yoink

I just made one from a glass test tube. It doesn't look half as good as denis' though. I couldn't get the glass to bubble out at the end, just slightly rounded. Function over form I guess. Testing to see if it works now.

hoppycalif

The only good reason to have the bulb is so it holds enough distilled water/indicator solution so you can easily tell what color it is. Otherwise it functions with or without it.

dennis

The trick for that seems to be hotter than you think and to put the tip of the flame directly on the corned of the tube where the 90 degree angle is.

MrSanders

Seems to me like its still blue beacause its doing its job.... That is, if it's made correctly and allowing for the two solutions to reach eq with each other. It would indicate that you dont have enough CO2 dissloved in your tank. *hint* the whole point of having a drop checker to be able to moniter a general estimated amount of CO2 in the water..... if its blue not enough... green means good to go, yellow.... well Im still playing with that one, for me yellow doesnt always mean to much CO2.... but in general your fish are going to let you know about when there is too much

hoppycalif

Those of us who were believing the pH/KH/CO2 chart and thought we had plenty, if not too much, CO2 in the water, can now tell if we really do have the 30-40 ppm we should have. And, most of us will have to crank up the bubble rate to get there - to get the blue to change to green. That is the advantage of this method - it truly is an accurate way to measure the ppm of CO2 in the tank water. The only errors will be our judgement of the color green, and our mistakes in setting the distilled water KH at 4 or 5 dKH. We can reduce the effect of those mistakes by being very careful in how we judge the color and the KH of the distilled water.

When the bulb is yellow, with 4dKH distilled water, that means a pH of about 6.0 to 6.2, or 75 to 120 ppm of CO2! That is too much! I doubt anyone believing that even 75 ppm is tolerable in the tank. Of course if the bulb is only slightly yellowish green, the ppm may still be ok.

kamel_007

I found out the reason.

i've an external filter that built in with the tank hood, and it's type wet dry that came with spray bar..

i stopped the filter for about 4 hours and notice the color of my drop checker is turned to slight green..

with KH of 5 and look's like PH of 6.5 means i've enough CO2,,

even the plant's it's pearling like it never was!!...


then.. now i know the "Drop-Checker" give's the accurate amount of Co2 in my tank..

when testing the water with usually test kit.. test KH and PH and estimate how much CO2 you have.. that's not accurate... DON'T BELIEVE IT!!

Now by MR.Drop-Checker you'll be able to know how much of Co2 you have..

"LIKE YOU NEVER KNOW"

bpimm

The welded bottle drop checker got me thinking that there has to be a simple way to make a drop checker out of readily available materials that are cheap.

What I came up with I think is easy enough for anyone with a little of the DIY gene. Everything I used came from a LFS except the glue which came from a good hardware store (also available from Tap Plastics online).

The materials are as follows
1 3/16" Lee undergravel filter lift tube
5/8" Lee undergravel filter lift tube
Top Fin airline tubing holders
Acrylic cement




To make this project you need to have some flat plastic for the end caps. Preheat your oven to 200 Degrees F, cut off a piece of the larger tube that is longer than the tube is wide, 1 1/2" should be good. Then cut the tube lengthwise with scissors, Place this piece in the oven on a cookie sheet or any other surface to keep it from falling through the rack. heat until pliable, remove from heat and flatten the plastic by hand and let cool. Gloves can help at this stage, I just lay it out on the counter top and hold it down until it cools. Now you need two flat pieces to stack with the plastic between them for the final flattening. I used two lids off of some glass jar canisters. Place the plastic piece on one surface and lay the other on top, I added a cup of water for weight, bring it up too temperature, leave it hot for a few minutes, then let cool.




nice flat piece of plastic to work with.

Now cut a piece of the larger tube for the body of the drop checker, I made mine 1 1/4" long, I used a chop saw to cut it but any saw or even a knife can cut this material. The Chop saw gave me nice true ends to work with which is important for a good glue job, if you use a less true way to cut the tube then you can true up the ends by laying sandpaper on a flat surface and rubbing the tube end on the sandpaper. Once the ends are true glue the tube down to a piece of the flat material. I then ran a bead of glue around the inside to insure a good joint.

Sorry about the focus on this one.

I sat a weight on top and let sit until the glue cured.

Next take one of the clips for the airline holders.


and trim off the actual clip to give you a flat surface to glue to.


and glue to the side of the body.



Now you need to make the bottom end, to do this you need a hole in the flat material the size of the smaller tube, to cut this hole I used a step drill.


These bits are a very useful tool as they will drill a true round hole in thin material. If you don't have a step drill cut the hole with a hobby knife and sand to fit. Cut a piece of the smaller tube 1/2" shorter than you cut the body and glue it into the hole flush with the end, let dry.
Now take the two pieces and glue together lining up the smaller tube in the center of the larger one and let dry.



This is the bottom


Trim the excess material off of the ends using scissors then file or sand the joints smooth. I hit it with a buffing wheel to clean it up but it's not necessary.

Stick the suction cup on and you are ready.



Happy building
Brian

epicfish

Hm, wow, looks great. =) Time to head out to the LFS and get me some lift tubes. =)

dennis

That's very clever. Well done. A suggestion though, next time try painting the inner tube white so that the color of the indicator is easier to see.

hoppycalif

Wow! That is a neat way to make one of these. How much did the materials cost you? I wonder if a TAP plastic store would sell such small lengths of tubing? I know you can buy a foot of most of their tubing sizes, but I don't think you can an inch. Acrylic is a great plastic to work with since it is so easy to glue.