Question for anyone using BRS dosing pumps.

[Phranque]

I've been dosing 2-part for better than a month now, and have really noticed a difference in my M. digitatas & birdsnest, but got really tired of hand dosing 3 times a day, so I finally broke down & picked up a pair of BRS dosing pumps.

I noticed in their specs a maximum of a 20ft head height.... I've got 7ft of head height since I drilled through the floor & put them on a shelf in the basement, so I wanted to check and see if there was any loss. I ran the pumps at 2, 4, 6, and 8 minutes runs into glass vials & checked the volumes with an old 1ml Red Sea titration syringe. Much to my surprise, on each run, I was getting an average of 1.25ml/minute.... I realize 0.15ml/minute more doesn't sound like much, but thats almost 14% over what is generally regarded to be an "extremely accurate" 1.1ml/minute pump.

As little as I'm dosing, it doesn't add up to much difference, but if you've got an SPS heavy tank and are dosing a lot, 14% can be quite a difference....... just curious if anyone else has bothered checking theirs???

 

[fort384]

I checked mine, and mine dosed at 1.1-1.2 as well.

While the description on the site says 1.1 mL/min, the instructions that came with the pumps actually say you need to verify each unit's actual output before dosing. If I recall, it says the dosing will be consistent with each pump, but can range from 1-1.3 mL/min or something like that, so each pump has to have the real world output verified.

 

[fort384]

The other question then becomes, when you replace the tube annually do you have to reverify output?

Of course none of it really matters once you find the sweet spot for your tank so long as the output is consistent.

 

[Phranque]

While the description on the site says 1.1 mL/min, the instructions that came with the pumps actually say you need to verify each unit's actual output before dosing.

Didn't catch that part.....

The other question then becomes, when you replace the tube annually do you have to reverify output?

I definitely will.

It's been so nice not having to hand-dose 3 time a day..... Been testing twice a day in the am & pm just to make sure I'm set right, and so far, so good. But, I picked up 2 more pieces of digi from a local guy last night (orange & purple), so that's going to change the dosing once they take off.......