Equipment maintenance is very important and I really try to be diligent and keep up with it. If you let it slide then breakdowns or malfunctions are inevitable. It is especially important to keep up with the required maintenance for a peristaltic dosing pump. I use the GHL Doser 2.1 pump and if I don’t clean it on a regular basis it will not run at an optimal level. And that is not good since myself and others rely on it to be precise.
My Doser Pump Maintenance Routine
First of all, I inspect each doser head on a weekly basis to make sure I don’t see any cracks in the cover. I also manually run them to make sure the rollers are moving freely. Every three months I do a major cleaning. Step one is to remove the covers and the rollers. I then use Acetone on a cloth to wipe off any dirt that has accumulated on the rollers. I also clean the doser head shaft, the cover and the tubing. Make sure you don’t soak these items in Acetone. You can also use a q-tip and alcohol to clean these parts.
Any damaged rollers or covers should be replaced. These parts are available in the GHL Doser Maintenance Set.
The next step after cleaning the parts is to re-calibrate the dosing heads. You can actually do this on the GHL Connect app. This is a very important step since the calibration process will impact measurement results.
As mentioned, I perform this maintenance every three months but it ultimately depends on how often a doser head is run. Someone using dosing heads for auto top off or automatic water changes will have to clean them more often than someone dosing 100 to 150 mls per day. So that’s the skinny. If you would like more information or want to purchase a GHL Doser please visit the Equipment section on reefbum.com.
Additional Resources
If you would like some help with a new tank build, including help designing a custom aquarium, or help re-configuring your current setup then you can visit this page for more information. And if you are looking to add some equipment, I do sell GHL, Pax Bellum, Reef Octopus Calcium and Kalk Reactors and Royal Exclusiv products, including Dreamboxes, which is the equipment I use and recommend. I also sell Reef Brite metal halide and LED fixtures as well as Maxspect & IceCap Gyres.
As for additional insights and information, please explore my many other reef tank and SPS related articles as well as my YouTube channel. For an even deeper dive into reef tank care you can check out my Reef Keeping Master Class. This online course is an immersive and one of a kind educational tool designed to help reef aquarium hobbyists build and maintain a beautiful SPS reef tank. The course is a series of video presentations with some supplemental video from my YouTube channel. There are also quizzes to help students retain and understand the information presented in the course.
Need some frags…..I can help with that as well 🙂 Please visit my SPS Frag store to see what is available.
