My Ghetto Doser Fail Safe....

[slowngreen]

REMEMBER THE WORD GHETTO!

 

Having a buddy lose his tank to his doser sticking on, I wanted to make something that will hopefully limit how much gets dumped in my tank if mine were to stick on....

 

Just used a small container, drilled a hole for a drip sprinkler  (1gph with vent sealed), glued it in place, then got an AutoAqua Smart Level.

 

I Just zip tied it into my sump. I put the dripper on the side and mounted at an angle since the bottom of the container wasn't flat. Then mounted the sensor around 100ml. 

So even though the container drains, if my doser were to stick on, the power will be cut at 100ml.

Tried it once with top off water and it worked perfect.

 

[slowngreen]

I've watched it dose twice now just to make sure it drips enough to get rid of alk/cal without building up and it does. May look like crap but I can rest easier now having it in actioin.

[Christopher Marks]

This is a clever solution to create a failsafe switch for dosing pump failures! We've all heard the horror stories before, this is a good move.

[dvs1986]

slap a patent on that bad boy!

[slowngreen]

With alot nicer container, it may be a more appealing item to have.

[Beer]

That’s a decent solution if your doser supports external sensors. Or are you using that to cut power to the doser?

 

I use those restricters on my air driven ATO to limit the drip rate and prevent over filling as the air pressure bleeds off. It was originally set up on a half gallon cube, so the extra volume after the float opened had a measurable effect on specific gravity.

 

I’m working on getting my dosing system set up. I am making a stock solution that allows me do dose a larger volume of solution to better control how much is dosed (15ml broken up over 5 doses instead of trying to split up less than 1ml). My dosing container will hold 10 days worth of doses (intent is to replenish every 7 days with 3 day buffer for missing scheduled top off). My tank isn’t consuming a large amount on a daily basis, so if the doser were to fail on, it would be able to handle the full 10 day addition. Corals wouldn’t be too happy with the full alkalinity addition all at once, but it wouldn’t be as bad as dumping a smaller volume of a stronger concentration.

 

 

[jservedio]

This is an awesome idea as a failsafe.

 

One thing you may want to minorly change is to put a divider down low and have 2 outlets - one each for CA and Alk. That single outlet is going to clog up super fast - any residual of one part of dosing solution that comes into contact with the other part is going to build up Calcium Carbonate very quickly.

[slowngreen]

It hasn't clogged yet but has looked like it might, so I blew some ro through it. I do agree it will likely clog pretty easy. It's a very small tube. Trying to think of something else.

@Beer the sensor is to kick power off to the doser.

[slowngreen]

I've thought about adding another nozzle or two just to be safe but also using my 3rd doser channel to dose tank water which is always 80* give or take into the same cup to help dissolve any build up. Thoughts? 

[Beer]

Or run your ATO through it if it can handle the volume/flow rate.

 

You could also just run a spare channel to run RO through it after each of the other components run. It would help offset your ATO.