Automated phyto dosing - need your suggestion

Abhishek · Jun 3, 2017

Hi,

I have started growing lots of phyto and want to dose my tank regularly every hour with phyto. Not concerned with nutrients rising as I can keep it in check.
Have a dosing line free on my GHL and hence want to use it to dose phyto every 1-2 hours.
Thought is I can keep the phyto solution in cold bucket and dose from that . But wonder what about the dosing line which will be filled with phyto solution . Will it go bad over time ? My house is kept at 70-72 F .
Will it be sufficient to keep the phyto from not going bad ?

Regards,
Abhishek

mcarroll · Jun 3, 2017

How long will it be in the tube?

Abhishek · Jun 3, 2017

@mcarroll - If I dose every hour 1-2 mls, am guessing it wont live more than a day in the tube .

Regards,
Abhishek

mcarroll · Jun 3, 2017

Seems like I'd want that to be about my max time unrefrigerated.

How are you keeping the bucket cold?

If you can use something compact like that (that's a $30 refurb on amazon but there are a ton of different models to choose from, up to >$100) so you can shorten the dosing tube to the absolute minimum, I'd do it.

Abhishek · Jun 3, 2017

Awesome idea @mcarroll . All of these is mainly to increase bio diversity and nutrients in my tank so that i can fight the dreaded dinos.
Think best is to measure how much fluid will be held in the pipe first .

Will definitely look into wine coolers now.

Regards,
Abhishek

mcarroll · Jun 3, 2017

BTW, I think I stole that idea from another phyto thread. B)

AdamNC · Jun 4, 2017

The only other issue I see is if not shaken regularly the phyto does settle to the bottom. So over the coarse of the day, even if you shake it every morning, by the end of the day you may just be dosing green water or a ton of phyto depending on where the dosing tube is located in the dosing container.

crayon · Jun 4, 2017

AdamNC said:
The only other issue I see is if not shaken regularly the phyto does settle to the bottom.

If you are using a GHL dosing pump you could add a stir plate. You can program it to come on just before dosing.
Also, depending on what generation doser you have, GHL dosers now come with a reverse function. I built a refrigerated dosing system with the GHL dosers to do exactly what you are doing. I run phyto and other stuff for my NPS tank, and 5 minutes after it doses, it reverses the flow and draws salt water back into the line, putting all the food back in the fridge.