Programming a dosing pump, please help.

[Mandragen]

So this should be quick for someone who understands the programming of outlets a bit better than I do at the moment, as I just got the Apex lite and just now learning. But I have two BRS dosers coming in today and want to program them to dose calcium and alk. I have figured that my pH starts to go down at night around 1845 and comes back up to peak around 1445. I was thinking that it would be benificial to keep stability by dosing in pH to start dosing the alk through this time period. The way I figure it is that there is 20hrs to dose, I am dosing about 55ml of solution at 1.1ml a min equals 50 minutes of dosing time. To spread this out over 20hrs, that makes 2.5 min of dosing per hour. I was thinking about dosing 1ml then 30min later dosing 1.5ml, repeat for the 20hr period.

If anyone understands that logic or sees a problem with it, please help. I don't quite yet understand how to program the outlet to do this. I read something about starting timers starting at midnight?

would it look something like:

Fallback OFF
Set OFF
If 1845 to 1445 then ON
OSC 001:00/030:00/01:30 Then ON

 

[swearint]

Your plan sounds fine, but the programming is not correct. The apex evaluates statements top to bottom, so later statements will override preceding statements. The general approach is to define the primary behavior first, and then define exceptions. So:

[Alk]
Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/002:30/057:30 Then ON
If Time 14:45 to 18:45 Then OFF

Set OFF is not needed since the OSC performs both ON and OFF states. The OSC sets up a repeating cycle of 2.5 minutes ON out of every hour. Then between the hours of 14:45 and 18:45 the outlet is kept OFF. To stagger the calcium by 30 minutes:

[Calcium]
Fallback OFF
OSC 030:00/002:30/27:30 Then ON
If Time 14:45 to 18:45 Then OFF

Todd

 

[Mandragen]

ok cool, thanks for clearing that up! I knew I didn't have it quite right

 

[Bud's Reef]

I'm probably missing something, but I think you will only want to dose while the lights are off and PH is dropping naturally. If you look at the graph, PH should peak just before your lights go out for the night and then begin dropping to a low point that will level off until the light comes back on in the morning. When the lights are on it will naturally rise on its own.

 

[Mandragen]

you are not missing a thing, and I am doing just this. I just want to stretch the period a bit and try to keep it as high as possible, as it tends to be on the lower side of the spectrum. I have 3 sets of LEDs that come on and the pH drops right as the highest level goes off, this is where I want to star the dosing. I want to continue the dosing until right around those bright lights come back on

 

[Bud's Reef]

Cool, you might also want to add a "If ph > 8.4 then off" or something to that effect so that you don't risk it getting too high.

 

[Mandragen]

the pH getting to high def won't be a problem. Monitoring my pH with a controller at the moment and dosing by just dumping alk in, it only gets up to 8.4 when I dump it in. And yes I know not to dump but it's what I've been doing and it works so I'm not concerned, and the pumps are being set up today so dont lecture, lol

My pH actually stays down towards 8.1 and I think with this dosing method I will be able to stabalize it around 8.2 - 8.3, hopfully

 

[ToLearn]

May sound like fussy little details, but I am not sure you understand the chemistry part of things. Stating that you dumping in alk is like stating you don't have enough Fahrenheit in your tank and you want to add more.

But I have two BRS dosers coming in today and want to program them to dose calcium and alk.

Can you reword this?


You stated that getting your pH too high would never be an issue, but can you see any negative side effects of adding that line of code someone recommended? Wouldn't hurt to add that just in case.

Which of the BRS pumps did you get? The dosers or the ATO? What size tank do you have?

 

[Mandragen]

Say huh? I'm not quite sure I understand what you are asking of me? What's wrong with what you quoted?

I did have two dosing pumps arrive yesterday and I did program them to dose calcium and alk. I stated before my math and logic, even put in there how much they would dose per minute. If the exact pump is what you are interested in then you can check on the website and look for which pumps dose 1.1 a min you might be able to figure out which pumps I purchased. I'm not quite sure what my tank size has to do with anything. "I'm not sure you understand" anything about coral growth if you think the tank size is causing uptake in calc and alk. I was under the impression it was coral growth/size/population that was the factor.

As pH being too high in my tank, with proper dosing techniques and short of something going wrong I do not have to worry about the higher end of t he spectrum, no. My alk is down near 8.0-8.2 normally and even after dumping in alk 55ml all at once then it has reached a spike of 8.4. I understand that this is not the way it should be done but it was the way I had done it for months before the controller and actually saw the swing it created. Now I had been testing with a drip test and could not detect this quick spike and noticed no change, but that is a discussion of testing methods and not to get into that here. At first it was alarming to me, but if you conclude that it's what I have been doing for months and the tank looks excellent then it was working for me and not to be changed suddenly when the change was coming with the pumps soon either way. Sudden changes to fix something that isn't broken sometimes is worse than leaving them the way they are. Plus, I am sure the spike was probably due to the way it was monitored in the sump and not necessarily reflecting the truest numbers in the tank. I definitely don't see anything wrong with adding that line of code in and think it is a great idea, I didn't say I wouldnt and sorry if I was ungrateful for his help.

Now as far as the code, I don't know a lot about the code but if you can help tell me what might be wrong with that then I would be appreciated. That is the intention of this thread and therefor topic of discussion.

Furthermore I think that it is rude for you to assume that the OP knows less than yourself, or is anything less than intelligent. We all know what assuming does...

 

[ToLearn]

Trying to help, no reason to get your feathers ruffled. I'd really suggest reading up on your chemistry a bit more. Marine Chemistry by Chris Brightwell is a great book. Though I kind of don't think you are looking for any suggestions and seem to know everything.

You said your alk is down to 8.2...... I believe you meant pH and I am not sure you know what alk is. Not trying to be offensive or anything, just trying to help seriously.

I don't know why it was offensive that I asked what tank size you have. If you have a 10g nano vs a 500g reef the dosing quantities would be different. Obviously a well stocked 75g could use 5-6 times as much as a FOWLR system of the same size, but I just was curious in general.

I think you had assumed I created the post for my own good and to hurt and not help. You also read in between the lines something that said you were stupid or unintelligent and that wasn't written or intended at all. I just know it can be dangerous dosing when you are not sure exactly what it is you are doing and would rather things go well for you and you enjoy the hobby even though I have no idea who you are. Knowledge is power.

 

[Mandragen]

yes you are correct, I did not mean alk, it was a typo. I definitly don't know everything or I wouldn't have asked for help. Sometimes it is just frustrating when you go to ask a question about one thing (programming) and your whole tank and way of doing things gets picked apart. If I wanted an explination on alk, calcium, pH, dosing for a specific tank size well I would have asked and appreciated the insight. I chose the thread placement and topic for a reason, this is not the Reef Chemistry forum.

I specificaly asked in my post not to lecture about the topic of my dumping and you did just that, and assumed that I was confused at some point about my dosing or what I was dosing. If you were just trying to help then it was a misunderstanding and I will be the first to appoligize. I am sorry for venting. You are right about knowledge being power, but knowledge also speaks and wisdom listens.

 

[ToLearn]

Listening... rolling eyes. Just trying to help. Happy reefing.

 

[Slardar]

It is definitely more complicating that I've imagined.

 

[Mandragen]

So if I write code like this, does it matter that the "ph line" is at the end, or would it make a difference to put it at the beginning? Does the order of those things matter?

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/002:30/057:30 Then ON
If Time 14:45 to 18:45 Then OFF
If ph > 8.4 then off

I had checked the pumps and it seemed as though this was running for some reason out of turn. Just making sure the code is right and this means it would only run for 2:30 every hour, outside designated time period.

 

[aquamanic]

You've got the order correct. Statements are evaluated in order so if you had your pH statement first it would be overriden by subsequent statements. Make sure your pump is on outlet 4 or 8. It's a well documented issue with low current dosing pumps that they don't always shut off correctly on the TRIAC outlets.

 

[Mandragen]

ok good deal, I don't think they are and maybe that's what was going on. I will make sure that I change that for safety measures.

 

[Mandragen]

So right now I have my Alk doser programmed as follows:

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/002:18/057:42 Then ON
If Time 14:45 to 18:45 Then OFF
If pH > 08.50 The OFF

My pH has been hitting 8.5 during the later hours of the day and I was wondering if I should change my dosing to get it lower? It seems as though my pH has it's lowest point between 1:45am and 11:45am. So I was wondering should I just change the dosing to dose all during this time period, if so how? Would it look something like this:

Fallback OFF
OSC 000:00/04:36/055:24
If Time 00:00 to 01:45 Then OFF
If Time 11:45 to 00:00 Then OFF
If pH > 08.50 Then OFF

??????

Or, is there an easier way to write this?

 

[swearint]

You don't have to split the time into two segments. The Apex will wrap around past midnight. So you could use the following:

If Time 11:45 to 1:45 Then OFF

I find that the difference in pH due to photosynthesis is fairly constant. So if you dose it all at night, the daylight increase will be about the same and you will still reach 8.5. If your pH is running that high based on 2:18 minutes of dosage, you may need to cut back some. Alternatively, if you are using Randy's formula, you can hold out some of the Baking Soda and not bake it. That should lower the pH of the supplement.

Todd

 

[Mandragen]

good to know about the wrap around.

So if pH is still going to reach that high, no need to really change anything. It's only up at 8.5 for an hour or so, how bad is it being that high? It's only this way a few months out of the summer, in the winter it's down to 7.9 with the same dosing schedule. Should I even worry about changing it? There doesn't really seem to be an adverse affect on the tank because of it.

 

[swearint]

What is your Alk level? I assume you are able to run your tank with the windows open where you are? To get that pH level, I would expect a fairly high Alk and low CO2 levels. I have the opposite problem this far south. Hot summers, relatively mild winters. With closed windows and an Alk of 9, mine cycles from around 8.05 to around 8.2 with nightly dosing.

I don't really know if 8.5 is too high, but you might make the change just to see. It might make a slight difference and is easy enough to do.

Todd