Have Hydros lost their way?

[braaap]

I'm old school, I don't use any automation except my ATO and 2 part and for those I use a 20 year old LiterMeter III and a pair of their slave pumps.

Fwiw, sisterlimonpot on this forum had previously engineered some peristaltic pumps for his own use, then machined them on his cnc mill. I've seen them disassembled and they are a very complicated device, they aren't just rollers and some tubing driven by a motor, they have gear reduction and a sinusoidal drive (I think that is the term) and use a high end stepper motor, all with tolerances of half a thou. I may see him tomorrow at our club meeting I'll ask him about them. I'll for sure have him contribute to this thread.

@Sisterlimonpot

Except they are just stepper motors pushing rollers on some tubing. Just because he made his own more advanced doesn't change what the hydros and apex dosing pumps are. Simple stepper motors with rollers and some tubing.

The question I have for all you complaining about the price of this module or that module.... Do you have a generator at your house that automatically kicks in when the power goes out?




Dave B

Yes I do. Put it in specifically for my tank. It automatically powers the tank, freezers, in floor heat and the internet. Then I manually turn everything else on. I did it this way so I get an alert that the power blipped if I am away and to not stress the generator and provide power to the important things first. The generator is more than enough for the house twice over but I've had them start up and not output more than 20-30% power. They only fail when you need them lol

 

[areefer01]

Yes I do. Put it in specifically for my tank. It automatically powers the tank, freezers, in floor heat and the internet. Then I manually turn everything else on. I did it this way so I get an alert that the power blipped if I am away and to not stress the generator and provide power to the important things first. The generator is more than enough for the house twice over but I've had them start up and not output more than 20-30% power. They only fail when you need them lol

This is often times overlooked. The generator or solar with storage and smart panels. New hobbyist, tank, power loss results in total loss maybe one can recover. 10, 20, or 30 year tank, power loss, typically something the hobbyist doesn't recover from and walks away.

I encourage all hobbyist to at least pick up an ecoflow, or equivalent, battery and put a powerhead and air bubbler on it. Just in case that emergency happens the battery will be able to manage while deeper triage happens. If one has any DIY skills then splurge a bit on a powerhead that supports battery connections, Tunze for example, wire that up so it will use dc instead of AC for longer duration. Ecoflow's, or similar, are usually on sale a couple of times per year or on holiday sales. Well worth it in my opinion.

Nothing you don't already know but flow and oxygen are vital. Lights can wait. Heat just depends on the duration but blankets or the generator later.

Oh - here is a question. Who here has a whole home surge protector (if one owns the home). Renters this is a maybe sort of thing.

Our utility company was fixing a down line and when they fixed it and enabled power they had a failure at the plant which in turn sent a power spike into our neighborhood. Those closest to the entry point suffered the most damage. Those further down less and less. Our garage almost caught on fire as the solar inverter blew. Lost two refrigerators, bunch of smart plugs, solar inverter, and a EB832 of all things.

 

[exnisstech]

My catch phrase for most things these days, it is what it is

I find myself using that phrase way too often these days.

 

[fish_collector]

Except they are just stepper motors pushing rollers on some tubing. Just because he made his own more advanced doesn't change what the hydros and apex dosing pumps are. Simple stepper motors with rollers and some tubing.


Yes I do. Put it in specifically for my tank. It automatically powers the tank, freezers, in floor heat and the internet. Then I manually turn everything else on. I did it this way so I get an alert that the power blipped if I am away and to not stress the generator and provide power to the important things first. The generator is more than enough for the house twice over but I've had them start up and not output more than 20-30% power. They only fail when you need them lol

I wasn’t trying to justify their cost, just pointing out that if one didn’t like the cost of buying new, try making their own, my buddy did and it wasn’t easy. There’s a reason I don’t own one. Take it with a grain of sand.

 

[JohnnyH]

I think the price for dosing pump is high because they do not create it on their own. They have to pay Kamoer as well.

 

[braaap]

I wasn’t trying to justify their cost, just pointing out that if one didn’t like the cost of buying new, try making their own, my buddy did and it wasn’t easy. There’s a reason I don’t own one. Take it with a grain of sand.

I have made my own. You can buy the motor and head online. They are extremely cheap. I then printed a project box for them. I have been running them as an ATO that pumps over 50 feet and one that pumps 2 feet with zero issues for over a year. Both of them are driven by the drive ports on my Hydros systems. Pump


That is a very cool project that he did. But that isn't CNC. That is 3D printed. And I believe I have seen those files online for downloading somewhere. But I can't find them again. If he designed them that is a good project. But just printing and assembling isn't a huge deal.

 

[braaap]

I think the price for dosing pump is high because they do not create it on their own. They have to pay Kamoer as well.

They are the distributor for Kamoer. I'm sure they get a price better than the $10 each I can buy the entire pump for that is used in the X10. The X10 that is $924! Pumps

 

[scchase]

You think it is bad in the aquarium industry it is even worse in others, I work with Siemens on a regular basis at work and it is absolutely insane both in what they charge and also in how horrible the programming is with stuff hidden in odd places that can mess up the programming for an entire building that then requires a certified Siemens technician to come in and spend days finding the one piece of bad code that is throwing off the whole system for the low low price a a few 10s of thousands of dollars and often it was their mistake to begin with. I will gladly take the aquarium systems that we have that are childs play in comparison and when it comes down to it do all of the same things.

 

[BeanAnimal]

They have a lot of markup

I have made my own. You can buy the motor and head online. They are extremely cheap. I then printed a project box for them. I have been running them as an ATO that pumps over 50 feet and one that pumps 2 feet with zero issues for over a year. Both of them are driven by the drive ports on my Hydros systems. Pump

To be fair to both sides:

Buying a head and adding a motor is not "making a dosing pump". There is actually a lot of engineering that goes into a quality dosing head. Precision, tube wear and tube creep, ease of tubing replacement, etc. all have tradeoffs. There is a reason that some heads are $12 each and some $100. Precision gear drives, steppers and moving parts can get expensive. There are far better heads than Kamoer as well.

At the same time let's not pretend that what Hydros and Sisterlemonpot are doing are comparable. Hydros is not engineering dosing pumps, they are buying off the shelf pre-engineered Kamoer parts. Sister designed and built an actual dosing pump drive and head for a specific purpose. Using his example as an excuse to explain Hydros's cost is fallacy.

 

[braaap]

They have a lot of markup

To be fair to both sides:

Buying a head and adding a motor is not "making a dosing pump". There is actually a lot of engineering that goes into a quality dosing head. Precision, tube wear and tube creep, ease of tubing replacement, etc. all have tradeoffs. There is a reason that some heads are $12 each and some $100. Precision gear drives, steppers and moving parts can get expensive. There are far better heads than Kamoer as well.

At the same time let's not pretend that what Hydros and Sisterlemonpot are doing are comparable. Hydros is not engineering dosing pumps, they are buying off the shelf pre-engineered Kamoer parts. Sister designed and built an actual dosing pump drive and head for a specific purpose. Using his example as an excuse to explain Hydros's cost is fallacy.

Yes but it isn't that complicated. You want a more accurate dosing pump? You buy the more accurate dosing head. I can buy the same head and power it off the drive ports and likely get within 5% accuracy of their $800 dosing solution. That is proven by the Neptune DOS being in the $3-400 range and being quite accurate. The pumps in the Duet are here. If I want to get really fancy I get the 24v version and another power supply to really up the accuracy but not the cost. Pretty simple solution for a simple problem.

I think we both agree that they never had their way and are seeing dollar signs. Just the people trying to protect them because "dosing pumps are hard" are very wrong.

 

[BeanAnimal]

There is nothing "complicated" about what Hydros is doing. Somebody else took on the complicated part. So in that sense (and to my point) dosing pumps are not hard. Control logic is not hard. So we don't disagree there. My other point was that dosing pumps are "hard" for whoever is doing the actual engineering.

To the price of the Hydros product.

Yes, their price is 2x the competitors. We can assume for several reasons.

1 - they are trying to differentiate themselves as "high end" and part of that is demanding a higher price. They can excuse this also with "it's also a controller" and "better than blah blah".

2 - their single head doser is already expensive, so their marketing decision is to make the dual head 2x the price is arguable to the average buyer.

3 - Assumption: Their margin per manufactured dollar is lower than GHL and Neptune and therefore the markup has to be much larger to make the busines model work.

4 - Assumption: Their controller and consumables sales volumes is much smaller than Neptune and GHL, as both also service zoos, research education, etc. To stay in the game, they need to command higher margins.

I don't think $800 is reasonable, but that is my personal take. $800 may be perfectly acceptable to their core customers or those that buy into their marketing and ecosystem features.

 

[fish_collector]

That is a very cool project that he did. But that isn't CNC. That is 3D printed. And I believe I have seen those files online for downloading somewhere. But I can't find them again. If he designed them that is a good project. But just printing and assembling isn't a huge deal.

This is not just a pump head and motor in a project box. Not everyone is full of it.

 

[BeanAnimal]

This is not just a pump head and motor in a project box. Not everyone is full of it.

I don’t think that is what he was implying at all, and likewise you can’t compare Sister’s project to what Hydros is selling. Peristaltic as a commodity jobber component vs somebody taking on the complex task of DIYing one from the ground up. Hydros didn’t engineer the pump, they purchased it and bolted to the top a project box. The company that produces the pumps does so at scale over dozens of models. Sister started at paper and pencil. Two insanely different things.

“A lawnmower is super complex” if you are building it from the ground up. Not at all complex if you buy an engine, blade and wheels from an OEM and only have to hammer out a deck and some handles.

 

[fish_collector]

In my first post in this thread I was being sarcastic by saying if one didn’t like the price of the dosing pumps then build their own. I used this as an example because I’m familiar with it, I’ve held it in my hands, studied the parts, helped SLP with his CNC, you get it. I wasn’t comparing anything. It was inevitable that someone would find fault with my post and try to discredit it as just a printed pump and motor. But whatever Bean, I’ve got plenty of other things to do that don’t involve debating with the smartest person in the room, and that wasn’t directed at you. I’m sorry I even made a post here what was I thinking.

 

[BeanAnimal]

But whatever Bean

I have no dog in the fight. I was just trying to bridge the context between both of you, as it seemed like you were arguing past each other. I did miss the sarcasm, so my responses were in the literal.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Hi guys. As much as I'm not a fan of hydros because of the way they entered the controller market under the guise of their product being equal to or better than the products already available. They certainly utilized influencers and marketing not to mention individuals hatred of other products to get their foot in the door.

I've said it publically before and I'll say it again, their product resembles a high school science fair project, slapping off the shelf components together to accomplish a particular goal. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and quite possibly a great way to pass savings onto the consumer and undercut competition.

I haven't kept up with them, admittedly, I have lost a lot of interest in this hobby and rarely participate on forums. It certainly seems that their flagship idea that everyone was waiting on was nothing but vapor wear. I'm sure there were a lot of unforeseen issues which goes to beananimals point of lack of direction.

As for the tangent topic of peristaltic pumps, I have been infatuated with them ever since I briefly worked in biomedical engineering at one of the VA hospitals circa 2015.

I've made many different types and have posted them here and maybe on humble.fish site. The 1st being a simple pump like @braaap mentioned a stepper motoe controlled with a simple driver that used a potentiometer to control speed.

Then there was the "cream cycle" that was an iteration of iGem that took their stepper moror, direct drive peristaltic pump and tailored it to the reefing world.

After that was the latest version that @fish_collector shared. That was my polished version that used dual pumps specifically for auto water changes.

From a mechanic engineering perspective, I really loved the cycloidal drive type gear box, and with this one only being a 3:1 gear ratio, it wasn't the best choice but by god, it upped the cool factor (in my mind). Not to mention, there were a lot of engineering challenges that were intriguing for me such as an untraditional counterbalance that isn't typical, fully bearinged rollers and all rotating components use bearings to reduce failure. Using what was at the time, the most cutting edge trimanic stepper driver that allowed for so many software options that made it superior to any peristaltic pump offered in the aquarium industry. I even designed the custom PCB so that it would fit snuggly in the case.

The downside as @BeanAnimal pointed out, I made it specific to my needs. I always planned to offer all the files and plans to anyone that wanted to try and make one. I stopped short because I wanted it to be more universal, awc, continuous dosing, individual dosing schedules. I stopped short with the individual dosing because I got in my own head about how the UI should work.

That's basically it in a nutshell. To bring it back full circle, the off the shelf kamoer peristaltic pumps aren't that difficult to drive, and if someone had the time and want to, they can reverse engineer the communication protocol of coralvues entire line of products, and make that dual pump for less than $200. Just like they did back in the day with apex (if any of you remember that). In fact, I dabbled in that a while back making a clone eb8 that ran off DC voltage to supply direct power to multiple devices removing the need for all the power bricks. I got the bulk of the software done and even made a prototype pcb that worked with apex' fusion. I stopped short on that too because I simply got bored with it.

 

[Peer.Boerner]

What’s amazing to me is the vote is nearly exactly 50/50. Wow. My 2 dollars worth (adjusted for inflation): I’ve only use hydros so I’m biased. I have a launch controller and wave maker light plus a bunch of dosing pumps and water level detectors. I’ve been nothing but impressed. But I am very tech savvy and feel comfortable with pro-sumer versus consumer grade gear. Glad I bought hydros and hope they will continue to endure.

 

[Reef Jedi]

This is often times overlooked. The generator or solar with storage and smart panels. New hobbyist, tank, power loss results in total loss maybe one can recover. 10, 20, or 30 year tank, power loss, typically something the hobbyist doesn't recover from and walks away.

I encourage all hobbyist to at least pick up an ecoflow, or equivalent, battery and put a powerhead and air bubbler on it. Just in case that emergency happens the battery will be able to manage while deeper triage happens. If one has any DIY skills then splurge a bit on a powerhead that supports battery connections, Tunze for example, wire that up so it will use dc instead of AC for longer duration. Ecoflow's, or similar, are usually on sale a couple of times per year or on holiday sales. Well worth it in my opinion.

Nothing you don't already know but flow and oxygen are vital. Lights can wait. Heat just depends on the duration but blankets or the generator later.

Oh - here is a question. Who here has a whole home surge protector (if one owns the home). Renters this is a maybe sort of thing.

Our utility company was fixing a down line and when they fixed it and enabled power they had a failure at the plant which in turn sent a power spike into our neighborhood. Those closest to the entry point suffered the most damage. Those further down less and less. Our garage almost caught on fire as the solar inverter blew. Lost two refrigerators, bunch of smart plugs, solar inverter, and a EB832 of all things.

I have a whole home surge protector. I had the electrician install one when we had our Tesla chargers installed. Was a good price since they were working the panel for the chargers. It’s a nice piece of mind item for this exact reason.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have apex and some hydros components and find Apex more user friendly especially with cost of add-on components

 

[BeanAnimal]

I've said it publically before and I'll say it again, their product resembles a high school science fair project, slapping off the shelf components together to accomplish a particular goal.

I would go a step further and say that every aspect of the product feels that way. The naming conventions, form factors, marketing continuity, product feature distribution over models… everything feels like kids are in charge. I literally imagine somebody in the office saying “hey Let’s create a new controller with 4 outputs 4 inputs and a digital display and call it The Cyclops,, wouldn’t that be cool? Or maybe The Eight Ball and the next model can be the Nine Ball ”. And somebody else says “we have a controller with 4 in and 4 out, so let’s makes it 5 in and 4 out and call it The Decapod because it has 4 in, 5 out, and and LCD, that ps 10 things, get it? Deca, like decapod!”

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and quite possibly a great way to pass savings onto the consumer and undercut competition.

I agree , but I can’t figure out where they are passing savings on.

As for the tangent topic of peristaltic pumps, I have been infatuated with them ever since I briefly worked in biomedical engineering at one of the VA hospitals circa 2015.

I worked at a huge seafood restaurant in the 90s in Myrtle Beach. We washed our own linens (and snuck in our own clothes) in big commercial front loaders. The detergent and sanitizer were feed by large wall mounted peristaltic pumps from 55 gallon drums. I too was hooked.

In the early days of my tank I used a few modified Kangaroo 324 medical feeding pumps for dosing. Eventually replacing the electronics with my own Atmega brains. Tubing sets were a pain so I moved on to Cole Parmer surplus heads and DC motors and the eventually Welco heads and steppers for my dosers. You certainly took it a step further and built your own!

I stopped short because I wanted it to be more universal, awc, continuous dosing, individual dosing schedules. I stopped short with the individual dosing because I got in my own head about how the UI should work.

Isn’t it crazy. You look at what other offerings are doing and say to yourself. “Meh, that’s dumb.” But then feature creep takes over and nothing gets done.

I put some time into reversing the MOBIUS BT protocol so that I could control them from my Profilux, but lost interest. Just no reason for it really.