Watson Marlow Peristaltic Pumps for Calcium Reactors

[Reefer1978]

Yes please if you wouldn’t mind!

I am at 1.95 rotations per minute. You should be ok at minimum setting.

 

[wangspeed]

I ended up having to make a few changes to my pump to get it to work. I have a 520Du, which has a 520REL head on it. It’s made to work with sanitary tube connections. I think in metric. I had to lock the tube ends in place somehow. Finding the stock Watson Marlow clamps was impossible. I finally ended up using car body panel double sided tape and small pieces of aluminum and standard stick on hose clamps.

I was pretty proud to get that working, then I decided to calibrate my pump. Yes you can calibrate the 520Du. Got the water ready to go, and no suction... I tried blowing through the tubing, which should not be possible, only to find that the rollers weren’t pressing against the tubing hard enough.

So I did more research and found that this head should be adjusted from the factory to accommodate 6.4mm tubing. I’m using 1/4, so it should work fine. The instructions warn against adjusting the head, but I didn’t see much choice. It was either adjust the head roller bolts, or use thicker tubing, which would throw off my home made tube clamps.

I took the head off, which is just 1 screw, and individually adjusted the rollers til the point where the rollers were cutting off all air at all positions, but with minimal pressure so as to not put undo stress on the head.

There’s a good chance this thing will outlast my tank. Would I do it again? Unsure, now that companies like Kamoer have continuous duty dosing pumps for aquarium use at reasonable prices. I’m pretty proud of this though. Part of my love for this hobby is the gadgetry at being different sometimes.

 

[Reefer1978]

There’s a good chance this thing will outlast my tank. Would I do it again? Unsure, now that companies like Kamoer have continuous duty dosing pumps for aquarium use at reasonable prices. I’m pretty proud of this though. Part of my love for this hobby is the gadgetry at being different sometimes.

You have a much better pump here then Kamoer - great job.