DIY Drop Checker - Page 32 - DIY Aquarium Projects

devocole · 04-20-2008, 04:17 PM

what would you recommend for acrylic?

hoppycalif · 04-20-2008, 06:57 PM

Acrylic cement is just a solvent that softens the acrylic, so it welds to another piece of acrylic. The high viscosity type cement has pieces of acrylic dissolved in the solvent, so it can also fill gaps or make filets at the corners. I use the high viscosity type. I buy it at the "Tap Plastic" store near me.

curt_914 · 04-21-2008, 04:52 PM

I use Weldon 3 acrylic cement I get from my local distributer, you should be able to order from them online here;
http://www.plasticareinc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

You may have to e-mail them for priceing and avaliability. Also here is the info on it;
http://www.ipscorp.com/industrial/acrylics.html

Curt

devocole · 04-22-2008, 11:41 AM

You guys were right, the silicone leaked. I tore it apart, and used acrylic epoxy and here it is. I'm going travelling so i won't try it out for 4 months, but i'll post something when i do. Thanks

sebas · 04-23-2008, 05:14 PM

here my DIY drop checker

Material:
Silicone
funnel
test tube
white enamel
suction pad

hoppycalif · 04-23-2008, 06:18 PM

Wow! I'll bet high school chemistry labs will all be short on funnels and test tubes now. That one is an extremely easy to make variation, and good looking too.

Bk828 · 05-22-2008, 08:44 AM

Thanks for the ideas. Great thread

Brendan Redler · 06-10-2008, 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoppycalif

The reason for setting the KH of the indicator solution to 4 is so that with 30 ppm of CO2 the indicator color will be green, and an unequivocal green. That gives the maximum accuracy. If you had a lower KH, the 30ppm color would be near yellow, almost impossible to judge, and if you had a higher KH, the color would be blue green, again very hard to judge. Actually, any KH that is within .5 of 4.0 will work, but 4 seems to be just about the perfect KH. Since it is easy to get the KH to whatever you want it to be, as accurate as you want it to be, why not shoot for 4.00 KH? (You can even use 10X the usual water sample size, so that each drop of KH solution will equal .1 degrees of KH. I used 4X and could judge it even closer by noting how nearly each drop came to tipping the color over to yellow. (I use AP test kits)

I know that this is a dead thread...but I couldn't help myself. If you are interested in the dilution practice that hoppy is using, look up the principles of titration. It's exactly what he has described here and you'll feel all smart and sciency and stuff. I'm a chem major and I'm glad that I'm seeing people titrating things!

zer0zax · 07-09-2008, 10:34 PM

Thanks so much Hoppy, and everyone else who posted ideas and questions in this thread. I had no idea how a drop checker worked, but all of my questions are already answered!

Someday I will try Sebas' style of drop checker, nice clean and easy. just wondering if anyone has tried using 2 drop checkers in one aquarium, 1 w/3dKH + 1 w/4dKH?

Is it possible to get an accurate reading in between them?

Thanks again!

Squawkbert · 07-12-2008, 06:46 AM

^ not really, though together, they will cover a larger range. The 3dKH one will cycle from blue to yellow and stay yellow as the 4dKH one starts to think about going green. I guess if 3d is yellow and 4d is blue, you're somewhere near 10-15ppm(?-been a while since I looked at the charts).