Innovation in reef keeping: What would you like to measure in your tank that is not currently available?

[Peace River]

Innovation in reef keeping: What would you like to measure in your tank that is not currently available?

There are meters for light, flow, temperature, water depth, salinity, and many, many types of water parameters that we can measure from alkalinity to zinc as well as many other chemicals that are difficult to pronounce and some that we don’t fully understand if or why they matter to our reef tanks. Whether it is a meter that we use ourselves or a meter in a lab where we send our water samples, there are meters that test a wide variety of factors in and around or reef tanks. Of course, there may be some meters that you don’t have yet or tests that you haven’t requested from a lab but are available. In addition to those items, is there anything that you would like to measure in your aquarium system that is not currently available? Whether you think there is already to many electronic gizmos or think there a still measurement gaps that need to be filled, please share your ideas and thoughts in the related discussion thread.

Photo by @Broadfield


This QOTD is sponsored by: www.worldwidecorals.com

“At WWC our staff takes the worry out of the equation by culturing extremely healthy corals, giving you a hassle-free guarantee, and providing you with a full online customer service team to ensure you are completely satisfied with your purchase.”

 

[vetteguy53081]

Taking devices like alkatronic and Apex, . . with th trident- Mag would have been great as well as phosphate

 

[pal98111]

I would like a simple, economical way to meausure oxygen levels in the water.

 

[bakbay]

I dont want to manage multiple devices. If the Trident can test for N&P, I’ll be in reefing nirvana! The rest can be done via ICP tests, which can be done twice / year?

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

To be honest, a flow meter I can attach to any rock to measure the flow speed of that specific location will be super helpful. I am quite sick of having to push an old toothbrush under and seeing how fast it moves horizontally.

 

[bakbay]

To be honest, a flow meter I can attach to any rock to measure the flow speed of that specific location will be super helpful. I am quite sick of having to push an old toothbrush under and seeing how fast it moves horizontally.

You’re a mad flow scientist! I just crank up the wavemakers at 90%. If things don’t fly off the sea floor, I’m good! ha

 

[Treefer32]

It's probably the sword I'll die on, the soap box I'll preach from, and I'll be stoned by the reefing community! I apologize for the upcoming rant!

I think there's huge gaps between currently available technology and metrics for our hobby. I know the Trident is the latest in these innovations (which I feel is 10 years behind) to automate current testing.

However, I feel even the Trident falls short of the what's possible.

I would love to see (most plausible) reagent free automated testing in our reef tanks. I don't want to have to take something apart to troubleshoot, clean or otherwise refill reagents more than once a year. I would ideally love reagent free chemical testing. I don't know what we send with mars and moon landers, but, I highly doubt we send them with reagents that expire in 20 days for a 3 year research project that's analyzing elements in rocks. If we can do that, why can't we do the same thing with our aquarium water? Free of all reagents and therefore free of manual intervention.

I look at my 6 year old reef and things require ongoing maintenance - the expense to maintain things continues to do go up with virtually no technological solutions to reduce ongoing maintenance time and cost. If we want more people in the hobby, we need to find ways to make things as idiot proof as possible through technological automation. I've had recently dosing lines either plug up or forgot to refill the dosing bottles. A simple alert to say alk has fallen by more than .25 would have let me know that one of two things happened: 1. Uptake of alk significantly increased, or 2. most likely, my doser is failing in some way.

I was thinking of starting to dose Kalkwasser separately from my top off on a drip system 24 hours a day. I'd love to see the impact of alk and ph over time. When should I decrease my two part dosing, should I increase Kalk wasser dosing and if so by how much. Having near real time values over time would help make minor adjustments that are best for my living creatures.

The same is true primarily for phosphate, to monitor the ebb decrease and increases of phosphate throughout the day would help me to know how my algae turf scrubber is doing at consumption. I fully anticipate when the ATS runs out of room to grow algae, my phosphate in the water probably rises since consumption would go down. This could tell me when the ATS is full or nearing capacity. I could also have Lanthinum chloride or some other phosphate remover plumbed or on a doser to dose as phosphate rises above a certain range.

Leveraging things like Hydros or Apex computer systems would have 10 times their value currently if they became more than just outlet and temp controllers. I think the trident is an intermediary step, but in conclusion I think it's 10 years behind what's currently possible. The problem I would guess is the return on investment in more permanent metering solutions. I would pay a premium for a single probe system that monitored alk, calcium, magnesium phosphate, and nitrate with minimal or no reagents and no manual effort.

Just Plug in program alerts, program any impacted dosers in alignment with the probes accordingly we could get to real time dosing of alk and calcium as it's consumed. Vs. randomly dosing throughout the day, testing once a week, hoping that at that point in time everything is stable.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

You’re a mad flow scientist! I just crank up the wavemakers at 90%. If things don’t fly off the sea floor, I’m good! ha

I've had my bubble tips fly off their rocks when they're annoyed sufficiently, and they take ages getting themselves back up there. It was funny to watch but having an anemone bounce around the tank sure is annoying. Those things love flow.

 

[Dan_P]

Innovation in reef keeping: What would you like to measure in your tank that is not currently available?

There are meters for light, flow, temperature, water depth, salinity, and many, many types of water parameters that we can measure from alkalinity to zinc as well as many other chemicals that are difficult to pronounce and some that we don’t fully understand if or why they matter to our reef tanks. Whether it is a meter that we use ourselves or a meter in a lab where we send our water samples, there are meters that test a wide variety of factors in and around or reef tanks. Of course, there may be some meters that you don’t have yet or tests that you haven’t requested from a lab but are available. In addition to those items, is there anything that you would like to measure in your aquarium system that is not currently available? Whether you think there is already to many electronic gizmos or think there a still measurement gaps that need to be filled, please share your ideas and thoughts in the related discussion thread.

Photo by @Broadfield


This QOTD is sponsored by: www.worldwidecorals.com

“At WWC our staff takes the worry out of the equation by culturing extremely healthy corals, giving you a hassle-free guarantee, and providing you with a full online customer service team to ensure you are completely satisfied with your purchase.”

Wasn’t this question asked just awhile ago?

 

[alain Bouchard]

If someone could create a "fish and corals happiness meter", that would be great...for some, and disappointing for most

 

[GARRIGA]

Rather see subscription based ICP where one sends off samples weekly and perhaps scattered regionally for quickest turnaround. Guessing cost of testing tied to cost of machinery vs used therefore increased volume might reduce cost per testing. Gets expensive constantly replacing regents, calibrating Hanna checkers and the automated solutions such as Trident have life expectancy and will also need to be repaired or replaced. Much simpler in my mind to outsource the testing than having an in-house lab.

 

[Alpha_and_Gec]

If someone could create a "fish and corals happiness meter", that would be great...for some, and disappointing for most

+1 for fish body language interpreter!
or get one free by just keeping fish for a while lol

 

[KK's Reef]

Happiness. Can we measure coral happiness?

 

[Pistondog]

+1 for inexpensive oxygen meter

 

[Poochaku]

It's probably the sword I'll die on, the soap box I'll preach from, and I'll be stoned by the reefing community! I apologize for the upcoming rant!

I think there's huge gaps between currently available technology and metrics for our hobby. I know the Trident is the latest in these innovations (which I feel is 10 years behind) to automate current testing.

However, I feel even the Trident falls short of the what's possible.

I would love to see (most plausible) reagent free automated testing in our reef tanks. I don't want to have to take something apart to troubleshoot, clean or otherwise refill reagents more than once a year. I would ideally love reagent free chemical testing. I don't know what we send with mars and moon landers, but, I highly doubt we send them with reagents that expire in 20 days for a 3 year research project that's analyzing elements in rocks. If we can do that, why can't we do the same thing with our aquarium water? Free of all reagents and therefore free of manual intervention.

I look at my 6 year old reef and things require ongoing maintenance - the expense to maintain things continues to do go up with virtually no technological solutions to reduce ongoing maintenance time and cost. If we want more people in the hobby, we need to find ways to make things as idiot proof as possible through technological automation. I've had recently dosing lines either plug up or forgot to refill the dosing bottles. A simple alert to say alk has fallen by more than .25 would have let me know that one of two things happened: 1. Uptake of alk significantly increased, or 2. most likely, my doser is failing in some way.

I was thinking of starting to dose Kalkwasser separately from my top off on a drip system 24 hours a day. I'd love to see the impact of alk and ph over time. When should I decrease my two part dosing, should I increase Kalk wasser dosing and if so by how much. Having near real time values over time would help make minor adjustments that are best for my living creatures.

The same is true primarily for phosphate, to monitor the ebb decrease and increases of phosphate throughout the day would help me to know how my algae turf scrubber is doing at consumption. I fully anticipate when the ATS runs out of room to grow algae, my phosphate in the water probably rises since consumption would go down. This could tell me when the ATS is full or nearing capacity. I could also have Lanthinum chloride or some other phosphate remover plumbed or on a doser to dose as phosphate rises above a certain range.

Leveraging things like Hydros or Apex computer systems would have 10 times their value currently if they became more than just outlet and temp controllers. I think the trident is an intermediary step, but in conclusion I think it's 10 years behind what's currently possible. The problem I would guess is the return on investment in more permanent metering solutions. I would pay a premium for a single probe system that monitored alk, calcium, magnesium phosphate, and nitrate with minimal or no reagents and no manual effort.

Just Plug in program alerts, program any impacted dosers in alignment with the probes accordingly we could get to real time dosing of alk and calcium as it's consumed. Vs. randomly dosing throughout the day, testing once a week, hoping that at that point in time everything is stable.

Did you just compare the space program to reefs?! The budgets are not even in the same universe.

You say you're willing to pay a premium, what do you realistically expect this premium to be?!

Do you have some specific knowledge of technology that is available but is not being used in aquariums?

Everything you want can already be achieved, it just takes quarterly maintenance on auto testers. They are not perfect but your expectation of single probe, no reagent system is the most unrealistic thing I have read in a while.

 

[Spicy Reef]

Are these questions designed to help the corps come up with new things to sell us

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think we currently have a somewhat narrow focus on elements and almost zero info on:

1. The forms those elements take in our aquaria.

2. The nature and concentration of organics present.

 

[Rhapsody in Blue Reef]

It would be nice to have probes one day for alkalinity, nitrates and phosphates. Or have a test that does all in one.

 

[Sump Crab]

Idk, it’s a fish tank lol! Why do so many people turn it into a chemistry experiment lol.

 

[Jeremy_d]

I would like a simple, economical way to meausure oxygen levels in the water.

Milwaukee makes a dissolved oxygen probe. Although I don’t personally see a benefit to using one, it would be nice to have for really bad bacterial blooms to make actually make sure the water has enough oxygen and not just relying on visuals from the fish