Gatorguy

I ordered mine a couple of nights ago, so I will have it up and running in a week or so hopefully.

LindaC

I'll be interested in hearing from more and more people on how these drop checkers work. I'm also thinking of ordering one but may wait a bit longer.

schaadrak

For a faster response time, couldn't you hook up a small air pump to pull air from inside the checker and into the water in such a way that it bubbles back into the checker?

I'm not sure if the diffusion times for CO2 from water to air would be enhanced enough to warrant going through the trouble, but I thought I'd just throw it out there.

Gatorguy

Ok, that signature file got me intrigued. I think George Bush would classify that as "fuzzy math".

First, I have no idea where the 390.6 miles³ came from. Please help me out with that. Volume by definition is length x width x height. I see a width, I see a height, but I see no length. So how did we end up with 390.6 miles³ as a volume? And what is multiplied by what to yield 5.75 x 10¹³ ft³?? (390.6 x 5280³ = 2,062,368,000 ft³)

If we assume 5.75 x 10¹³ ft³ as the total cubic feet of the canyon, given an average width of 6 miles and given an average depth of .3 miles, the length would have to be 217.0169 miles.

As taken from the National Park Service and also listed at The National Park Foundation, the canyon is 277 river miles long, an average of 10 miles wide, and a maximum of 1 mile deep. Multiplied out, that is 4.07738327 x 10^14 ft³ or 81,547.67 ft³ per person. Given an 8 ft ceiling height, my new house in the Grand Canyon is 10,193 ft² (Sign me up!). Of course, I will have no yard and no roof above my flat 8ft high ceiling. I probably won't even be able to open my frond door due to the neighbor back wall being shoved up against my house. Oh well, you can't win them all!

elaphe

OK, I've been running this for a week now. I love it! At first I set it up with 4dKH. Today I cleaned it out and made a 5 dKH so that I can bump up my CO2 up to around 40ppm for some algae issues (along with Excel).

Once it's in the tank and working, it really doesn't take more than a hour to start to see the color change.

When I first mix it up and install it, the solution is dark blue, and it takes a couple of hours to get down to a green or yellow color. After that, it seem to respond fairly quickly.

This is a great little gadget.

Brian

hoppycalif

I'm still very pleased with mine too, but the same bubble rate entering the tank seems to take longer to change the indicator color to a good green. I can't see what, if anything, has changed, but now I get to green in mid afternoon or later, where as I recall it was early afternoon before. My indicator KH is 5 dKH too.

Gatorguy

How long is the solution supposed to last in the drop checker? Does it "wear out"?

elaphe

I don't have this problem since I'm running my CO2 24/7. It is only slightly greenish/yellow in the morning. About an hour or so after the lights come on it's nice and green.

One thing that I do notice is that with all the green plants in my tank the color seems to look green. To get a really good reading I have to put a piece of white plastic behind it to actually see the color. I may need to move it directly under my light. Right now I've got it more towards the front of the tank?

It may not be exact, but it seems to do the trick.

Brian

MrSanders

Thats one positive thing about the cheap little read sea unit. The cone in the center that is actually inside of it.... Is white.... making it pretty easy to see what color it really is.... for 8 bucks i am pretty pleased with my cheapo verson haha... now is it were something that I was planning to keep in my tank all the time I would go for the more sexy glass work however for just playing around with it to get a feel for if it works well.... and setting up CO2 flow after getting a tank refilled... it is serving its purpos well for me....

I to am running mine with a KH inside the "bell" of 5 degress.... seems like thats where people using these are leaning..... are you guys seeing proper CO2 levels going this route? good growth, little algae, BBA not appearing nor green spot? I know my fish seem to be just fine with it.... however I cant really comment about algae or plant growth.... its been... well never since I had anything good in that area lol

hoppycalif

I notice a very few little spots of BBA on my heater, and on one plant leaf, so even with about 30-40 ppm of CO2, BBA can still grow. The plants are doing very well though, good strong color and consistent growth.