Anyone using mas985s drip feeder for chlorine successfully?

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Rangeball,

How many turns to you get between fully on vs off. I get about 7 on this valve.

Also, what size pump do you have again? I can get well below 12 oz per hour but I only have a 1/2 HP pump which means the suction will be less and so will the flow rates.
 
mas985 said:
Rangeball,

How many turns to you get between fully on vs off. I get about 7 on this valve.
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I have the same gray valve with the barbs, but ordered from a different place. I too get 7 full turns, but even with it fully closed then juuuuussst barely cracked open enough to begin to draw, it's still too much.

Also, what size pump do you have again? I can get well below 12 oz per hour but I only have a 1/2 HP pump which means the suction will be less and so will the flow rates.
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I have the pentair WFDS-3 running on low when I tested the draw rate.
 
Melt In The Sun said:
PTFE = polytetrafluoroethlyene = teflon. The page says PVC and PPL, I presume PPL is polypropylene? I think that valve should be fine with chlorine.
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Thanks. Looks to be about $50, so this close to the end of the season I'll probably wait until next spring to give it a try.
 
Since the other thread is more specifically about needle valves and acid, I thought it best to move the discussion concerning chlorine here.

I was able to mess with the valve a bit more last night. I used a plastic measuring cup marked for ounces, although not very clearly, filled it to the 20oz mark, then opened the valve just to where I could see movement then introduced the air bubble. I closed the valve, then just barely cracked it open and let it run for 15 minutes. I couldn't see any flow and the air bubble remained steady. When time was up, the level of water in the cup hadn't changed. I opened the valve a bit more and gave it another 15 minutes. The air bubble didn't move and I couldn't see flow. When time was up, I noticed the air bubble still had not moved but to my surprise the water had lowered by what I believe is one ounce on the cup.

No idea why the bubble didn't move, but it was drawing for sure. I need to get something with much finer oz measurements and try again. I'm again optimistic this might just work after all :)
 
I found that if the air bubble is not completely filling the tub diameter wise, it may not move but the fluid may still move around it. If you have to make sure it is at least 1" long, it will usually completely fills the tube. But with the measuring cup, you really don't need the bubble anyway since you have a way to measure the flow rate and it is more accurate than the bubble anyway. In my setup, the bubble was easy to introduce and I didn't have to take the tubing out of the bucket.
 
It may have been a bit less than an inch, but close. It was more oval shaped, so it must have been allowing fluid around it. Hopefully I can play with it a bit more tonight.

Looking ahead, I have two 5gal carboys, one is solid white the other is more opaque. If I use the opaque one, add 7 96 oz jugs of 6%sh, marking the level with a sharpie on the outside of the container after each one, do you think I'd have to worry about sunlight breaking down the bleach in a weeks time? I guess I could put a towel over it or something if I have to. Sounds like cheap insurance.
 
Probably the best thing to use is aluminum foil to knock out not only the sunlight but the heat as well, both of which will degrade CL.
 
I know this can happen pretty rapidly with higher % solutions, but I thought 6% was fairly stable, and could take higher temps (like hot warehouse storage) for much longer time periods than a week?

Any idea?
 
Heat is much less of an issue than UV and if your turnover is only a week, it shouldn't be a problem although I know my tanks can get really hot sometimes so some protection is probably wise. A towel should work just fine but will degrade over time due to the sunlight. A longer term solution might be to paint the container white if you can. If not, then foil would also work.
 

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mas985 said:
Heat is much less of an issue than UV and if your turnover is only a week, it shouldn't be a problem although I know my tanks can get really hot sometimes so some protection is probably wise. A towel should work just fine but will degrade over time due to the sunlight. A longer term solution might be to paint the container white if you can. If not, then foil would also work.
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Found this thread pertaining to heat and degradation before I saw your post-

shelf-life-of-bleach-t20797.html?hilit=degradation

Looks like for a week or two heat won't be a concern.

I do have an all white carboy that I plan to use long term, I just want to use the opaque one so I can easily mark/view the levels to monitor usage. I should know if I'm on the right track within a few days, so the towel would be a temporary solution, then I'd switch to the white carboy for long term use.
 
Was able to mess with it again last night. Using a well marked measuring cup, I set the valve to where I thought it was the other night and timed 15 minutes. It used 4 ounces. I closed the valve a bit and gave it another 15 minutes, and by God it drew 1oz, perfect!

Excited, I added a 96oz jug of bleach to my opaque carboy, marked the level, added another, etc. My normal use is 96oz per day. I put the hose in, reset the valve to the same spot and walked away. 24 hrs later, it hadn't moved. A few things I can think of that might be at play-

1- Bleach is more dense/viscous than water so it wouldn't flow up at such a low valve setting.
2- I didn't reset the valve to the same exact place, although I'm pretty sure I did.
3- The valve doesn't provide consistent repeatability when just barely cracked open.

Since the level hadn't moved, I opened it a bit more and will continue to monitor. If 1 or 2 ends up being the issue, things should be good once I find the right setting. If it's number 3, that will mean I need to experiment to re-set flow if white stuff becomes a problem. I assume my only indicator of this will be reduced flow as the build up is likely to occur internally in the valve?
 
Bama Rambler said:
Those valves are fairly repeatable but at that far closed it's not going to be exact. You're right about the bleach being heavier and thicker than water so more resistant to flow.
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Good to hear. I've bumped the valve more open about 4 times now and let it run for several hours with no flow. I figure slow and steady wins the race :)
 
Checked at lunch, it finally drew. Only problem is, it was about 18oz per hour. I backed it down a tad, hopefully I can slow it down enough as I didn't move it very much at all from no draw to draw too much.
 
Finally got it set so it seemed to be right on track. Carboy was getting low, so I planned to add bleach (had to go get it) later in the evening, and double check the level to make sure it'd gone down the right amount. When I went out to add the bleach, I found that the hose was actually curled up enough that when the level got low it started sucking air :( It wasn't enough to stop the pump, got the air bled out, added more bleach and let it run overnight, did not touch the valve. Went to check this morning, and it hadn't budged. I really have no idea why. I cracked the valve open just a touch, barely made it move, and will again monitor. I hope Bama gets his valve and a chance to test it soon. This is starting to be a pain in the...
 

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