Definitely will look at them. Already saved the links. As I said, things are running good, but trying to look to the future as the tank progresses. Thanks for your formula.
Here‘s where I am today. Some of these guys are becoming weeds.
Your tank looks awesome
Give it a year or two and you’ll start seeing that dense acro forest all stick heads are talking about haha
I would also like to give my own opinion about using automated systems to control dosage.
While I’m naturally attracted to tech (it’s my bread and butter) and I do own GHL KHD, In this particular case I find automation as an additional, quite broad possible point of failure.
I would not argue that it works, and mostly works well.
But given the experience I have today by manually keeping my systems for as long as I do, I don’t see the added benefit.
I do however always consider if I need to add more complexity and wether it worth the added risk of doing so.
With this in mind, I laid out a few of the main concerns that lead me to my conclusion:
1. While there are some safety measures in place, they aren’t always kick in, and sometimes may need an adjustment.
2. It needs constant verification, because it can and will drift over time.
3. Not all reagents are made equal, and they will drift from batch to batch.
4. Bugs exist, and may occur even without touching the configuration - like the faulty update Reef-Factory pushed to their customers, which caused some tanks to crash.
5. User error - no matter how cautious we try to be, humans are the source of most errors, and where there is a button, at some point, there will also be a click, even if an unintentional one.
6. No Backup. Not for the configuration (which you should keep regardless) but for the hardware itself.
Something I learned over the years is that having a backup for equipment, at a certain point in time, is well worth the investment.
It doesn’t have to be the most expensive equipment, nor the smartest (actually, as dumb as your can find, usually the better).
However with this kind of system, you make yourself depended, because switching over to a regular dosing schedule would require trial and error, instead of a quick “switch and replace” that you’re really looking for in an emergency (especially if it needs to be done by someone else over the phone).
So to have a good backup for such a thing you’d usually need to keep:
- A backup brain + brick
- A backup dosing pump
- A backup tester and accessories
- Someone that is able to take care of the whole thing in case of an emergency.
I on the other hand just keep a simple, cheap dosing pump as a backup which is already configured to go online and can be adjusted remotely or easily explained over the phone when the need comes.
7. The regular old - Should I trust it?
It’s always lingering there.
State machines fail, software can crash, Mechanical things break, anything connected to the internet can be hacked (not even purposely), and yes, we all already have these failure points pretty much everywhere in our life, but we should weigh the benefit of having them on life support equipment, especially if it is not absolutely necessary.
