Cavan Allen

As I mentioned briefly in chat a couple days ago, I was talking on the phone with the maker of my ph controller and he said that it is indeed possible to make a nitrate controller.

The problem he said, is that it would be very, very expensive. He didn't think he'd sell many and at those lower production levels, it would cost about 2K for each unit. $400-$500 dollars for the probe alone.

The question is, would you want one?

Raul-7

Nitrate shouldn't become a problem in a planted tank if you have everything running smoothly(plants growing and weekly water changes). As with most of us, we have to add nitrate weekly since it is quickly used by our plants...but as in the case in Cichlid setups or SW, a nitrate controller might be a good investment.

Corigan

The way I looked at this was that the controller would add nitrate levels to the tank. For instance you would set it for 10ppm of nitrate and when it hit 9ppm it would auto-dose your tank back up to 10ppm. If that is the case that would be pretty cool. Of course I don't have 2k to spend on such things. I would get another big tank before I would get a nitrate controller..

Matt

Cavan Allen

That's what I meant. Not something that would limit nitrates. You would need to connect everything to a solenoid and a pump in a nitrate solution resevoir.. or something. Kind of like a co2 controller.

It's by no means necessary, but if I had money burning a hole in my pocket, I might give it a go. 5ppm nitrates at all times. Cool.

Raul-7

Oops, stupid me thought you were talking about a nitrate reducer...

gpodio

I said no mostly beacuse I find it easy to balance out nitrates using fish load and my daily dosing regime in the automatic doser. Plus the range at which nitrates are useful and not problematic is quite large so even 5-10ppm off will not cause any problems. It sure would be nice to have a complete controller however, I mean for me having nitrates automated is not going to save much time because I still need to dose PO4, FE, traces and potassium. But if a complete controller were to become available I'm sure I'd wish I could afford it

I'm sure it would sell though, most tech toys like these do.

Giancarlo Podio

tanVincent

Hey,

It will definitely be good for those control freaks which is definitely not me....

Besides, if i spend two grand on this piece of gadget, I'll get shredded by my wife with her bare hands...



Cheers
Vincent

Raul-7

Is there any link to who makes them?

Cavan Allen

Nobody makes them. The guy I talked to was at American Marine, the makers of Pinpoint stuff. He said that it is possible to make such a device, but nobody has. At least not yet.