For those of running dosers in our SPS tanks.. what are you using?

[stevedola]

I use the Bubblemagus which I got new on ebay for 250. I used to have a litermeter with remote pump but the remote pump would keep sticking and not dosing properly. Nothing worse than a doser not dosing the correct proportions. The bubble magus is absolutely the easiest piece of machine I have on my tank. Set pump 1 for X ml for 3 times daily, set pump 2 for X ml for 3 times daily...load...done. No math, no conversions, no non-sense. I can dose small amounts a couple times a day or large amounts up to 24 times daily.

I use it on my 60gallon and my pops 90g tank. Never had a problem and couldnt be happier!

 

[chefzif]

For complete accuracy I would go with Profilux or Lietermeter, I have had both and the accuracy of dosing small quantities throughout the day work well! IMO Bang for the buck is the profilux and you never get any back siphon issues.

 

[taphil]

Bubble-magus for Ca, alk, and water top-off. As said above, it's easy to program. Just enter total dose in ml per day and how many times per day you want to dose, and it'll take care of the rest.

 

[danreefman]

had a profilux stand alone and it got stuck on. Luckily I didn't have much alk in there. Still use GHL controller but have a stand alone bubble magus 3 part, works great 250 new at a local retailer

 

[Catastrophi]

Using a Marine Magic triple doser.

 

[chamjack]

I use an Apex with BRS doser on the OSC command. Dosing Alk and Calc approx 40 ml a day. Tank is all LPS and softies though.

 

[MammothReefer]

Just wanted to update, thanks everybody for the help and suggestions after much thought I decided to move away from my current setup and I picked up a stand alone GHL. I haven't set it up just yet. I'm waiting to get some other things done first

However I am already a bit disappointed with the very minmal programming options. I posed this question in the GHL forum but the rep wasn't much help.

1) There is no way to dose prime numbers with Auto.
2) You can only dose 12 times in manual mode (i don't know why this is capped at all)
3) Auto mode doesn't do the math for you meaning I can't say give me a 110 ml and spread it over 24 doses, I have to figure out how to evenly split the total amount I want over the number of doses I want which would fine if they let you uses fractions but they don't. Which makes auto mode pretty useless Unless I want to do say 24x2 24x3 24x4, 23x2, 23x3,23x4....11x7, 11x8, 11x9. This leaves you again with gaps in dosing needs.


With that said it's still going to work for me, but here is what I'm stuck with, Before I set it up let me know if this makes sense to you guys.

I'm going to set up 11 manual doses at first. Dose 1-10 will be for me to get to the double so say I want 95ml
dose 1-10 would be 9ml, giving me 90, and dose 11 would be 5ml, or say 133. I would do 13ml x 10 doses, and the 11th dose would be 3.

The plus side is I can play around with timing, and it's pretty easy to setup now that I figured out how to do it. It's just not all that different from what I could have done with my acjr if I had used the time function instead of OSC. With the APEX OSC function now works on the second not the minute so it's much more accurate. So I'm not sure if I would have gone with the GHL again if I knew then what I know now, although the ability to calibrate the pumps is a very big plus for me.

Thoughts?
-B

 

[Chyendra]

I use the BRS 1.1ml/min doser with a RKL - It's kind of noisy compared to the Tom's aqualifter that I used to use. But much more accurate!

 

[ReefBeforeGirls]

BRS doser on a RKL - dosing every other hour from 12am -6 am

 

[scrapz]

bubble magus 3 doser. running flawless for 2 years, replacement heads are only $20 from BRS..

 

[divewsharks]

Just wanted to update, thanks everybody for the help and suggestions after much thought I decided to move away from my current setup and I picked up a stand alone GHL. I haven't set it up just yet. I'm waiting to get some other things done first

However I am already a bit disappointed with the very minmal programming options. I posed this question in the GHL forum but the rep wasn't much help.

1) There is no way to dose prime numbers with Auto.
2) You can only dose 12 times in manual mode (i don't know why this is capped at all)
3) Auto mode doesn't do the math for you meaning I can't say give me a 110 ml and spread it over 24 doses, I have to figure out how to evenly split the total amount I want over the number of doses I want which would fine if they let you uses fractions but they don't. Which makes auto mode pretty useless Unless I want to do say 24x2 24x3 24x4, 23x2, 23x3,23x4....11x7, 11x8, 11x9. This leaves you again with gaps in dosing needs.


With that said it's still going to work for me, but here is what I'm stuck with, Before I set it up let me know if this makes sense to you guys.

I'm going to set up 11 manual doses at first. Dose 1-10 will be for me to get to the double so say I want 95ml
dose 1-10 would be 9ml, giving me 90, and dose 11 would be 5ml, or say 133. I would do 13ml x 10 doses, and the 11th dose would be 3.

The plus side is I can play around with timing, and it's pretty easy to setup now that I figured out how to do it. It's just not all that different from what I could have done with my acjr if I had used the time function instead of OSC. With the APEX OSC function now works on the second not the minute so it's much more accurate. So I'm not sure if I would have gone with the GHL again if I knew then what I know now, although the ability to calibrate the pumps is a very big plus for me.

Thoughts?
-B

If you are just going to do the math yourself, was there something on your AC Jr you didn't like that prevented you from doing the same there?

If you want auto math, the BM3 does that. Not the most quiet unit, but easy to configure and reliable. I've used both an Apex with Drews Dosers for my main tank and a BM3 for my frag tank.

 

[MammothReefer]

If you are just going to do the math yourself, was there something on your AC Jr you didn't like that prevented you from doing the same there?

If you want auto math, the BM3 does that. Not the most quiet unit, but easy to configure and reliable. I've used both an Apex with Drews Dosers for my main tank and a BM3 for my frag tank.

I originally didn't think I would need to do the math myself, I was mistaken and didn't find out until I had the unit in my hand. The instructions are horrible. I believe the BM3 works the same way or does it let you put in the total dosage per day and then divide it by the number of doses you want vs putting in the number of doses and dosage for each dose?

 

[divewsharks]

With my BM3, I would enter the total amount to be dosed and then the total number of times, it then did the math. You would select the initial start time, after that it just ran. I will say it didn't 'drip' like my Drew's Dosers do; it doses the amount pretty quickly.

 

[silentscream]

The BM3 is a fast doser, but before setting up the unit I ran several test runs. It runs very consisten for me across all 3 pumps, at different dosing amounts. The noise might be a factor for some people, but I have a "fish closet" behind the tank where my equipment is stored.

 

[Allmost]

Mammoth, thanks for the review ! I was going to buy one tomorrow !
now Im gonna wait for the vertex ones to come out and see how those work, if not Im gonna go with BM ...

Im sure it wont make more noise than my MP60

 

[MammothReefer]

With my BM3, I would enter the total amount to be dosed and then the total number of times, it then did the math. You would select the initial start time, after that it just ran. I will say it didn't 'drip' like my Drew's Dosers do; it doses the amount pretty quickly.

Just to be clear you are saying you put in say.. 127ml and 12 doses, then it figures out how to do the "odd" dosage?

If so, I don't understand why the GHL doesn't do this, for a pricey unit it's a real bummer that you can only do things in auto mode in increments that you can evenly multiple them by.

It's also a bummer, that it doses (and I think the bm is the same way) @ like 60ml/m. Instead of a slow steady drip over a few minutes. So now it will dose 1ml/s vs 1.1 over the course of a minute. It was my understanding from everything I read (and one of the main reasons I bought the GHL) is that was able to change it's dosing rate much like a masterflex. This is not correct.

I'm starting to feel my research was swayed by reading to many misguided posts by "fan boys", or hooked up users
who didn't have very high demands from there dosing equipment.. Or even pseudo consumers, I should have been qued on to this by how admittedly the us rep was arguing with people about apexs on some blog post without really answering any questions.

To them maybe they don't care if they dose 66, or 67ml. Maybe I shouldn't either.

In the end I will make it work, the calibration function is nice and it's easy enough to program. If it doesn't work to my liking I'll toss it in the used section I'm sure it will get snatched up quickly. Since I already have the brs dosers, I probably should have gone with an Apex upgrade to take advantage the fact you can now dose on the second w/osc mode. If I hadn't had the dosers already I would still go GHL, or BM due to the cost (about 800$ after Apex & 3 dosers)

 

[MammothReefer]

Well, after typing all this out I came to the conclusion that I really shouldn't settle with something that doesn't do exactly what I want. I called up AquaCave explained to them I wasn't happy with how I perceived the product would work and asked if I can return it and get an Apex instead. They said no problem and sent me an RMA. So I'm going to run home at lunch and ship back the GHL. Then upgrade my AcJr to an Apex. Which will be sort of nice since I already have 2 DC8's, all the probes, and the dosers already and between the ability to do OSC down to the second now, and the ability to use the DEFER function. With OSC & Seconds I can setup my dosers as close to how I would want them to work.

The only downside to the apex (and what me not want to go that route in the first place) is the time function only works on the minute not the second. So if I wanted to set my dosers up to only work via a specific time range I can't get the precision that I can with the OSC function as I'm stuck w/the same issue I have with my Acjr which is only multiples of 1.1/m. The upside to it all is if I DO end up having to do some nutty custom programming to get what I want because I'm making things to complex..At least I can do it from my computer vs mashing buttons on a little interface.

 

[this is me]

I've been running my GHL 4 pump doser with a profilux IIIex since October with great success. I'll never go back to a calcium reactor again. Even on my next large tank(270gal). The reactor has too many ways to fail. Additives are pretty cheap if you buy in bulk like from BRS.

 

[silentscream]

Just to be clear you are saying you put in say.. 127ml and 12 doses, then it figures out how to do the "odd" dosage?

yes, it will calculate the odd doses. I'm currently dosing 93ml of 2-part, 24 times a day. That is interesting that the GHL won't do that.

But regardless, glad to hear you did not settle and instead went with the apex. However, I'm not 100% because I do not own an apex, but isn't there limitations with using Direct Connect bars (DC8's) with the apex controllers?

 

[MammothReefer]

yes, it will calculate the odd doses. I'm currently dosing 93ml of 2-part, 24 times a day. That is interesting that the GHL won't do that.

But regardless, glad to hear you did not settle and instead went with the apex. However, I'm not 100% because I do not own an apex, but isn't there limitations with using Direct Connect bars (DC8's) with the apex controllers?

The apex comes with an EC8, so I'll end up having 2 dc8s, and an EC8 to use. I'm not sure what the limit would is with DC8s? Maybe it can't get do seconds but either way I'll hook up the dosers to the new EC8, and leave older DC8s to break out my heaters, and my lights via different wall plugs.

If I had known the Bubble master worked that way from the start I would have gone that route, cheaper to. To bad Aquacave doesn't carry it.

Everything I read seemed to point to the GHL being a better unit then the BM. Granted there were plenty of people happy with there BM's, the vibe I got after reading to much was the BM's were a Chinese knocks off of the GHL, and had issues with the pump heads popping off.

Had it been more apparent and easier to find that that the BM auto mode is total dosage amount divide by number of doses, while the GHL profilux is dose amount multiplied by the number of doses. I would have gone with the BM from the start.

I'm surprised nobody has touched on this in the equipment forum that is a HUGE difference in functionality.