Best place to install PH & Salinity probes?

Basic / Standard Reef Angel hardware
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00Warpig00
Posts: 289
Joined: Wed May 16, 2012 9:52 pm

Best place to install PH & Salinity probes?

Post by 00Warpig00 »

Got to unboxing my Salinity and PH probes finally. Figuring out where they are going to live. I have a few questions.

I was planning on mounting both probes in my sump. Is this the standard practice? Is there a reason I would want to mount them in the DT?

Also do the tops of the probes (rubber caps with the wire protruding from them) need to stay out of the water or are they 100% waterproof? My concern here is that when my return pump is off (power outage and Water Changes) that the sump fills nearly to the top and both probes will be fully submerged with at least 4 inches of water up the wire. Is this OK or will this kill the probes.

If they need to be in the DT I have an issue where I'm not sure I can keep the tops of them out of the water here either due to my water level. Tank is reef ready with dual corner overflows and the water level is within an inch of the glass tops in my tank. The back of the tops have the plastic trimable inserts so If I must I can trim holes to stick them through but my first preference is in the sump unless they cannot be fully submerged ever.

One more question. All the pics I have seen of PH probes for the RA show it shipped with a bottle of liquid that the end of the probe is submerged in. When I opened my box the little bottle on the end of the probe appears to be empty, however the box it came in has no sign of anything leaking out. This leads me to believe this was shipped empty. Is this going to be an issue? See pics below.

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Nick
180G FOWLR
20GH QT#1
29G QT#2

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rimai
Posts: 12881
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:47 pm

Re: Best place to install PH & Salinity probes?

Post by rimai »

You will be fine either way. They are fully waterproof, so you don't need to worry about submerging them.
I personally place them in my sump.
This new supplier of probes ships them with just a tiny bit of fluid, which is enough to keep the probe wet.
It has a smaller bottle with better seal too.
The other one like in the webstore photo used to have a much bigger bottle with more liquid, but it also leaked a lot due to very poor seal.
Roberto.
00Warpig00
Posts: 289
Joined: Wed May 16, 2012 9:52 pm

Re: Best place to install PH & Salinity probes?

Post by 00Warpig00 »

Can I ziptie them to the outside of a 1/2" piece of PVC pipe that is running vertically to the bottom of my sump? Can they be near each other or will they interfere with each other? It would be relatively easy for me to zip both of them to opposite sides of the 1/2" PVC pipe.

Nick
180G FOWLR
20GH QT#1
29G QT#2

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rimai
Posts: 12881
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:47 pm

Re: Best place to install PH & Salinity probes?

Post by rimai »

Yeah, you can zip tie them.
Roberto.
troylong45
Posts: 214
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:17 pm

Re: Best place to install PH & Salinity probes?

Post by troylong45 »

Wondering on the probes u say u can fully submerge them, how about minimum water level for probes ? can any of it be unsubmerged and how much ? I'm making my sump with brackets to hold them and I should have asked befor I glued them in place they will be in a 5-5.5 deep water level x 14 x12 area just befor a weir with top 1.5-2.5 inches of the probe out of water. and there will be a heater in this area as well.
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