[APD] RE: Ph controller

["Thomas Barr" <tcbiii at earthlink_net>]

> After a morning unsuccessfully trying to buy regulator
> from an unbelievably hostile welding shop supply store
> employee (who evidently believed that compressed CO2
> was intended by God only for welding uses), I decided
> to give up and ask the group:

Ebay(20-40$), several on line vendors all ready to go for 65-90$......
I'd get one with a solenoid, I'd plug it into the light timer.

Then you add CO2 ONLY when you need to add it.
We add CO2 to help the plants grow better, the plants do not use CO2 at
night(well, one genus does, Isoetes, a CAM plant).
So why add it?
We do not add it to "control" pH. 
The salt content does not change, this is what can cause issues for fish,
not the pH "swings".

I think the whole business about pH changes is extremely over rated and
over blown with respect to CO2 injection............
Some of it is just plain wrong.

Amano's tanks all don't add CO2 at night.
I just found I could add a lot more CO2 without any long term build up
since each night the excess CO2 would be purged.
If anything goes screwy, I'm safer this way.

If the pH caused such negative impacts on fish/plants etc, why don't the
plants/fish die when we do large 50-even 80-90% water changes with the tap
that's often 1 full pH unit different?

You can do this every day, once a week, once a month etc, fish are happy.

Shop at beverage or fire extinguisher places for gas tanks/refills. I've
heard a number of welding service folks being cranky when trying to get a
regulator. I like the Victors also personally.

The other reason NOT to use a pH controller: often we forget to measure the
KH, so we get use to setting a pH since that's generally the variable that
moves around. So if you have the pH set, and the KH drops 1-2 degrees in
the tap due to spring melt, you do not have enough CO2 and you get BBA
while thinking the CO2 is fine.

I see this a dozen times a month, sometimes more.

Now if you add CO2 using a solenoid for the on/off function with the
lights, and use a needle valve, the valve does not change due to KH
changes, pH changes etc, it changes as you turn the valve knob. Once set,
it'll stay at that rate fair consistently.

Now a pH meter is a good thing to have.
You can see if you need to adjust the needle valve using this.
KH can catch you off guard, so watch that if anything seems wrong and look
at the pH afterwards.
<.  Do I really need a pH controller?

No, no one does.

> 2.  If not, and I order the Milwaukee set up (both of
> which I hope you approve), what do I do with the
> solenoid?  Take it off?  Does it come off this set up?

Keep it.
Get a pH meter instead.

> Darrell Fennell
> P.S.  I realize that there is probably an answer to
> this in the archives, but I have spent so much time
> reading contradictory advise on the subject, and
> having talked to this salesman (who is as adept at
> customer relations as I am in setting up this gas tank
> system), if I don't plunge in soon I'm going to talk
> myself out of the whole thing.
> Thanks again,
> dkf

Get the meter and reg. Find a decent gas tank supplier(not the Welding
place).

Regards, 
Tom Barr

3rd annual Plant Fest July 8-14th 2005!
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