Who uses oxygen probes?

[ToLearn]

Anyone using the Oxygen probes and PM3? Anyone know a cool or good reason to use one? Ignoring the expense even if it was affordable what reasons can people give for measuring?

I realize oxygen is important, but if you have proper flow on a battery back up and keep your chemistry and nutrients in check what else can you do? If you had say XXXppm or whatever measurement they use... if no one else uses it what can you compare that information to?

I did a search for both, "Oxygen" and "PM3" in the titles of the Neptune forums. Came up with 0 hits on each one. Hoping someone will be able to provide some insight on the topic.

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[ToLearn]

So not a soul huh?

 

[Deleted member 143833]

I've heard that people doing hydroponics use them but that information came second hand so I don't know how accurate it is. I think in an aquarium you might be hard pressed to need one; between water movement, skimmer, etc there is more than enough air-water interfaces to keep the water O2 rich.

 

[lpadan]

I am new to this game, but I had a main pump failure at 6PM on Friday on my office tank right after I left the office. By 10AM Saturday, 1/2 of my fish were dead due to oxygen depletion due to zero water circulation in the main tank. (skimmer still running on the sump)

While your pumps may be on battery backup, that doesn't prevent a pump failure. A DO sensor would alerted me to the problem. Maybe a cheaper alternative to a DO sensor would be to test for circulation or power draw by the pump.

 

[ToLearn]

If when that pump turns off there is a little extra water in your sump then is normally there a cheap float switch would have alerted you to the issue which you hook up for $8-$9 if you already have a break out box. Or $95 for a PM3 to plug a $499.95 oxygen probe into. It also looks like there is a $30 calibration adapter and a $40 membrane kit.

So for failed pump purposes it looks like at least a

$9 option or a $600+ option

 

[ToLearn]

You can also get a flow sensor for about $130 which can tell you if water is flowing through the pump. Even that and a float would be less then 1/4 the price of a DO probe and PM3.

 

[pencil3]

I believe the calibration kit is used for the older controllers (AC3 Pro & older) as the PM3 includes one. The membrane kit is used to rebuild the probe, you'll never replace it.