3 RPM pump with 3 mm ID tubing. I will be dosing daily, so depending on the molarity of my solution i will adjust the timing accordingly. I want to dose very slowly over a longer period of time to make it more accurate. Not sure on the timers, i wanted to go with a digital one, but i have not researched that yet.


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## dipan (Dec 3, 2006)

Sergio, are the cone shaped flasks vented? I see glass stopcocks on the top of them. That could be a problem if not vented with a resulting vacuum and decreased dosing over time because of a decrease in input pressure to the peristaltic pump, no? I have done a similar (way less cool looking) setup with simple polyethylene bottles (1000mL) and decided to drill a tiny 1/16" hole in the caps for venting and to allow influx of air as the volume of solution is depleted. I also used some neat barbed dripless quick connects from usplastics. They allow me to disconnect and refill the bottles without a drop spilled. Only a tiny amount of air is introduced into the tubing when reconnecting. That might be a worthy addition, unless you plan to use a separate 1000mL flask for mixup duties, which would also work ...

Way cool setup, though. Love the lab looks. Maybe you could put a glass window on one of the doors of the cabinet, just to show it off? And a blue light in there to fully pimp it out? Hehe ... :biggrin:


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## TigerLilly (Oct 11, 2004)

I can just see a little man with glasses and a white lab coat running around a laboratory frantically mixing chemicals while muttering to him self hushed whispers of dosing formulas and equations.


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## boink (Nov 27, 2006)

dipan said:


> Sergio, are the cone shaped flasks vented? I see glass stopcocks on the top of them. That could be a problem if not vented with a resulting vacuum and decreased dosing over time because of a decrease in input pressure to the peristaltic pump, no? I have done a similar (way less cool looking) setup with simple polyethylene bottles (1000mL) and decided to drill a tiny 1/16" hole in the caps for venting and to allow influx of air as the volume of solution is depleted. I also used some neat barbed dripless quick connects from usplastics. They allow me to disconnect and refill the bottles without a drop spilled. Only a tiny amount of air is introduced into the tubing when reconnecting. That might be a worthy addition, unless you plan to use a separate 1000mL flask for mixup duties, which would also work ...
> 
> Way cool setup, though. Love the lab looks. Maybe you could put a glass window on one of the doors of the cabinet, just to show it off? And a blue light in there to fully pimp it out? Hehe ... :biggrin:


do you have a link for the connections you used and what ID tubing you used with the peristaltic?

thanks


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## boink (Nov 27, 2006)

Also, for those of you with APT pumps, what size tubing and RPM did you choose and why?


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## dipan (Dec 3, 2006)

boink said:


> do you have a link for the connections you used and what ID tubing you used with the peristaltic?
> 
> thanks


I haven't taken any pics yet as it's been in service for four days. Basically I've got an input manifold like Sergio's with three 1/4" JG tee fittings combined to give me a four to one manifold. Each has a JG 1/4" check valve. This is plumbed to the intake side of the filter apparatus. I'm using two APT Instruments SP100 / DC 12 volt / 10rpm / 3mm / Norprene tubing. linky. Tygon R3603 tubing everywhere. I've used the 1/8" tubing in most places with a short 1/4" section to adapt to the JG fitting via a JG 1/4" to 1/4" barb adapter. 1/8" Tygon from peristaltic to 1/8" to 1/4" adapter to short 1/4" tube to 1/4" JG barb to stem adapter to 1/4" JG check valve.

I decided on DC because it is flow adjustable (use a different voltage transformer) and because it was low voltage. Water hitting it's open case will not cause an electrical hazard. I should probably house it or have gotten the encased version, but that would have been more expensive and real estate under the tank is getting short with all these gizmos. My journal has some pics of the setup, excluding the auto fert system at the time of those photos ... linky


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## boink (Nov 27, 2006)

i think what i will do is find an ac pump with as close to 1ml/min flowrate with 3mm tubing as i can. That way making dosing solutions and setting up timers is easy to do


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## tpl*co (Nov 4, 2006)

Ahhh, a fellow chemist in our midst (haven't seen equipment like that since the lab) .

Yes definitely need some way to release back pressure or else those corks will pop! .

Wouldn't a burette work better than a pipette? (or have a burrette deliver things?)

Tina


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## kkentert (Jan 21, 2007)

YOU ARE A CRAZY PERSON!!!!!!
I love it!!!!!
Awesome post...


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## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

*Lots of Replies*

Wow, I've been tied up with work (held hostage would be more accurate) and haven't really had a chance to reply, so here goes:

*boink* - Darren, the questions you asked me via PM were really great questions, and I figured I'd answer them here as well, for everyone's benefit.

I really think you'd run into issues plumbing this into the intake. The APT pumps are great in that they have 4 rollers on the pump head which make it much less likely for the force of the filter to pull liquid from your reservoir - but not impossible. If the pump head were by VERY slim chance to fail, you'd get a catastophic dump of your entire fert reservoir into your tank. If you plumb it to your intake, you can't use a check valve to prevent liquid from "staying put" when not in use. If you plumb it to the outflow, you put a check-valve inline which only allows fert into the tank (which would NEED the force of the pumps) and aquarium water cannot back up into your fert resevoir unless the check valve AND the pump head rollers BOTH fail. I had a defective check valve on my setup which allowed aquarium water to apply pressure to the APT pump head. This pressure was sufficient to push probably about 30mL of water from the tank into the fert reservoir over several hours. Keep in mind, this was a "healthy" pump head. Ok - I'm rambling.

To answer your original question, regarding the "adapter" to plumb this - you're going to need to make it. I got the inspiration for mine from this forum. I put this article together for mine. You might find it helpful. Mine was plumbed into the same size tubing you are going to plumb yours into.

Your concerns regarding the back-pressure are valid. I was very concerned about this myself when setting this up. Turns out that the back-pressure's effect on the APT pumps' output is truly negligible. On my 70RPM, 0.8mm pumps, I get 10mL in 4min, 54sec with no back-pressure. When plumbed, it takes 5min 7sec to get 10mL. One thing I found intersting with the calibration was that it would take several seconds longer to produce the same amount of product if all of my lights/TV, etc. were on. I suppose the other devices are competing with the pumps for power.

That brings me to another point. You had mentioned to me that you intended to buy the 3rpm/3mm models. I have to say that I think you'd be much better off buying the 30rpm, 0.8mm pumps. Their output is essentially the same. I picked up the variable flow pumps (which turned out to be erious overkill). I find that the slower I run them, the less accurate they tend to be. Now, I can't say for sure that the same would apply to the slower fixed-flow pumps, but I'd bet it does. When you order, call APT and ask them to install 0.8mm to 3mm terminals on the pump, this way you'll be able to use standard airline or 1/4" RO tubing without the need for adapters.

You are most likely going to NEED 3 digital timers.

I hope that answers your initial questions! 


*dipan* The separatory funnels are vented! The last think I need is them imploding while I'm at work. I could just hear my wife now. 

The stopper has a groove in it...












...which lines up with a hole in the neck of the funnel:










Oh - thanks for the link! I'm actually already subscribed to your thread. 


*TigerLilly *-  I do mutter actually, but I have an Excel sheet that does the dosing calculations for me. Deriving some of the equations to make it works was quite fun.


*tpl*co* - Tina, I did think about using a burette (it would be much easier to calibrate), but I wanted the capacity of the 1000mL separatory funnel. The pipette was used to calibrate only, not to hold the ferts. 


*kkentert* - Thanks!


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## agdavis (Jun 23, 2006)

what do you for a living?


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## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

agdavis said:


> what do you for a living?



I'm a pharmacist. :icon_neut

Hey you know what - I need to update this thread. I'm not dosing the KNO3 and KH2PO4 together in the same funnel anymore. I took the micros out of one funnel and put it in the flask that was originally intended for the Equilibrium. I'm not going to use it (Equilibrium) anymore. I really don't think it necessary. One advantage is that I can use the stirrers to "homogenize" the micros before dosing. I noticed that when they were in the separatory funnel, there was actually visible "layers" after a while. So the KNO3 and KH2PO4 each have their own funnel and an be dosed individually. This way if over time, the plants' uptake changes, I don't have to discard the entire batch of liquid. roud: 

The way I made the solutions was such that 10mL of the KNO3 solution will dose 1ppm NO3, and 10mL of the KH2PO4 solution will dose 1ppm PO4. I do not add any additional K+, nothing to increase KH or GH.


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## retoid (Jan 2, 2007)

Awesome setup! I am really intrigued!

I have been googling all day looking for good prices on lab supplies. Do you have any suggestions as to whom might carry flasks, funnels, stoppers etc for a good price? The best I could find a 1000ml pyrex flask for was $9 but that was as a case price of 12.


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## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

Bryan - I got all of the glassware/labware from one of three places. Someone had asked me how much this all cost, and when I sat down and calculated it out, the glassware/labware & pumps cost TWICE as much as my tank itself, shipped! Now of course it could be done for much less. Matter of fact, if you're going to go with flasks as opposed to the funnels that will save you a nice chunk of change right there. Oh, here's those links, let me know if you need anything else:

Avogadro's Lab Supply - (real honest guy, ships very quickly)

The Lab Depot

ScienceLab.com


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## JFouts (May 21, 2007)

Looks Awesome... Hope it works as planned for a long time 

I did find one thing a little funny tho... The whole setup relies highly upon 3 rubberbands


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## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

JFouts said:


> The whole setup relies highly upon 3 rubberbands


LOL! That is hilarious! :hihi: I actually encountered an issue with that already - the rubber bands holding the transformer plugs in place have been switched out with zip-ties.


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## warr40 (Jul 20, 2005)

how do those x10 timers work? are they just like regular timers or do u need a controller? if so what controller are u using?


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## SuRje1976 (Feb 2, 2006)

warr40 - short answer is yes, they do require a control box. The control box sends signals to the individual modules using the existing wiring system in the home. See here.


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## Noxtreme (Feb 24, 2009)

I think i'm going to do a poor mans version of this soon. Basically the same thing but without all the fancy glassware and only 2 pumps.


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## kcrossley (Feb 22, 2010)

Are you any relation to Doc Brown from Back to the Future?


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## tyler79durdan (Jan 23, 2010)

No he's related to the character on Breaking Bad.


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## feh (Feb 13, 2011)

How do you callibrate your pH probe with this setup?


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## bobbydog (Mar 21, 2011)

Its alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Gatekeeper (Feb 20, 2007)

feh said:


> How do you callibrate your pH probe with this setup?


The heyco fitting is just threaded coupler. You loosen it and the pH probe can slide right out.


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