Dosing Pumps

[I'm Batman]

Why is the Kamoer X1 Micropump the cheapest dosing pump I can find - however it offers smart app... now I’ve learned the hard way, when these companies stop paying for licensing, the equipment goes dark and unusable.

 

These Jebao pumps come up on amazon have bad reviews. I have a small battery backup and if all power is lost I don’t mind reprogramming.

 

What’s the 2020/2021 consensus on dosing pumps?

[farkwar]

For liquids that can nuke a tank, I would never use a cheap Chinese dosing pump.  They don't have the same regard for life was we do.

 

For amino acids, food, or zeo dosing, yes(which I do by hand currently)

 

I dose the hard stuff, Ca and Alkalinity by hand currently as well, by way of aggressive water changing. When that gets tiresome, I will get a GHL doser for the Nano

 

 

[I'm Batman]

2 hours ago, farkwar said:

I will get a GHL doser for the Nano

So GHL???

[farkwar]

20 minutes ago, I'm Batman said:

So GHL???

I have made the decision to go that way(as opposed to Apex)

 

Yes

 

I would use the Kamoer pumps, FYI.  Their higher end stuff is lab and, I think, medical grade.

 

I am not endorsing anything.  Just saying what I would and will not use.

 

I have nothing against Apex, and it's cheaper than GHL.  It just looks like a cartoonist designed every thing. And GHL has an SMS module, which Apex doesn't.  I will need that on the big system I am building.  It can send out texts if the/my Internet goes down

 

The Polish company Pacific Sun has 5 and 7 head dosers. 5 years ago, I thought I would go that way

[mcarroll]

7 hours ago, I'm Batman said:

These Jebao pumps come up on amazon have bad reviews. I have a small battery backup and if all power is lost I don’t mind reprogramming.

 

What’s the 2020/2021 consensus on dosing pumps?

I'm not aware of any such consensus. 🤷‍♂️

 

Jebao dosing pumps are fine.  IMO stick with the non-WiFi "classic" version.  Where they lack most is in software finesse...it's a pain to (re)program them.  Logical, but not very streamlined.  One side-effect of this is that it's hard to tell how much you're dosing by looking at the software....it takes A LOT OF BUTTON PRESSES.  (eg if you have doses spread out 1 per hour for 24 hours, you're going to click around 100 button presses to look at all your settings to add them up.)

 

The Jebao interface is still highly usable, but at a utilitarian level.

 

If you want a nicer interface, presumably you'll have to spend for one of the nicer units.  (I have no experience with any of them so can't make a recommendation.)

[paulsz]

4 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Jebao dosing pumps are fine.

i had the jebao dosing pump run for about a year and a half. It seemed fine. 

 

 

[jservedio]

Kamoer is a real company that's been around more than 10 years - even though they are Chinese, they aren't a fly-by-night company making cheap knockoffs. I would trust their stuff without worry. It's so cheap because it's only a single dosing head and you aren't paying for the brand name, user interface, and higher quality components. The simple microcontrollers and bluetooth chips these pumps use are obscenely cheap these days since they need so few features and are transferring minimal data - I would bet the entire electronics package for the X1 is well under $5.

 

Personally, I agree with @mcarroll on going with a dumb unit if you aren't spending the money on an integrated controller setup like GHL, Apex, etc. I trust my old Bubble Magus BM-T01 that's been running for the last 8 years without issue. The pump heads are pretty flimsy and will drift slightly over their lifespan, you have to calibrate manually (by that I mean do the math and adjust your dose accordingly), and there are some quirks about them, but they are cheap, reliable, I've had no issues, and replacement parts are easy to find all these years later. I've never had a failure with them - the worst thing that happens is they slowly start to under-dose as the heads wear out. That's why you test.

 

Also, if they do go out of business and Amazon shuts their servers down or Apple updates their ToS like they do 60 times a year and their developer can't update the app to comply, you aren't going to suddenly lose the ability to use your pump.

 

Another option if you aren't very heavily dosing is to use Kalk - you can do that with nothing more than gravity and I highly doubt that'll be failing anytime soon.

[I'm Batman]

15 hours ago, jservedio said:

Kalk - you can do that with nothing more than gravity and I highly doubt that'll be failing anytime soon.

As corals have been growing I’ve supplemented Kalk in my ATO, however I just want to dose 1-2ml of Phosphates throughout the day. Good idea tho for a drop. I’d have to look at the rates and mix ratios.

[I'm Batman]

Also on the lines of the non smart pumps - I prefer locally controlled equipment so either wifi direct with a pc application, or even the gravity doesn’t need to be set, I just need to know how much I can drop in a day and if the liquid height in the container matters for the gravity.

[Tamberav]

I ran a Jeabo doser for a year and it had no issues. It was just the basic 60 dollar one with 4 heads. It did not lose its dosing program when the power went out. 
 

The only thing I didn’t like about it...is it is more tedious to change dosing schedules/amounts on since you are mashing physical buttons and doing simple math instead of just inputting and amount in an app.

[Joyz76]

Take a look here:

https://www.joy-reef.com/en/dosing-pump-diy-part-1-hardware/

 

 

[farkwar]

4 hours ago, Joyz76 said:

Take a look here:

https://www.joy-reef.com/en/dosing-pump-diy-part-1-hardware/

 

 

I love these instructions