Dosers

[fyrefysh]

Hey all,

I've been looking at getting the Aqua Medic Reefdoser Triple. Has anyone here used this? Is it a good doser? I've been thinking about using it as a water top-off and dosing other things (B-Ionic) down the road. Is this a good plan?

- fyrefysh

 

[fyrefysh]

Bump, c'mon guys! I know some of you have some valuable info pertaining to dosers. Share it with me . . . please?

 

[Anonymous]

I have the LiterMeter III that I use for my Kalk reactor for all topoff and its great. It can control up to 3 pumps if you wish to.
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Honda XRM

 

[ChrisRD]

I haven't actually used the AquaMedic doser but I'd be willing to try one considering they are a decent manufacturer...

JMO

 

[Anonymous]

I remember I have a Aqua Medic Single doser. The problem with it is that you cannot change the dosing rate. The Triple looks like its got a controller though.
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Mercedes 220

 

[Unarce]

I know Greg's (GSchiemer) likely used every model out there, but he'll probably swear by the LiterMeter as well. I'm also considering using one to auto top-off and dose B-Ionic. I think I'll start another thread on that.

 

[fyrefysh]

I'm also considering using one to auto top-off and dose B-Ionic. I think I'll start another thread on that.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

 

[Mihai]

I got a couple of pumps that were used in hospitals for IVs (of feeding tubes) from ebay. I'm quite happy with them (they have backup batteries to remember the dose, alarms for out of liquid, etc.). At $45 each it was a bargain.

M.

 

[ChrisRD]

I've used several of the medical pumps myself - not too thrilled with most of them over the long term, although some designs are better than others. Some are noisy and/or use thin tubing that doesn't last very long. Many of them have very poor head pressure capabilities too compared to something like a LiterMeter or the heavier pumps made by Cole-Parmer.

JME

 

[Len]

I'm another Litermeter III user/fan. I've always wanted to buy the supplemental pumps to dose my additives in conjunction with my kalkwasser/top-off, but I don't have the room in my cabinent (or anywhere nearby) to put the additives.

 

[Mihai]

I've used several of the medical pumps myself - not too thrilled with most of them over the long term, although some designs are better than others. Some are noisy and/or use thin tubing that doesn't last very long. Many of them have very poor head pressure capabilities too compared to something like a LiterMeter or the heavier pumps made by Cole-Parmer.

JME

That's scary - I just got mine this week and planned to put them to good use over the weekend. I take it that I'll need to place them higher than the containers and buy lots of extra tubes?

Mine are the Flexiflow III from Ross Labs:
http://www.msdistributors.com/biomed/meh/ROSS.HTM

any info on those?

Thanks,
Mihai

 

[GSchiemer]

I know Greg's (GSchiemer) likely used every model out there, but he'll probably swear by the LiterMeter as well. I'm also considering using one to auto top-off and dose B-Ionic. I think I'll start another thread on that.

I wasn't ready to discuss the AquaMedic dosing system but you pulled me into this thread Kratos.

To date, the Spectrapure LiterMeter III is the best dosing pump that I've used, and I think I've tried all of them. It's proven over a period of YEARS to be reliable and accurate, and it's very easy to set up and program. In addition, Spectrapure offers great customer service.

I recently purchased the AquaMedic dual dosing pump. I haven't used it enough to fully comment but I'll make a few points:

It appears to be well-made; that's good. And my first impression is that it's a good value.

The "instructions" are horrible and the programming routine is even worse. It's very convoluted. Let's hope I don't have to adjust it too often. Just for the record, I'm very tech-savy and don't often complain about complicated routines, but this is plain bad.

The display is bright and clear; they use red LEDs, BUT it "flashes" and scrolls continuously, even after the programming routine is complete. I can envision this being very annoying for many people. If it's in a cabinet and out of sight, then this would not be an issue, but you sure don't want it in plain view. I'd compare it to those annoying flashing ads on some web pages.

There's no calibration routine built into the programming, as there is on the LiterMeter. You can't rely on the programmed amounts either because these will change as the tubing and rollers age.

I don't have an opinion on its accuracy or reliability yet. They do mention a limited life on the motor and that it's an expendable part. That's a bit troublesome.

Right now, I would say that, money aside, the LiterMeter III is the better unit by far, but the AquaMedic may prove to be a good value and a good entry point for some. We'll see.

Greg

 

[GSchiemer]

FWIW, I'm not a fan of ANY of the hospital surplus pumps as aquarium dosers and would NOT recommend them to anyone. They were not intended for the type of dosing that we require or the duty cycle that we'd expect. IME, they are not reliable and don't maintain their accuracy. They require way too much fiddling and maintenance for my taste, and they absolutely don't work well with kalkwasser dosing. I've had a few near-disasters with these things and I won't try them again in any critical application. My last hospital surplus pump "beeped" all the time and was incredibly annoying. The face plate on the one before that fell off after a few months of use. I had to replace the tubing on another every week when I used it to dose kalkwasser. You get the idea.

Greg

 

[Anonymous]

I'm another Litermeter III user/fan. I've always wanted to buy the supplemental pumps to dose my additives in conjunction with my kalkwasser/top-off, but I don't have the room in my cabinent (or anywhere nearby) to put the additives.

I've been sitting on an extra pump module for like 2 years now. Still in the box. I planned on dosing B-Ionic with the pumps but then I figured out it's a hell of a lot simpler to just top off with kalk and one pump module, or just dose the B-Ionic by hand.

The part that sucks is it's pretty much worthless w/o the main console, which makes it pretty much unsellable. So if you are going to buy one, let me know!

 

[ChrisRD]

Mine are the Flexiflow III

That was the last one I had. I also got one for a friend as well. I got rid of it after about a year and got a Cole-Parmer because I was dosing through a tall kalkreactor and the Cole-Parmer was much better at handling the vertical head.

FWIW, they were the best of the medical feeding pumps I've used. Because of the mechanism that clamps over the tubing they seem able to handle more vertical head than the ones that just work via tension. If you get quiet ones and don't need to push a lot of vertical head to the tank in your setup you should be fine. Tubing life varies greatly depending on what you're dosing and what type of tubing you use but expect to change it every few months. The large, heavy duty tubing in pumps like the LiterMeters and Cole-Parmers lasts for years.

 

[Mihai]

Mine are the Flexiflow III

I've had one of those and got one for a friend as well. They were the best of the medical feeding pumps I've used. Because of the mechanism that clamps over the tubing they seem able to handle more vertical head than the ones that just work via tension. If you get quiet ones and don't need to push a lot of vertical head to the tank in your setup you should be fine. Tubing life varies greatly depending on what you're dosing and what type of tubing you use but expect to change it every few months. Heavier duty pumps like the LiterMeters and Cole-Parmers have tubing that lasts for years.

Thanks, you give me hope. My heart just sank after I read Greg's post. Especially since, in hindsight, it makes sense: I assume that the tubes that came with it are disposable (after they are used once I assume that medical protocol asks for them to be thrown away). That's why they are probably expected to last not as much as the other ones. I'll try to lookup some heavy duty tubing for them, perhaps I'll make it with these pumps for a while until I can save for a more serious set of pumps.

Do you know of any heavy duty tubing that would work for this pump? Where did you get your tubing (assuming that the original one didn't quite last too much)? Also, as you used them, did you even consider calibrating them? If yes, how?

Thanks,
Mihai

 

[ChrisRD]

The design/size of the feeding pumps sorta limits you to fairly light duty tubing (think hospital IV lines). IME the clamp style pumps like yours have less of a problem with tubing life than the tension models. Your best bet is to just ask the vendor you're getting the pump from to include the longest lasting stuff they have. The larger peristaltic pumps like LiterMeters and Cole-Parmers use much larger, thicker walled tubing - it would never fit in a medical feeding pump.

As for calibration - as far as I know you can't adjust those medical pumps so you can't calibrate them. The dose rate can vary significantly from what is shown on the readout depending on what tubing you're using, head pressure in your configuration, etc. I just used a stopwatch and a measuring cup to get an idea of actual flowrate.

 

[Mihai]

Well, for the same tube and head, my three pumps do 2.5, 2.62 and 2.74 ml/h when I set them to deliver 3ml/h, that's about 10% error between the fastest and the slowest, that's why I wanted to calibrate them.
I guess that I can switch them every couple of weeks, but I would have preferred to turn a screw and fix them for good .

I assume that you run these things continuously right? Instead of measuring cup and stopwatch I used a seringe and a wall clock for 12 hours at a time. Actually at higher rates they are quite a bit more accurate than this (about 2% accuracy), but I can't run them fast can I?

I guess that my question is if there is any way to avoid running them all the time (as this will both ruin my tubing faster and decrease the accuracy). If I'd have a fixed output pump I'd just put it on a digital timer and run it 7 minutes every day for example (8 when I need more, etc.), but this pumps have battery backups (which I can disable), and worse, they forget the setting if you power them down (with the battery disabled).

Thanks,
Mihai

 

[GSchiemer]

I guess that my question is if there is any way to avoid running them all the time (as this will both ruin my tubing faster and decrease the accuracy). If I'd have a fixed output pump I'd just put it on a digital timer and run it 7 minutes every day for example (8 when I need more, etc.), but this pumps have battery backups (which I can disable), and worse, they forget the setting if you power them down (with the battery disabled).

Thanks,
Mihai

These are some of the shortcomings of hospital surplus peristaltic pumps and you have to live with them. There's no way to independently control or calibrate the independent channels, which IS possible on both the AquaMedic and Spectrapure peristaltic pumps. Also, both the AquaMedic and Spectrapure controllers will retain their settings if powered off; there's no way to overcome this with your pump.

Greg

 

[Mihai]

These are some of the shortcomings of hospital surplus peristaltic pumps and you have to live with them. There's no way to independently control or calibrate the independent channels, which IS possible on both the AquaMedic and Spectrapure peristaltic pumps. Also, both the AquaMedic and Spectrapure controllers will retain their settings if powered off; there's no way to overcome this with your pump.

Greg

This sucks. I'll probably upgrade soon. The thing is that I though that hospital grade equipment is built to higher standards than that for hobbies (Ross labs advertises an unmatched 5% accuracy), but I guess that I was wrong. I'll look into the aquamedic as it seems rather inexpensive and I didn't hear of bad reviews about it so far (didn't hear about good reviews either other than the one in this thread).

Thanks,
Mihai