Any disadvantage to using 3/8" tubing with a Neptune DOS?

[NeveSSL]

Hi everyone,

Thinking about using 3/8" tubing with my DOS. Obviously the restrictions at the pump head are what they are, and I'm not modifying that, but I was thinking that maybe over distance this would decrease resistance the pump head sees over 1/4". Not sure it would be enough to matter, though. This would specifically be for automatic water changes. Should I just stick with 1/4" and quit worrying about it?

Brandon

 

[Dan_P]

Hi everyone,

Thinking about using 3/8" tubing with my DOS. Obviously the restrictions at the pump head are what they are, and I'm not modifying that, but I was thinking that maybe over distance this would decrease resistance the pump head sees over 1/4". Not sure it would be enough to matter, though. This would specifically be for automatic water changes. Should I just stick with 1/4" and quit worrying about it?

Brandon

Just a thought…

The only thing that I can think of that might be an issue is that as the diameter of the line increases, the likelihood of the line emptying back to the pump outlet after the pump shuts off increases. I have no idea how much 1/8 inch increases the chance of that happening.

 

[NeveSSL]

Good point! I kept it 1/4".

Brandon

 

[Formulator]

I would suggest keeping the 1/4”. Accuracy will suffer with a larger tube for reasons already mentioned.

FWIW the pumps we use in our hobby are a little odd having permanently fixed length of tubing inside the pump head. In industrial applications for peristaltic pumps, the tubing is continuous through the head so it is matched ID from start to finish.

You thread the tubing over the rollers and then there is a mechanism that clamps down the tubing in the head.

I wish they made our pumps like this. The tubing wears much faster than the mechanical parts of the pump head, so we could just replace tubing every few months instead of buying whole new heads.